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VOLUME 36, NUMBER 1 


JANUARY 7, 1991 



VDT workers 
win measure 
of protection 


Emergency room woes symptom of bigger health care crisis 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

F or many Americans, a minor illness 
means a trip to the doctor for an 
examination and possibly a prescrip- 
tion. 

But for those without adequate health 
care coverage, minor illnesses often 
mean an expensive trip to the emer- 
gency room, to a waiting room clogged 
with non-emergency patients. 

Their numbers increased dramatically 
in the 1980s, as more people fell 
through the safety net and were left 


without basic coverage, officials say. 

“In 1980, few believed that our 
patchwork quilt of health care programs 
for the poor, elderly and uninsured 
would fray so quickly, or that millions 
of additional patients would come to 
utilize emergency departments as their 
sole source of medical care,” said Dr. 
Arthur Keller mann, director of the 
emergency department at the Regional 
Medical Center at Memphis, Tenn. 

Kellermann, who testified before the 
House Select Committee on Narcotics 


Abuse and Control in late September, 
also pointed out that “better access to 
primary and preventive care services 
can prevent many illnesses from reach- 
ing the point where expensive emer- 
gency department care or hospitaliza- 
tion is necessary.” 

At the AFL-CIO health care hearing 
in Rhode Island in September, Service 
Employees member Louis Calderon il- 
lustrated Kellermann ’s point with 
powerful proof. 

“Since I have no health insurance for 


my children, I recently had to pay a 
$500 hospital bill,” he said. “I had to 
take Ishmael to the emergency room to 
treat an ear infection. I cannot afford 
to bring my children to the doctor, so 
they never receive their regular check- 
ups.” 

Calderon is a nurse’s aide; he told the 
panel he could not afford to pay for 
rent, groceries, utilities, child care and 
health care benefits on his salary. 

Also at the Rhode Island hearing, Bill 
Continued on Page 7 


Tom Matthews/TWU 

Volunteers from the Transport Workers and other unions day. The TWU donated the money to buy the competing 
shadow New York Daily News hawkers in the subways, papers to support members of the nine unions conti- 
passing out free copies of the Times, Post and News- nuing to strike the Daily News. 

Mediated Daily News talks go slowly 


By James B. Parks 

I ndividual striking unions began 
meeting with federal mediators and 
the New York Daily News manage- 
ment, but with little progress. 

The Machinists and the Newspaper 
Guild, in separate discussions with Dai- 
ly News management last week, focused 
mainly on the issue of replacement 
workers, said George McDonald, presi- 
dent of the Allied Printing Trades 
Council, which represents the nine 
striking unions. 

All the unions are expected to meet 
with the mediator and the News within 
the month of January. 


About 2,300 News employees from 
nine unions went out on strike Oct. 25 
after working six months without a 
contract. 

Both sides met separately last month 
in Washington with Bernard E. DeLury, 
director of the Federal Mediation and 
Conciliation Service. 

Union plan spurned 

The talks were stymied when News 
management rejected a long-standing 
proposal by the unions to negotiate with 
all the unions as a group. 

DeLury said he then proposed that the 
unions meet individually with the News 


under the auspices of the FMCS. Rep- 
resentatives of the AFL-CIO sat in on 
the negotiating sessions along with at- 
torney Theodore Kheel and presidents 
of the other striking unions, McDonald 
said. 

DeLury said he is “holding in 
reserve” the possibility of calling the 
parties back to Washington. But that 
decision will depend on the results of 
the current negotiations. 

Calling the meetings “encouraging,” 
DeLury said he will wait to see if there 
is any progress with any of the unions 
on the controversial “management 
Continued on Page 2 


San Francisco law 
sets tough standards 

By Arlee C. Green 

A two-year grass-roots campaign by 
the labor-led VDT Coalition helped 
win landmark legislation that sets mini- 
mum safety standards covering an esti- 
mated 60,000 computer workers in the 
city and county of San Francisco. 

The Video Display Terminal Worker 
Safety Ordinance, signed by Mayor Art 
Agnos Dec. 27, is designed to reduce 
the risks associated with prolonged 
computer use — including eye strain, 
muscle fatigue and carpal tunnel syn- 
drome, an injury that can incapacitate 
the hand and often requires surgery. 

The ordinance covers businesses with 
15 or more employees and requires 
user-adjustable workstations for em- 
ployees who work four or more hours 
per shift on computers. 

Stress injuries 

Service Employees Vice President 
Paul Varacalli, executive director of 
SEIU Local 790 and spokesman for the 
VDT Coalition, said, “This legislation 
is the result of the work of a coalition 
of unions that recognize that repetitive 
stress injuries are the latest in a long line 
of occupational hazards that demand 
solutions.” 

The legislation ‘ ‘gives us a base to ex- 
tend worksite safety to the millions of 
workers nationwide who face crippling 
injuries from repetitive motion at key- 
boards,” he said. “We are proud that 
San Francisco labor is again leading the 
way in fighting for workers’ rights.” 
The ordinance is similar to a VDT 
law adopted in 1989 in Suffolk Coun- 
ty, N.Y., which a state court later 
struck down. 

The landmark ordinance requires ad- 
justable chairs, detachable keyboards, 
adjustable terminal displays, elimina- 

ftontinued on Page 8 






Court backs ALPA on Eastern recall 


By Candice Johnson 

E astern Airlines has agreed to abide 
by a federal appeals court ruling that 
striking Air Line Pilots who offered to 
return to work should be hired in place 
of the trainees the carrier kept on the 
payroll. 

The airline will recall about 60 ALPA 
members, the first group to be re- 
instated since November 1989, when 
140 pilots were recalled. The court rul- 
ing means that as many as 800 union 
pilots could be reinstated, ALPA said, 
depending upon how many trainees 
were on the job when ALPA members 
offered to return to work. 

More than 1,000 union pilots are 
waiting for reinstatement, ALPA said. 
Although agreeing to the limited pilot 
recall, Eastern said it would appeal the 
case to the full appeals court. 

The ruling by three of the appeals 
court’s 1 1 active judges upheld a lower 
court finding that Eastern violated the 
Railway Labor Act, which governs col- 
lective bargaining and labor- 
management relations in the airline in- 
dustry, by giving job preference to 
trainees over experienced pilots. 

ALPA members and Transport Work- 
ers flight attendants joined the Machin- 
ists strike against Eastern in March 
1989, prompting then-owner Frank 
Lorenzo to file for federal bankruptcy 
protection and to attempt to rebuild the 
carrier by hiring and training new 
pilots. 


When Eastern pilots voted to end 
their strike and return to work later that 
year, they were told that the replace- 
ment pilots, though still in training, 
were permanent employees and that no 
ALPA members would be rehired, 
though their names would be added to 
a recall list. 

ALPA filed suit in federal district 
court, charging that the pilots-in- 
training, who had not completed Fed- 
eral Aviation Administration require- 

The court held East- 
ern’s action undermined 
“ the preservation of the 
employer-employee rela- 
tionship both during and 
after the strike. ” 


ments or other certification, could not 
be considered permanent employees. 

In August 1990, U.S. District Court 
Judge Edward Davis agreed, calling it 
“presumptuous and premature” for the 
carrier to extend full replacement status 
to trainees who are not performing the 
work of striking pilots and who are not 
yet fully covered under the Railway 
Labor Act. 

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the 1 1th Circuit upheld that 
ruling, adding that Eastern’s action 


undermined a central goal of the act: 
“the preservation of the employer- 
employee relationship both during and 
after the strike.” 

The court acknowledged that the 
replacement of strikers is permitted 
under certain circumstances, but found 
no justification for Eastern to replace 
with trainees those strikers who were 
seeking to return to work. 

Eastern argued that because striking 
pilots also must receive training before 
they are able to resume their duties, 
they could be considered trainees. But 
the court noted that pilots could be 
recertified in a few days, while trainees 
needed four months to qualify for those 
jobs. 

The case has been sent back to the 
district court to determine the specific 
number of trainees on the payroll as of 
August 1989, when Eastern announced 
it would not rehire any returning pilots 
but would put their names on a recall 
list. 

ALPA spokesman E.J. Breen pointed 
out that the recall won’t allow the 
reinstated pilots — some of the most 
senior of Eastern crews — to come 
back as captains, but at lower-paying 
co-captain and flight engineer positions. 

“What kind of message does it send 
when you take a 26-year pilot and bring 
him back as a second or third in com- 
mand, behind someone who took his job 
with less than a year experience?” 
Breen asked. 


AFGE contests 
restriction on 
outside pay 

By James B. Parks 

A fter failing to stop implementation 
of a new federal ban on pay for out- 
side activities, the Government 
Employees are trying to have the law 
declared unconstitutional. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
District of Columbia Circuit on Jan. 29 
is scheduled to hear the AFGE’s 
arguments challenging the law, which 
prohibits rank-and-file federal 
employees from taking pay for making 
speeches and publishing articles. 

The hearing comes after the appeals 
court refused to issue an emergency in- 
junction stopping implementation of the 
ethics law. 

The AFGE claims that a “fluke” in 
the law violates workers’ First and Fifth 
Amendment rights. 

The Ethics Reform Act of 1989, 
which went into effect Jan. 1, bars 
federal employees and members of 
Congress from taking pay for making 
speeches, writing articles or making 
public appearances, even if unrelated to 
their work. 

Constitutional question 

The suit asks the court to declare the 
section relating to all federal workers 
unconstitutional. 

“It is unconscionable to allow a mis- 
take in the law to deprive government 
employees of the right to earn extra 
money writing or publishing material or 
giving speeches to outside organizations 
when they are off duty,” said AFL-CIO 
Vice President John N. Sturdivant, 
president of the AFGE. 

Since the employees are not elected 
officials, the law “would place a severe 
burden on many good and honest peo- 
ple who should have the opportunity to 
earn extra money sharing their special 
interests and talents with others,” Stur- 
divant said. 

Meanwhile, union leaders praised 
President Bush’s decision to grant a 4. 1- 
percent pay raise for federal employees 
and to start the process of setting 
general schedule pay by localities. 

Bush issued an executive order giv- 
ing a geographic pay differential of 8 
percent to federal workers in New York 
City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

Under the order, the federal govern- 
ment will move toward a locality pay 
system in fiscal 1992 and will have it 
operating by 1994. 

Sturdivant said the order “sets in 
motion a carefully crafted plan that will 
reverse the growing pay gap between 
the private sector and the government 
and finally inject parity and fairness into 
the federal pay system.” 


Daily News unions push corporate campaign 


Continued from Page 1 

rights” clause sought by the News or 
on any other issues that might be ap- 
plicable to all parties before deciding 
whether to call the parties back to 
Washington. 

Meanwhile, the Printing Trades 
Council is proceeding with plans to con- 
duct a corporate campaign against the 
News’ parent, the Tribune Co. of 
Chicago. 

McDonald said a council committee 
will meet to map strategy. The commit- 
tee already has mailed a letter to the 
Tribune Co.’s major institutional 
stockholders explaining the strike. 

The council also has hired two New 
York City attorneys, Seymour 
Waldman and Irwin Rochman, to de- 
fend it and the Mail Deliverers against 
several lawsuits filed by the Daily News 
as part of its strategy continually to 
charge “union violence.” 

In a related development, the strikers 
have established boycott field offices in 
the Bronx, Brooklyn, Garden City on 
Long Island and in New Jersey. 

The offices will be staffed by strikers 
who will work there in lieu of picket 
duty. 


Individual groups also stepped up 
their efforts to thwart management’s in- 
sistence to continue publishing during 
the strike. 

Volunteers from the Transport 
Workers Local 100 and the striking 
unions have targeted the News’s 
homeless hawkers in the subways. 

Using TWU funds, the volunteers 


“The News has been 
holding us, our families 
and our jobs hostage for 
more than two months. ” 


buy copies of the New York Times, 
Newsday and New York Post 
newspapers in bulk, said Jim Gannon, 
a TWU spokesman. 

The union volunteers then stand near 
subway newsstands that carry the Dai- 
ly News, giving away copies of the 
other newspapers in an effort to thwart 
sale of the News, Gannon said. 

Local 100 represents 35,000 bus and 


subway workers in New York City. 

The effort has been very successful, 
Gannon said, with an average of 60 
workers volunteering to give away the 
papers on their free time or vacation 
time. 

“We’re not there to harass the 
hawkers,” said Gannon, who noted that 
a majority of the subway riders 
nonetheless are not buying the Daily 
News. 

Meanwhile, about two dozen striking 
Daily News reporters took over the 
paper’s Brooklyn news bureau for a few 
hours last week to protest the com- 
pany’s failure to bargain in good faith. 

“The News has been holding us, our 
families and our jobs hostage for more 
than two months and we want manage- 
ment to come back to the bargaining 
table and engage in true negotiations,” 
said Tom Robbins, one of the strikers. 

The News has “illegally replaced 
2,300 strikers with permanent replace- 
ment workers,” said Juan Gonzalez, 
chairman of the Newspaper Guild strike 
committee. “We want to save the 
newspaper and end the strike.” Police 
quickly removed the protesters and ar- 
rested 10 people. 


Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 

AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 

Vol. 36, No. 1 ®<v ^gfe . ; ,3 MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1991 




The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






U nion leaders can choose from 48 in- 
stitutes offered by the George 
Meany Center for Labor Studies dur- 
ing the first six months of 1991. This 
year, a Western Semester is offered 
during June at the University of Califor- 
nia at Berkeley. The course descriptions 
on these pages are for programs in 
Silver Spring, except where indicated. 

All full-time union officers, represen- 
tatives and employees of AFL-CIO af- 
filiates are eligible to attend these pro- 
grams, which are designed to increase 
their knowledge and polish their skills. 

Institutes, except for the College 
Degree Program and the Certified 
Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) 
Programs, are tuition-free. The College 
Degree Program and the Western 
Semester also require a special applica- 
tion form, available on request. 

Any AFL-CIO organization or af- 
filiate that wants to use the center 
should contact Janis Underwood, 
Registrar, George Meany Center, 
10000 New Hampshire Ave., Silver 
Spring, Md. 20903, or telephone 
301/431-6400. 


Organizing Techniques I 

February 3-8 
May 19-24 
June 23-28 

(Western Semester, English 
and Spanish) 

An introduction to basic organizing 
skills for new union organizers as well 
as a refresher course for organizers in 
the private sector. 

Strategies will be discussed for deal- 
ing with anti-union arguments and 
techniques used by employers. An over- 
view of the law concerning organizing 
also will be covered. Through role play- 
ing and discussion, participants will 
learn improved communications skills 
and their application to house calls, 
other one-on-one contacts and 
meetings. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Organizing II 

March 3-8 

Cosponsored by the AFL-CIO 
Organizing Institute, this course is for 
organizers who have completed 
Organizing I, The Organizing Institute 
Apprenticeship, and/or who have exten- 
sive experience in organizing. 

The course will focus on strengthen- 
ing an organizer’s strategic and 
analytical thinking by using case studies 
to critically discuss recent campaigns. 
The sessions will focus on enhancing 
those skills needed to manage people in 
a campaign, run multiple campaigns, 
target larger units and train committees 
and volunteer organizers. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Labor Law for Organizers: 
Traditional and 
New Approaches 

January 6-11 

This program is for national and local 
staff with responsibility for and ex- 
perience in organizing in the private 



% 



The George Meany Center for Labor Studies 
offers 48 institutes during the first six months 
of 199T These four pages describe them. 



Meany Center students chart the key stages of an organizing campaign. 


sector. Organizing in the building trades 
is excluded. 

The course emphasizes law as part of 
organizing strategy and the proper role 
of the National Labor Relations Act 
(NLRA) in a campaign (how to avoid 
having the law run the campaign). The 
program also will deal with alternative 
routes to obtaining recognition, in- 
cluding tactics to obtain voluntary 
recognition and the legal issues those 
tactics involve. 

Coordinator: Sharon Simon 


Organizing in the 
Construction Industry 

May 5-10 
June 2-7 

(Western Semester) 

This institute will offer building 
trades organizers an opportunity to 
build their skills in implementing local 
and regional campaigns. Participants 
will focus on oral and written com- 
munications with members, unorgan- 
ized workers, contractors and pur- 
chasers of construction services, 
regional survey and targeting techni- 
ques, and on-site membership recruit- 
ment activity. 

Participants will use simulations to 
get hands-on experience in organizing 
under the guidance of experienced 
building trades organizers and labor 
educators. 

Coordinator: Robert J. Pleasure 


Contract Negotiations: 
Private Sector 

January 6-11 
February 10-15 
(University of Oregon) 

This institute is for full-time officers 
and staff who negotiate agreements in 
the private sector. Early sessions focus 
on the role of the chief negotiator at dif- 
ferent points in the bargaining process, 
including preparing and designing in- 
itial proposals, developing committee 
work and record-keeping procedures, 
the structure and function of opening 
statements, styles of language and 
economic bargaining, and preparing for 
and directing the ratification process. 


Actual bargaining-table tactics, such 
as the timing and structure of counter- 
proposals, avoiding bargaining bot- 
tlenecks, effective communications at 
the bargaining-table and the use of 
mediation, will be developed through 
the use of case problems. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


Contract Negotiations in 
the Construction Industry 

April 28 — May 3 

This program is for union staff and 
officers responsible for negotiating 
labor agreements with construction in- 
dustry employers. The central purpose 
of the program is to improve the bar- 
gaining skills of union negotiators in an 
increasingly difficult and complex bar- 
gaining environment. 

Early sessions will focus on how to 
manage a negotiation from initial pro- 
posals through ratification. The special 
problems associated with employer as- 
sociation bargaining will be analyzed 
and discussed with a full review of legal 
developments affecting bargaining in 
the construction industry. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


The Craft of Negotiating 

April 7-12 
June 16-21 
(Western Semester) 

This institute on the techniques of 
contract negotiating is for full-time of- 
ficers and staff who negotiate agree- 
ments in the private sector. There will 
be sessions on the role of the chief 
negotiator at different points of the 
bargaining process, preparation and 
design of initial proposals, developing 
committee work and record-keeping 
procedures, styles of language and 
economic bargaining, and preparing for 
and directing the ratification process. 

Actual bargaining-table tactics, such 
as the timing and structure of counter- 
proposals, effective communications at 
the bargaining table and the use of 
mediation will be developed through the 
use of case problems. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


Negotiating Contracts with 
State and Local Agencies 

February 24 — March 1 
This institute on contract negotiating 
techniques is for union officers and staff 
who negotiate labor agreements with 
state and local agencies. Federal sector 
negotiations are not addressed. 

Early sessions will discuss the role of 
the chief negotiator at different points 
in the bargaining process, including the 
preparation and design of initial pro- 
posals, committee work and record- 
keeping procedures, the structure and 
function of opening statements, styles 
of language and economic bargaining, 
and preparing for and directing the 
ratification process. 

Special focus will be directed at third- 
party dispute resolution procedures and 
their impact on bargaining strategies. 
The program also will include sessions 
on reading, analyzing and using key 
public sector financial documents. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


Using Microcomputers 
in Negotiations 

June 2-7 

This institute introduces participants 
to applications of small computers in 
contract negotiations. The primary 
focus is on the use of off-the-shelf 
spreadsheet software in developing 
contract-costing capabilities, which will 
assist the negotiator in evaluating 
employer economic proposals and 
developing effective counterproposals. 
Although Lotus 1-2-3 is used in classes, 
the skills developed are applicable to 
any standard spreadsheet program. 
Knowledge of computers is not 
necessary. But it is helpful to be 
familiar with standard contract-costing 
techniques. 

This institute is for union staff or of- 
ficers whose primary responsibility is 
contract negotiations or back-up 
research for negotiators. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 



Negotiating and Writing 
Contract Language 

June 9-14 

This institute is designed to improve 
skills needed to develop proposals and 
write contracts that will protect and im- 
prove the rights of members and their 
unions. Uniform principles of contract 
interpretation will be discussed. Issues 
of concern to all negotiators, including 
union security, recognition and other 
contract matters, will be examined. 

Many unions face management nego- 
tiators who approach the negotiations 
with written proposals that substantially 
alter the traditional rights of unions and 
employees. Sessions will cover strate- 
gies and techniques for drafting and 
negotiating in today’s bargaining 
environment. 

There will be a focus on developing 
proposals, and writing draft contracts 
responsive to actual workplace and 
labor relations issues. 

Coordinator: Sharon Simon 


Arbitration: Preparation 
and Presentation 

January 13-18 
April 14-19 
June 2-7 

(Western Semester) 

This institute concentrates on 
developing the necessary skills to 
prepare and present arbitration cases. 
Discussions will focus on what matters 
can be arbitrated and the selection of ar- 
bitrators. Since discipline and discharge 
cases cause more than half of all 
grievance arbitrations, special attention 
is paid to their investigation and to the 
rules arbitrators use in deciding them. 
Mock cases will be presented before 
professional arbitrators willing to share 
their knowledge. 

This program is for union represen- 
tatives newly assigned to arbitration, or 
who will have arbitration as part of their 
responsibility. It will help experienced 
representatives analyze and brush up on 
their techniques. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Standards of Discipline 
and Discharge in 
Arbitration 

February 10-15 
June 16-21 

This institute examines discipline and 
discharge standards and related issues 
of misconduct applied in grievance ar- 
bitration hearings. Participants will hear 


from arbitrators and examine case 
studies that concentrate on these issues: 

The concept of just cause and the 
development of standards by ar- 
bitrators; investigation procedures and 
standards of proof in discipline and 
discharge cases, and discipline and 
discharge and evidentiary standards for 
alcohol-related, drug-related and off- 
duty misconduct. 

Participation in this institute is limited 
to those who have attended the basic ar- 
bitration institute, or who are ex- 
perienced advocates in grievance 
arbitration. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Arbitration in the Federal 
Sector 

March 17-22 

Although many procedures and prac- 
tices in private-sector arbitration apply 
at the federal level, significant dif- 
ferences do exist and will be discussed 
during this institute. 

Mock cases will be presented before 
professional arbitrators with experience 
in the federal sector. The cases will be 
videotaped and played back for 
analysis. 

This institute is for representatives in 
federal sector unions who are or will 
have arbitration as part of their respon- 
sibility . Experienced representatives 
can analyze and brush up on their 
techniques. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Advanced Arbitration 

May 19-24 

This institute is designed to provide 
advanced training for grievance arbitra- 
tion to help participants improve their 
techniques. 

There will be exercises in the 
preparation and writing of post-hearing 
briefs, and discussions to assist par- 
ticipants in the examination and cross- 
examination of witnesses. 

Participation is limited to those who 
have attended the basic arbitration in- 
stitute, or who are experienced ad- 
vocates in grievance arbitration. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Making the Legal System 
Work 

January 20-25 

This program is designed to improve 
the ability of union staff, officers and 
stewards to solve employment-related 


problems under existing local, state and 
federal legislation without losing sight 
of the primary importance of the 
union’s rights under the collective 
bargaining agreement. The program 
will build on existing problem-solving 
and advocacy skills to enable the par- 
ticipant to more effectively represent 
the interests of union members. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


New Staff Program 

June 2-14 

This two-week program is designed 
for individuals recently appointed or 
elected to a full-time union staff posi- 
tion. Those individuals who have taken 
Organizing Techniques I and Con- 
tract Negotiations should not enroll in 
this program. The program has three 
basic goals: To develop personal skills 
needed to function effectively in the 
many different roles of a union staff 
member; to improve planning skills 
needed to manage a contract negotia- 
tion, and to organize a campaign to 
revitalize a local union, and to provide 
insight into the structure, operation and 
goals of the U.S. labor movement. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


TV: The Cool Medium 

January 22-25 

This three-day workshop coaches 
union leaders who are confronted oc- 
casionally by television reporters and 
television cameras. 

Participants will have many exercises 
facing video cameras: a hostile confron- 
tation, a panel discussion, an in-studio 
interview and 60-second addresses. 

One session focuses on working with 
TV reporters: controlling an interview, 
recognizing deadly questions and 
avoiding “no comment.” Another con- 
centrates on relating to the camera, 
gestures, posture, eye contact, dress 
and makeup, body language, relaxation 
techniques and visual aids. 

Coordinator: Gene Morrill and Louise 
D. Walsh 


Newswriting and Editing 
for Union Publications 

March 10-15 
June 9-14 
(Western Semester) 

Union editors get coaching on 
newswriting and editing and pick up 
ideas from other union editors on how 
to make a publication more readable 


and credible. Classes focus on 
newswriting, feature writing, headline 
writing, photo editing, news sources, 
layout and design. 

Coordinator: Louise D. Walsh 


Effective Speaking 

May 5-10 

This workshop focuses on these 
basics: 

Preparation for speaking — Selecting 
topics, researching, outlining and 
editing. Also covered are delivery of the 
message with vocal variety, rate, eye 
contact, audience analysis and an 
awareness of time and locale. 

Daily Assignments — The workshop 
format provides a variety of speaking 
situations. 

Individual Coaching — Several exer- 
cises are videotaped for playback and 
critique. 

Listening — Exercises will em- 
phasize listening skills, helping students 
become more attentive and responsive. 

Coordinator: Gene Morrill 


The Union Administrator 
and Business Agent 

January 13-18 
June 16-21 

This workshop, for full-time officers 
and business agents, will focus on 
several major concerns: identifying and 
solving problems, enhancing leadership 
style, organizing time and support 
systems, organizing the backup system 
in the office, monitoring finances and 
budgeting, reaching members, and 
keeping out of trouble with the law. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Labor Law in the 
Construction Industry 

February 3-8 

The special treatment of the construc- 
tion industry by federal law requires 
that a specialized course be offered to 
building leaders and staff. The institute 
will cover: union referral practices; 
union regulation of work and anti-trust 
laws; non-traditional economic 
pressures; corporate change in the 
employing unit including the problems 
of double-breasted contractors, 
bankruptcies and mergers; union secur- 
ity, union dues and related legal issues; 
collective bargaining and contract en- 
forcement in multi-employer bargain- 
ing units, and ERISA and job-creating 
investments. 

Coordinator: Robert J. Pleasure 


Application to Register for Labor Studies 


T o reserve a place in an institute, workshop or seminar at the George Meany 
Center, please complete this applications and mail it with your check for $120. 
Your deposit of $90 will be credited to your room and board bill, and $30 covers 
your registration fee. The deposit for registrants who live in the Washington, 
D.C. area and commute to class is $70. It covers lunches for one week and 
registration. 

Deposits will be refunded if notice of cancellation is received by the Wednes- 
day before the program. Please make the check payable to the George Meany 
Center for Labor Studies. 

For more information about any program, call the Registrar at 301/431-6400. 


PRINT OR TYPE 

Please enroll me for (course): 

Dates: Enclosed is a deposit of $ 

(Deposit required with application) 

Name of applicant: Mr. /Ms. — 

Address: 


Registrar 

George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies, Inc. 

10000 New Hampshire Avenue 
Silver Spring, Maryland 20903 


CHECK ONE 

□ Commuting to class 

□ Single room @ $90 daily 

□ Double room @ $70 daily per 

person doubling with 


City: State: 

Sponsoring Union: , 

Applicant’s Union Office or Position: _ 


Zip 


Office phone and area code 


Signature 


Date 




Western Semester takes core classes to California 


T he George Meany Center will 
make the labor studies core cur- 
riculum more accessible to union 
leaders and staff in the western states 
by opening its first Western 
Semester at the Clark Kerr Center of 
the University of California at 
Berkeley in June. 

The programs will be sponsored 
by the George Meany Center and the 
AFL-CIO Department of Education, 
in cooperation with western univer- 
sity and college labor education 
centers. 

Seven institutes from the Center’s 
core curriculum will be offered. 
They are: Organizing Techniques (in 


English and Spanish); Arbitration: 
Preparation and Presentation; Labor 
Law in the Construction Industry; 
The Craft of Negotiating, and News- 
writing and Editing for Union 
Publications. 

The AFL-CIO Department of 
Education will offer workshops in 
Advanced Teaching Techniques in 
Labor Education and One-on-One 
Communications in English and 
Spanish. 

Enrollment will be limited to staff 
and officers of AFL-CIO affiliated 
unions. 

Because of limited space, first 
priority will be given to those ap- 


plicants west of the Mississippi 
River. All registrations are based on 
double occupancy (two-bedroom 
suites with a shared bathroom) at the 
daily rate of $98. This includes three 
meals per day beginning with dinner 
the first evening. 

Full registration is due upon ap- 
plication. Registration fees are as 
follows: $490 for five-day courses, 
$294 for three-day courses and $196 
for two-day courses. 

Commuter fees include lunch each 
day and are $175 for a five-day 
course, $105 for a three-day course 
and $70 for a two-day course. 
Weekly parking stickers are 


available to commuters who drive 
for $15. 

Cancellations must be received 14 
days prior to the beginning of class 
for full refund of registration; after 
14 days, one-half of the registration 
will be refunded. 

All classes will begin at 7 p.m. the 
first evening. Class confirmation, as 
well as housing and transportation 
information, will be sent upon reg- 
istration. 

For more information about en- 
rolling in the Western Semester, 
please call the Registrar’s office at 
the George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies at 301/431-6400. 



Students compare notes during seminar. 



‘Audio magazine’ highlights 
labor studies center programs 


Central Labor Councils: 
Leadership and Leverage 

February 19-22 

This institute is for full-time and part- 
time officers and staff of Central Labor 
Councils who want to improve the 
“leadership and leverage’’ of their 
councils to advance the aims of the 
labor movement in their areas. Par- 
ticipants will look at being more effec- 
tive in their administrative, service and 
coordination roles. 

Throughout the week, participants 
will consider AFL-CIO policies and 
procedures that relate to Central Labor 
Councils. Sessions will examine ways 
to encourage local union affiliation and 
strategies to build community support 
and work with the news media. Par- 
ticipants will look at how to meet the 
needs of different affiliates through 
upgrading services in education, com- 
munity relations and strike support. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Personal Computers for 
Local Unions 

February 19-22 
This institute will provide union staff 
members with information about the 
uses of mini- and micro-computer 
systems. Their applications will be 
discussed with suggestions for staff 
training and computer maintenance. 

Classes are taught in plain, non- 
technical terms by instructors who are 
computer specialists as well as 
unionists. There will be hands-on 
workshop sessions for participants us- 
ing state-of-the-art mini-computers. The 
course provides information that will 
help union staff assess their computer 
needs and deal with computer vendors. 

Coordinator: Chuck Hodell 


Labor Relations in the 
Federal Sector 

March 4-8 

This week-long institute will provide 
an overview to important subjects af- 
fecting the role of staff and officers in 
unions representing workers in the 
federal sector. The institute will be 
taught by professionals in labor rela- 
tions who have extensive experience in 
the federal sector. 

The institute will cover such subjects 
as: collective bargaining in the federal 
sector; grievance handling and arbi- 
tration; how to deal with adverse and 
performance-based actions, and 
strengthening the union from within. 

Coordinator: David G . Alexander 


Occupational Health 
and Safety 

March 24-29 

This institute is designed to help 
union officials respond effectively to the 
complex problems relating to chemical 
and physical hazards in the workplace, 
through a mix of problem-solving ap- 
proaches: contract negotiations, 
grievance procedure and arbitration, the 
National Labor Relations Board, safety 
and health committees, OSH A inspec- 
tions, the OSHA appeals process, other 
government safety and health agencies, 
and mobilizing community support 
around health and safety issues. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Effective Union Action 
for Civil Rights 
April 15-19 

The AFL-CIO Civil Rights Depart- 
ment’s annual conference is planned 
especially for civil rights and women’s 
rights designees of AFL-CIO unions. 
The conference is useful as well for all 
interested union officers and staff 
members. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Union Issues for Working 
Women 

May 5-10 

This institute identifies concerns of 
women workers while developing new 
strategies and approaches to tap the 
energy that millions of women bring to 
the trade union movement. Participants 
examine how unions can act on 
women’s issues through organizing, 
bargaining, contract administration and 
legislation. The institute also focuses on 
building leadership skills. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Advanced Teaching 
Techniques 

June 9-12 
(Western Semester) 

This institute is for experienced labor 
educators interested in using “instruc- 
tional technology.” There are two ma- 
jor objectives — to explore the current 
and potential uses of instructional 
technology (computers, videos and 
other electronic devices) in labor educa- 
tion, and to determine appropriate uses 
of such techniques within the context of 
good instructional design. 

Coordinator : Ed Czarnecki 


T he George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies is introducing an “Off- 
Center” audio magazine, quarterly 
cassettes that will provide the latest in- 
formation on institutes and labor 
developments. 

Recorded and produced on the cam- 
pus of the Meany Center in cooperation 
with the AFL-CIO Education Depart- 
ment, the first cassette offers course up- 
dates in organizing, communications, 


arbitration, labor law and bargaining. 

The Off-Center program will include 
interviews with labor instructors and 
labor leaders participating in the Meany 
Center programs, developed in short, 
three-to-four minute segments in an 
entertaining format. Tapes run about 
sixty minutes. 

Contact the George Meany Center at 
10000 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver 
Spring, Md. 20903. 



-'sors^ 


George Meany Center 
for Labor Studies, Inc. 

10000 New Hampshire Avenue 
Silver Spring, Maryland 20903 
301/431-6400 

Board of Trustees 
Chairman 

Lane Kirkland, President , AFL-CIO 
Secretary- Treasurer 

Thomas R. Donahue, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO 
Assistant Secretary 

Dorothy Shields. Director of Education, AFL-CIO 
Executive Director 

Robert J. Pleasure, George Meany Center for Labor Studies, Inc. 


Robert H. Atwell, President 
American Council on Education 
Morton Bahr, President 
Communications Workers of America 
Eula Bingham, Professor 
College of Medicine 
University of Cincinnati 
Edward J. Cleary, President 
New York State AFL-CIO 
John DeConcini, International President 
Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers International Union 
Frank Hanley, President 
International Union of Operating Engineers 
Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director 
National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People 


Sigurd Lucassen, General President 
United Brotherhood of Carpenters 
and Joiners of America 
Ray Marshall, Professor 
LBJ School of Public Affairs 
The University of Texas at Austin 
Joyce D. Miller, Vice President 
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union 
Albert Shanker, President 
American Federation of Teachers 
John N. Sturdivant, President 
American Federation of Government Employees 
John J. Sweeney, International President 
Service Employees International Union 
William H. Wynn, International President 
United Food and Commercial 
Workers International Union 





One-on-One Coordinator 
Training Programs 

June 16-18 

(English/Western Semester) 
June 19-21 

(Spanish/Western Semester) 

The one-on-one program is a struc- 
tured communications method designed 
to train local union officers, stewards 
and activists to talk to the members face 
to face about important issues and, in 
the process, ask members their opinion 
and enlist their support. 

Training consists of planning a one- 
on-one canvass; developing a survey; 
leaflet and training materials on an 
issue, and teaching others these 
techniques. 

Coordinator: Susan Washington 


George Meary Center 



Teaching Techniques for 
Labor Education 

March 10-15 
June 23-28 
(Western Semester) 
Co-sponsored with the AFL-CIO 
Department of Education, this institute 
explains adult education techniques and 
teaches how to run a workshop in the 
field. Topics include how to use ques- 
tionnaires, role plays, audio-visuals and 
how to conduct effective classroom 
discussions. 

Coordinators: Marjorie Rachlin, 
Marilyn G. Sneiderman , Diana Linton 
and Susan Washington (Western 
Semester) 


Certified Employee 
Benefit Specialist (CEBS) 
Programs 

January 7-11 
(Social Security Savings 
Plans — Course III) 
January 7-11 

(Life and Health Benefits — 
Course I) 

This program consists of 10 courses 
and corresponding examinations in 
areas of importance to the employee 
benefits field, including: life, health and 
other group benefit programs; Social 
Security, savings plans and other retire- 
ment arrangements, and the contem- 
porary legal environment of employee 
benefit plans. 


The 10 courses cover the legal, finan- 
cial and institutional framework within 
which employee benefit plans must 
operate. Emphasis is placed on the fun- 
damental principles underlying the 
design and operation of individual 
benefit programs. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 



Labor and the Schools 

June 12-14 
(Western Semester) 

This institute gives examples of the 
labor movement’s efforts to tell labor’s 
story in the schools, and guides par- 
ticipants through the preparation and 
delivery of a simulated presentation for 
students. 

Coordinator: Mary Lehman 



Enrollment is open for institutes and programs in bold type. 


JANUARY 

6-11 

Contract Negotiations: Private 
Sector 

6-11 

Labor Law for Organizers 
6-11 

International Brotherhood of Elec- 
trical Workers 

7-11 

CEBS/Social Security Savings 
Plans/Course III 

7-11 

CEBS/Life and Health Benefits I 

13-18 

Arbitration: Preparation & 
Presentation 

13-18 

United Food and Commercial 
Workers 

13-18 

United Brotherhood of Carpenters 

13-18 

Union Administrator & Business 
Agent 

20-25 

International Brotherhood of Elec- 
trical Workers 

20-25 

AFL-CIO COPE 

20- 25 

Making the Legal System Work 

21- 25 

AFL-CIO Community Services 

22- 25 

TV: The Cool Medium 
26-Feb. 1 

College Degree Program 


FEBRUARY 

3-6 

Association of Flight Attendants 

3-8 

Organizing I 

3-8 

AFSCME 

3-8 

Labor Law in the Construction 
Industry 

3-8 

International Association of Iron 
Workers 


3 -March 2 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #149 

9- 14 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

10- 15 

Standards of Discipline & 
Discharge in Arbitration 

10-15 

American Federation of 
Government Employees 

10-15 

Contract Negotiations: Private 
Sector 

(University of Oregon) 

15-20 

The Newspaper Guild 

19-22 

Personal Computers for Local 
Unions 

19-22 

Central Labor Councils 

19-22 

Transport Workers Union 

21-24 

Frontlash 

24-March 1 

Negotiating Contracts with State 
and Local Agencies 

24-March 1 

Laborers’ International Union 
24-March 1 

Service Employees Int’l. Union 
24- March 2 

American Federation of Teachers 


MARCH 

3-8 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
Way Employees 

3- 8 

Organizing II 

4- 8 

Association of Flight Attendants 

4-8 

Labor Relations in the Federal 
Sector 

9- 12 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

10- 15 

Newswriting & Editing for Union 
Publications 


10-15 

Teaching Techniques for Labor 
Education 

13-17 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

16-21 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

17-22 

Arbitration in the Federal Sector 

17- 23 

Bricklayers 
17-April 13 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #750 

18- 22 

Communications Workers of 
America 

23- 27 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

24- 29 

Occupational Health & Safety 
31 -April 12 

Communications Workers of 
America 


APRIL 

7-12 

Craft of Negotiating 

7-12 

Air Line Pilots Association 
7-26 

African-American Labor Center 

14- 19 

Arbitration: Preparation & 
Presentation 

15- 19 

Effective Union Action in Civil 
Rights 

20- 25 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

21- 26 

International Association of Iron 
Workers 

21-May 18 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #757 

28-May 3 

Contract Negotiations in the 
Construction Industry 

28-May 17 

Communications Workers of 
America 

28-May 1 

International Ladies’ Garment 
Workers Union 


28-May 3 

Bakery, Confectionery and 
Tobacco Workers Union 

28-May 3 
AFSCME 


MAY 

5-10 

Effective Speaking 

5-10 

Organizing in the Construction 
Industry 

5-10 

Laborers’ International Union 
5-10 

Union Issues for Working 
Women 

11-16 

Amalgamated Transit Union 
13-16 

Association of Flight Attendants 

19-24 

Advanced Arbitration 

19-24 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
Way Employees 

19-24 

Organizing I 

19-June 7 

African-American Labor Center 
28-31 

International Union of Electronic 
Workers 


JUNE 

2-7 

Using Microcomputers in 
Negotiations 

2-7 

Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation 
(Western Semester) 

2-7 

Organizing in the Construction 
Industry 

(Western Semester) 

2-14 

New Staff Program 

2-7 

Bakery, Confectionery and 
Tobacco Workers Union 

2-29 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #752 


9-12 

Advanced Teaching Techniques 
(Western Semester) 

9-14 

Negotiating & Writing Contract 
Language 

9-14 

Association of Flight Attendants 
9-14 

AFSCME 

9- 14 

Newswriting and Editing for 
Union Publications 
(Western Semester) 

10- 14 

CEBS (Course to be Announced) 
10-14 

CEBS (Course to be Announced) 

12-14 

Labor and the Schools 
(Western Semester) 

15- 20 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

16- 18 

One-On-One Coordinator 
Training Programs (English) 
(Western Semester) 

16-21 

Standards of Discipline & 
Discharge in Arbitration 

16-21 

Union Administrator & Business 
Agent 

16-21 

The Craft of Negotiating 
(Western Semester) 

19-21 

One-On-One Coordinator 
Training Programs 
(Spanish) 

(Western Semester) 

23-25 

The Great Labor Arts Exchange 
23-28 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
Way Employees 

23-28 

United Food and Commercial 
Workers 

23-28 

Organizing Techniques I 
(English and Spanish) 
(Western Semester) 

23-28 

Teaching Techniques for Labor 
Education 
(Western Semester) 




room logjam is symptom of crisis 


Emergency 

Continued from Page 1 

George of the Teachers’ Federation of 
Nurses and Health Professionals, re- 
ported on his seven years in the emer- 
gency room: “It is very common to see 
non-emergency illnesses in the emer- 
gency room. This is often due to the fact 
that many people cannot afford to go to 
a doctor. 

“Working parents whose child be- 
comes ill in the evening will go to the 
emergency room for care,” he said. 
“Other parents will not call their doc- 
tor, because they cannot afford to take 
the next day off from work to go to the 
doctor’s office.” 

Karen Ignagni, director of the AFL- 


O ptions for national health care 
reform were the main order of 
business at the annual meeting of the 
Labor/Higher Education Council, spon- 
sored by the AFL-CIO and the Amer- 
ican Council on Education, held Nov. 
28-29. 

Council participants at the Boston 
meeting worked in small groups to 
develop a consensus on basic principles 
for a national system, including discus- 
sion of universality, comprehensive- 
ness, portability, equitable access, ef- 
ficient services, simplicity and rationali- 
ty, cost containment and accountability 
and wellness. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue told the council that health 
care is “America’s great big peculiar 
mess.” He pointed out that “the issue 
occupies all our attention, none of the 
proposed solutions is clear and easy, 
nobody likes the current system, and 
national health care reform is a common 
interest of the ACE and the AFL-CIO. 
We have to work together on it.” 
Attending the meeting were officials 
from international unions, colleges and 
universities and educational associa- 
tions. In addition to Donahue, the par- 
ticipants heard from ACE officials, 
health care reform advocates and union 
and university presidents. 

Dr. Robert J. Blendon of Harvard 
University’s School of Public Health, 
summarizing survey data from 100,000 
Americans, said that “the cost of medi- 
cal care is one of the most important 
problems for American workers; that 
among industrialized nations, Amer- 

Texas AFL-CIO 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he Texas AFL-CIO has won a tem- 
porary injunction halting the full Jan. 

1 implementation of the Texas Work- 
ers’ Compensation Act. The injunction 
is the first step in a constitutional 
challenge to the new law filed in a state 
District Court. 

Texas AFL-CIO President Joe D. 
Gunn, noting the law fails to protect in- 
jured workers or to guarantee justice as 
required by the Texas constitution, said 
that “the injunction prohibits the state 
from using a law that is regressive, 
punitive and patently unfair. ” The court 
also ruled that the Texas AFL-CIO has 
proper legal standing in the challenge. 

Besides denying workers the fairness 
of due process, Gunn said, the law does 
not provide for equal protection and the 
right to jury trials. He also questioned 
whether the law conforms with legis- 
lative revenue-raising requirements. 

In granting the injunction, State Dis- 


CIO Department of Employee Benefits, 
noted that the “use of the emergency 
room as the health care provider of last 
resort for millions of Americans is a 
testament to the need for health care 
reform.” 

“Hospitals that can’t afford to be the 
provider of last resort are closing their 
doors to people who deserve to receive 
quality and accessible care in a dignified 
setting,” Ignagni said. 

Kellermann, in a telephone interview, 
cited studies showing that emergency 
room care is far more expensive than 
other medical care, “and ultimately 
costs the taxpayers, government and in- 
sured patients much more,” he said. 


icans are the most dissatisfied with their 
health care system; that employers 
don’t know how to control health care 
costs, and that Americans seem ready 
for national health care reform.” 

John J. Sweeney, president of the 
Service Employees and head of the 
AFL-CIO’s Health Care Committee, 
characterized national health care 
reform as “our toughest political issue, 
which will have to be dealt with soon.” 

The issue, Sweeney said, is “just too 
big and too complex to be solved plan- 
by-plan or employer-by-employer.” He 
called on education to join labor in seek- 
ing health care changes. 

Dr. Stuart H. Altman of Brandeis 
University’s School of Social Welfare, 
told the council that “the public is 
financially scared.” He said the United 
States needs “to make our health care 
system financially more equitable, 
fairer and more stable, or the system 
can’t continue much longer.” 

In other business, the council adopted 
a wide-ranging statement on “Labor in 
Higher Education Governance,” urg- 
ing “nominating and appointing 
authorities to consider the leaders of 
organized labor for election or appoint- 
ment to the boards of higher educa- 
tion.” 

Noting that one-third of all trustees 
are corporate officials, the council said 
that “leaders of organized labor bring 
considerable resources, talent and 
knowledge deeply rooted in the com- 
munity that can be immensely helpful 
to boards that seek to be well-balanced 
in their composition and expertise.” 


trict Judge Eugene Stewart questioned 
the constitutionality of a law that does 
not permit covered workers to opt out 
of the new system. 

Passed by the legislature and signed 
by Gov. William Clements last Decem- 
ber after a year of often bitter disputes, 
the new law ordered an extensive over- 
haul of the system that pays the medical 
bills, some living expenses and limited 
compensation for workers injured on 
the job. 

“We opposed the legislation when it 
passed because it was a bad law,” Gunn 
said. “We regret we had to appeal to 
the judicial system for justice, but that’s 
why we have a governmental system of 
checks and balances. Unfortunately, in 
recent years the judiciary repeatedly has 
had to correct the actions and inactions 
of state government in Texas. Hopeful- 
ly, with a new administration coming 
into office, that’s about to change.” 

Gunn said that while Texas workers’ 


“Another problem we clearly see,” 
Kellermann continued, “is patients who 
put off treatment hoping they’ll get bet- 
ter and the illness will go away — by 
that time, they’re so sick they require 
hospitalization and major medical in- 
tervention. . . . That illness then is far 
more costly, more difficult to treat, than 
it needed to be.” 

He also said he spends much of his 
time doing basic, walk-in, primary care 
medicine. “It’s not the most cost- 
effective, but it’s the most realistic op- 
tion for most people.” 

Texas State Sen. Chet Brooks testi- 
fied at the AFL-CIO health care hear- 
ing in Austin Oct. 25 that “there are 



Newsmakers 


DEATHS 

Joseph A. DiGiorgio, 74, who 

served as secretary-treasurer of the 
Seafarers for nearly 20 years until his 
retirement last year, died Dec. 26 in 
Valley Lee, Md. DiGiorgio spent 40 of 
his 50 years in the union in elected of- 
fice, advancing from patrolman and 
port agent to secretary-treasurer in 
1972. He also served as an employee 
trustee on various trust fund boards, in- 
cluding the welfare, pension and vaca- 
tion plans, which are administered by 
the SIU and its contracted operators. 

Charles H. Vaughan, 53, art and 
lighting director, set designer, graphic 
artist and computer coordinator for the 
AFL-CIO’s Labor Institute of Public 
Affairs, died Dec. 29 after a massive 
heart attack. Vaughan, a full-time staff 
member since January 1989, designed 
the AFL-CIO convention settings, 
created graphics and lighting for LIPA 
programs and productions. In a letter 
to family members. AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland and Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue noted that “the 
trade union movement was indeed for- 
tunate that Chuck Vaughan chose to 
devote his unique, creative talents to the 
cause of helping workers achieve a bet- 
ter life for themselves and their 
families.” He was a member of the 
Newspaper Guild and IATSE. 


compensation insurance premiums that 
employers pay are among the highest 
in the nation employees receive benefits 
that are among the lowest. Since 1985, 
workers’ compensation insurance has 
tripled. 

The new law would raise the max- 
imum benefit from the current $252 to 
$426. However, Gunn said, while the 
maximum benefits go up for the lowest- 
paid 77 percent of Texas workers, the 
new formulas actually reduce the 
amount of weekly benefits. 

In addition, workers would have 
disputes heard in a “contested case 
hearing” and then could appeal the ad- 
ministrative ruling to a panel of three 
state lawyers. 

They would not be allowed to appeal 
the case to a court for a jury trial until 
going through the new bureaucratic 
hearing procedure. 

Gunn said this restriction violates the 
state constitution’s “open courts” pro- 


over 3 million Texans who have ab- 
solutely no health insurance. One 
million of these uninsured Texans are 
children, and over half of them will not 
even be seen by a doctor this year.” 
“Those who will seek medical atten- 
tion are five times as likely as a child 
who does have insurance to use the 
emergency room as the primary source 
of medical care,” he said. 

The solution, Kellermann said, is 
“some rational, appropriate form of na- 
tional health care, where everybody 
pays and everybody’s eligible to receive 
a good, basic, decent standard of health 
care, with a strong interest on preven- 
tive medicine as well.” 

RWDSU approves 
1199 separation 

T he Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union announced that its af- 
filiate, Local 1199, separated effective 
Jan. 1, after the union and its local 
determined “that their organizing and 
servicing initiatives would best be 
served if they separated.” 

The RWDSU Executive Board unani- 
mously endorsed the agreement in late 
December. 

The union said the separation allows 
Local 1199 leadership to pursue its 
preference to concentrate “its funds and 
efforts solely in the field of health 
care.” The RWDSU, which has 200 
locals in the United States and Canada, 
will pursue a 1990 convention commit- 
ment of several million dollars to 
organizing “among food workers, par- 
ticularly in poultry plants, retail 
workers and other workers in fields it 
currently represents. ’ ’ 

The RWDSU statement noted that 
Local 1 199 represents between 60,000 
and 70,000 members in the health care 
field and that the RWDSU now has be- 
tween 1 10,000 and 120,000 members, 
“largely in retail, food processing and 
distribution, general manufacturing and 
clerical and service areas.” 
“Organizing drives are currently 
under way among food processing 
workers in the southern United States, 
and U.S. and Canadian retail and in- 
dustrial workers,” the RWDSU said. 

The union noted that in addition to 
authorizing funds for organizing, the 
convention “established a training pro- 
gram for staff and stewards and com- 
mitted a half million dollars to literacy 
programs for poultry workers.” 


vision by placing “dramatic restrictions 
on both access to courts and redress for 
injuries sustained.” 

The law also denies workers a jury 
trial “in the full constitutional sense” 
by limiting the issues a jury can con- 
sider if a workers’ compensation case 
does go to court, the state federation suit 
says. 

Other provisions of the law violate 
the state constitution by treating work- 
ers differently, the union asserts. For 
example, the suit charges, seasonal 
workers, the majority of whom are 
Hispanic migrant workers, will get 
fewer benefits than non-seasonal 
workers. 

Attorneys representing the Texas 
AFL-CIO in the court action are David 
R. Richards, a well-known constitu- 
tional lawyer and former general 
counsel to the Texas AFL-CIO, and Bill 
Whitehurst, former president of the 
Texas Bar Association. 


Labor education parley mulls 
path to health care reform 


wins court stay of new workers’ comp law 




On land and sea, unions oppose AT&T’s policies 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he Communications Workers, an- 
gered by contract violations by 
American Telephone and Telegraph 
Co., have opposed the company’s 
hostile takeover of NCR Corp., warn- 
ing that AT&T jobs are at stake. 

And in another broadside against the 
telecommunications giant, the AFL- 
CIO Maritime Trades Department has 
condemned AT&T for considering the 
use of foreign crews to man its two new 
cable-laying ships. 

AT&T’s attitudes were the subject of 
an emergency meeting of CWA local 
leaders in Chicago, called by CWA 
Vice President Jim Irvine. 

“In light of AT&T’s violation of the 
collective bargaining contract with the 
union,” Irvine said, “we would urge 
NCR employees to get AT&T to put 
their commitment to retain all NCR 
employees after a possible takeover in 
writing. But even that doesn’t count 
with AT&T management anymore. 

“AT&T has gone from a company 
that cared about its employees and 
treated them with dignity and respect, 
to a company that betrays its employees 
at every turn,” Irvine said. 


NCR has rejected AT&T’s takeover 
bid, but AT&T has taken its case to 
stockholders, offering $90 per share of 
stock. The going rate for the stock is 
$53 per share, said Irvine. 

The union charges that AT&T has 
circumvented the contract bargained in 
1989, establishing new titles for em- 
ployees. In order to get around the col- 
lective bargaining contract, the union 
said, the company has divided into 19 
separate and competitive business units, 
which are not abiding by the national 
contract. 

Ready to fight 

“Our members are angry and frus- 
trated at AT&T’s mismanagement, and 
frankly, the mood out there is that peo- 
ple are ready to fight and are not going 
to take any more,” said Irvine. 

CWA officers, stewards and mem- 
bers have gathered hundreds of signa- 
tures of prominent Americans in an ef- 
fort to build community coalitions 
against AT&T activities. Called Con- 
cerned Communities Against AT&T 
Closings, the signers express their con- 
cern about AT&T’s pursuit of a “cor- 
porate policy which threatens the 


economic health of our communities 
and displaces longtime employees.” 

Meanwhile, the Maritime Trades 
Department called on Congress to ex- 
amine the foreign crew scheme, which 
the department said may be the “open- 
ing gun in a plan by AT&T to export 
jobs throughout the giant enterprise.” 

In a letter to members of Congress, 
MTD President Michael Sacco said, 
“Should AT&T be foolish enough to go 
forward with the scheme to hire foreign 
seamen, they certainly would forfeit 
any claim to further use the word 
American in the company name as far 
as the people of this country are con- 
cerned.” 

Sacco noted that the Seafarers, who 
have had a collective bargaining rela- 
tionship with AT&T’s subsidiary 
Transoceanic Cable Ship Co. for 31 
years, have always worked in coopera- 
tion with the company. For example, 
SIU has developed training programs to 
achieve greater efficiency and lower 
costs, he said. 

AT&T’s cable-laying ships, Long 
Lines and Charles L. Brown, hold 
laboratories and rooms full of com- 
munications gear and are among the 


most technologically advanced vessels 
afloat. No foreigners serve aboard 
either vessel. 

The expansion of AT&T’s cable ship 
fleet calls for three new cable ships — 
one of which, the Global Link, has been 
through sea trials and was expected to 
be fully operational this month. 

Agreement reached 

According to the union, the company 
and the union worked on a manning 
scale for the Global Link in August. 
Additionally, the two parties agreed the 
union would announce at its member- 
ship meetings of September and Oc- 
tober that Seafarers interested in 
employment on the new cable ships 
should register accordingly. American 
licensed officers flew to Singapore, 
joined the Global Link, and have been 
aboard the vessel since mid-summer. 

Subsequently, AT&T began con- 
sidering putting the vessel under a 
foreign flag and manning it with 
non- Americans. 

“At stake in AT&T’s job export 
strategies are hundreds of thousands of 
jobs and America’s industrial and tech- 
nological capability,” Sacco warned. 


Labor coalition wins VDT protections in San Francisco law 


Continued from Page 1 

tion of glare, correct lighting levels, and 
noise reduction of impact printers. 
Upon request, employers must provide 
arm rests, wrist rests, foot rests, ad- 
justable document holders and task 
lighting. 

Under the ordinance, employers who 
do not provide rest breaks every two 
hours will have to provide 15 minutes 
of alternate work. If no alternate work 
is available, the employer must provide 
a written explanation to the employee. 

A VDT advisory committee, com- 
posed of seven representatives of labor, 
business and the academic community, 


will be appointed by April 1 to review 
scientific and technological research 
and to submit an annual report to the 
board. 

The measure was introduced in late 
August by Supervisor Nancy Walker. 
On Dec. 10, the bill was adopted on its 
first reading by an 8-1 vote. It garnered 
a 7-4 vote on its second reading. 

Mayor Agnos, who hadn’t committed 
to signing the measure, called a seven- 
hour meeting Dec. 22, at which rep- 
resentatives of labor and business 
cooperated to craft compromise amend- 
ments that address business concerns. 
Agnos then signed the legislation. The 


proposed amendments will be the sub- 
ject of a Jan. 7 hearing and likely will 
be adopted by the board later. 

The city’s business community had 
campaigned vehemently against the 
measure, holding that the cost of com- 
pliance would make them uncompeti- 
tive and predicting businesses would 
move from the area. The compromise 
language addresses the employers’ con- 
cerns and reduces the possibility of a 
court challenge, Varacalli said. 

The amendments provide that, start- 
ing one year after the effective date, any 
new equipment bought would have to 
comply with the ordinance. Within 30 


months, businesses would have to 
upgrade old equipment to comply with 
the law, but would not have to spend 
more than $250 per workstation. Full 
compliance, regardless of cost, would 
have to be achieved four years after the 
ordinance takes effect. 

The VDT Coalition includes the San 
Francisco AFL-CIO, SEIU and its Joint 
Council 2 and Locals 250, 535, 790 and 
1000, AFSCME Local 3218, Com- 
munications Workers Local 9410, Of- 
fice and Professional Employees Local 
3, Newspaper Guild Local 52, Trans- 
port Workers Local 200 and the Pro- 
fessional and Technical Employees. 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 1 
JANUARY 7, 1991 


INSIDE 

San Francisco law 
protects VDT users 

A union-backed coalition wins land- 
mark protections — including light and 
equipment standards — for some 
60,000 workers using video display ter- 
minals in San Francisco. 

Emergency room woes 
point to health crisis 

Families who have lost their health in- 
surance are forgoing treatment at doc- 
tors’ offices and eventually ending up 
at crowded hospital emergency rooms, 
where care is costly. 




AFGE suit challenges 
ban on outside pay 

The Government Employees are chal- 
lenging a federal ethics law that bars 
workers from being paid for speeches 
or articles on topics outside their 
government job responsibilities. 

Court supports 
ALPA recall rights 

Eastern Airlines said it will obey an ap- 
peals court ruling that rejected the car- 
rier’s practice of giving preference to 
trainees over Air Line Pilots who of- 
fered to return to work. 





Labor studies center 
lists 1991 programs 

The George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies offers its 1991 course schedule 
and introduces a Western Semester pro- 
gram at the University of California at 
Berkeley. 

Texas federation 
blocks unfair law 

The Texas AFL-CIO won the first 
round in a court battle over the state’s 
new workers’ compensation law, win- 
ning a temporary court injunction 
blocking the measure. 


mmmm 


The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001 -1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


1 / 7/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 







VOLUME 36, NUMBER 2 JANUARY 21, 1991 


Workers struggle in worsening economy 


AFL-CIO seeks 
jobs programs ; 
UI revamping 

By Candice Johnson 

T he unemployment insurance system 
is failing the workers it was set up 
to help, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue said, warning that 
millions of workers will be swamped by 
the deepening recession if the jobless 
benefits system is not repaired. 

The federation also called on Con- 
gress to develop recession-fighting jobs 
programs to meet neglected needs, and 
to expand retraining programs for dis- 
placed workers. 

Changes in the UI program made in 


the 1980s “completely disqualified 
many workers and chopped up protec- 
tions that were created for the long-term 
unemployed during recessions,” 
Donahue said, noting that only a third 
of unemployed workers received bene- 
fits in 1990, compared to two-thirds 
compensated during the 1975 recession. 

“For those lucky enough to beat the 
odds and get some benefits, their pay- 
ments average only a third of their lost 
wages” because of caps set by state 
legislatures on weekly benefits, Dona- 
hue said. 

The AFL-CIO has called on Con- 
gress to set some minimum standards 
for eligibility and benefits so that more 
workers are covered by the program. 
In addition, the federation said, Con- 
gress must address the serious shortfalls 
Continued on Page 3 


System fails 
to meet needs 
of unemployed 

By Sharolyn Rosier 
and Candice Johnson 

L aid off in March 1990 from his job 
with Analog Digital Statistics in 
Waltham, Mass., Thomas Maguire col- 
lected unemployment insurance for six 
months while running into brick walls 
in his search for a new job. 

Although highly skilled and ex- 
perienced, Maguire remains unem- 
ployed and uncompensated. Conse- 
quently, he has begun dipping into the 
college tuition fund he set up for his 17- 
year-old daughter to support his family, 


which includes four other children. 

Maguire’s story, told to the Senate 
Labor and Human Resources Commit- 
tee, is typical among American workers 
in these times when, facing layoffs and 
a tightening job market, they cannot 
count on unemployment compensation 
to help them ride out the current 
recession. 

The flawed benefit system failed 
Ernie William Bramlett, who had 
worked at a meat processing plant in 
Troy, Ohio, for 11 years. One day in 
January 1990, the company said it 
would shut down for repairs, for about 
4 to 6 weeks. “But that turned out to 
be our last day of work,” Bramlett 
recalled. With no notice, nearly 400 
workers were out on the street. 

B.J. Packing, which had bought the 
Continued on Page 13 



AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland joins protest at the Soviet 
Embassy in Washington against the Jan. 12 invasion of 
the independent republic of Lithuania. With him is Presi- 
dent William H. Bywater of the Electronic Workers. They 
called for a cutoff of "all economic aid, credits and 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

loans to the USSR until democratic rights are restored 
in Lithuania." Kirkland made a similar call three weeks 
earlier after being warned by Kazimieras Uoka of the 
Lithuanian Workers Union that Soviets might take ac- 
tion "under cover of the crisis in the Persian Gulf." 


Kirkland says labor stands with troops 


T he labor movement stands in full sup- 
port of American troops, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland said the morn- 
ing after allied air strikes began in Iraq 
and Kuwait. 

“Whatever the differences over the 
best way to end Iraq’s brutal occupation 
of Kuwait, these differences must be set 
aside,” Kirkland said. 

“The American labor movement 
stands in full support of our country and 
of the men and women in our armed 


forces and their courageous efforts to 
bring this conflict to an early and 
decisive conclusion.” 

The Kirkland statement came as U.S. 
government and military officials were 
calling the Jan. 16 air strikes highly suc- 
cessful, but stressing that they were only 
the first phase. 

Since Iraq’s Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of 
Kuwait, Kirkland’s only previous com- 
ment came in the federal budget battle. 

He said on Aug. 22 that “in the face 


of this crisis, the Gramm-Rudman- 
Hollings law should be suspended to in- 
sure the nation has the flexibility to deal 
realistically with the Middle East 
emergency and related defense needs, 
with the possibility of inflation and/or 
recession, and with the threat of a severe 
energy shortage.” 

And, he noted at that time, “the na- 
tion’s human and social needs continue 
and cannot be further neglected as a 
matter of expediency.” 


USWA settles 
pension suit: 
$415 million 

By James B. Parks 

M ore than 3,000 current and former 
Steelworkers will receive a record 
$415 million from the Continental Can 
Corp. under an agreement to settle two 
civil lawsuits against the company and 
its parent Kiewit Holdings Group. 

The suit claims company officials 
conspired to deny the workers their 
negotiated pension benefits. 

“This is a historic event in the con- 
tinuing battle to protect the pension 
rights of American workers,” said 
Robert Plotkin, the lead attorney for the 
workers. The settlement, Plotkin said, 
is the largest payout to workers in the 
history of the Employee Retirement In- 
come Security Act of 1974, which pro- 
hibits employers from trying to avoid 
pension obligations. 

“Although the company dragged 
these cases through the courts for 
almost 10 years despite its clear-cut 
guilt, the USWA is pleased that the 
workers who had been fraudulently 
deprived of their hard-earned pensions 
are finally going to be compensated,” 
said Leon Lynch, USWA vice president 
for human affairs and chief negotiator 
with the container industry. 

“This unconscionable act by the 
company has created untold hardship on 
people who gave their working lives to 
Continental Can only to be turned out 
into the cold without so much as a thank 
you,” he said. 

Half of the settlement amount, $207.5 
million, has been deposited in a special 
interest-bearing account under the 

Continued on Page 6 






Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 

As part of the AFL-CIO's campaign to keep workers' con- in all the major concourses at Washington's National 
cerns in the focus of political leaders and opinion and Dulles Airports. The airport advertising is a part 
makers, backlit "Union Yes" billboards are now in place the federation's multimedia "Union Yes" effort. 


ultimatum seen as ploy 


Rail report 
offers basis 
for accord 

By Arlee C. Green 

T he nation’s major railroads and the 
11 unions representing their 
employees found a glint of hope in a 
Presidential Emergency Board’s recom- 
mendations for resolving a three-year- 
old national contract dispute. 

“We believe the recommendations, 
with some modification, establish a 
solid base for a negotiated settlement, 
if the rail carriers pull back from their 
position on no wage increases and 
sweeping rule concessions,” said 
Richard I. Kilroy, president of the 
AFL-CIO Transportation Trades 
Department and of the Transportation 
Communications Union. 

“Rail labor did not receive, by a long 
shot, what we have patiently waited for 
after three years of bargaining and no 
wage increases,” Kilroy added. 

The Presidential Emergency Board 
No. 219 examined two sets of issues: 
health and welfare, and wages and work 
rules. Its historic 118-page report 
covered a consolidation of 22 separate 
contract cases filed with the National 
Mediation Board. 

Speaking to the board’s recommen- 
dations on health and welfare issues, 
Kilroy said the TCU believes the 
recommendations are “sufficient to 
reach an agreement, even though some 
portion of future increased costs would 
be borne by the employees from cost- 
of-living adjustments.” 

Prompt settlement needed 

The threat of war in the Middle East 
“also influences our decision to try to 
settle this issue as quickly as possible 
so that rail labor can remain a vital part 
of the defense or war effort,” he said. 

The National Railway Labor Confer- 
ence, representing 56 major rail 
transport companies, wants the unions 
to accept major rule changes and a 
nearly eight-year wage freeze. Of the 
emergency board’s report, the NLRC 
said the recommendations “go too far 
on wages and not nearly far enough on 
work rule relief. ’ ’ The unions are seek- 
ing annual 5 -percent increases and a 
modest cost-of-living adjustment, 
retroactive to July 1, 1988. 

The emergency board recommended 
a $2,000 lump-sum signing bonus, 
3-percent increases on July 1, 1991 and 
1993 and a 4-percent boost on July 1, 
1994. Three-percent lump-sum bonuses 
would be paid on July 1 , 1992, and Jan. 
1, 1993 and 1994, with a 2-percent 
lump-sum on Jan. 1, 1995. A cost-of- 
living raise would kick in July 1 , 1995. 


Daily News 

By James B. Parks 

L eaders of the unions striking the New 
York Daily News dismissed as a ploy 
an announcement that the paper may 
close or be sold, saying they would con- 
tinue to press management to stop 
posturing and talk about a settlement 
that would save the News. 

The announcement by News Pub- 
lisher James Hoge that the paper would 
close or be sold unless it could stop its 
financial hemorrhage was characterized 
as another “squeeze play” from a 
management bent not on a settlement 
but on a “union-free environment.” 
The nine unions also said they would 
continue their boycott of the paper’s 
advertisers and pursue a corporate cam- 
paign against the paper’s Chicago-based 
parent Tribune Co. 

In an effort to resolve the strike, New 
York Mayor David Dinkins summoned 
union leaders and Hoge to a Jan. 17 
summit at Gracie Mansion. 

After the meeting, George 
McDonald, president of the Allied 
Printing Trades Council, which 
represents the striking unions, said the 
meeting explored “the News’ position 
on settling with the unions or selling the 
paper.” 

“The meeting was one of procedure 
of how to go forward with negotia- 
tions,” he explained. “We are on call 


at the Mayor’s request to meet again. ” 

McDonald had said earlier he thought 
the Daily News’ Jan. 16 announcement 
about closing or selling was “just 
another ploy to in their attempt to close 
the paper eventually and blame the 
unions.” 

But he said the unions would be will- 
ing to make “major concessions” such 
as the four-day work week that 
employees of the New York Post ac- 
cepted last year to keep the paper from 
closing down. 

“We’ll come up with any efforts we 
can to save the paper,” McDonald said. 
“If they shut it down, there is nothing 
we can do about it. If they sell it, we’d 
be willing to negotiate with any new 
buyer to save the paper.” 

But McDonald did not hold out much 
hope of a settlement. “The company is 
still not looking to reach a settlement. 
They summoned Hoge to Chicago and 
laid down the law that that’s the end of 
the line,” he said. 

Barry Lipton, president of the New 
York City Newspaper Guild, said the 
move was designed to force conces- 
sions. “It’s a squeeze play, designed to 
create a pressure cooker situation,” he 
said. “Now we’ll see what the next card 
in the deck is.” 

Citing losses of $200 million over the 
past decade, Hoge announced the paper 


would either be sold or closed unless its 
“viability and profitability” could be 
assured. Earlier losses prompted a $30 
million concession by the same unions 
in 1987 bargaining, in exchange for 
management commitments for new 
plant and investment, which were not 
kept. 

Hoge did not set any deadline and 
said the paper would continue to 
negotiate with the striking unions while 
a New York investment firm advises it 
on a possible sale. But management’s 
“bargaining” was typified by a Jan. 15 
rebuff of a drivers’ union offer of a $15 
million concession package from that 
union alone. 

The Daily News sent letters to strik- 
ing and non-striking employees, Hoge 
said, to satisfy legal requirements under 
the federal plant closing law of a 60-day 
notice to employees on the possibility 
of the paper closing. 

But the time period for a possible sale 
was “a subject for negotiation with the 
unions,” he said. 

“It may never come to shutting it 
down, but we have to fulfill our obliga- 
tion,” Hoge said. He said he hoped the 
shutdown threat prompts a settlement, 
because the “closure of this paper is in 
nobody’s interest.” 

About 2,300 News employees from 
Continued on Page 16 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 2 ®<^§gfei >3 MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1991 



The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington. D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 


Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






IMSLfflON 


Congress puts priority 
on key labor legislation 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

AFL-CIO Vice President Lynn Williams testifies before the Senate Labor and 
Human Resources Committee on the need for anti-recession policies. 

AFL-CIO says jobs, retraining 
programs needed in recession 


By Mike Hall 

F our major pieces of AFL-CIO- 
backed legislation, including three 
that fell victim to President Bush’s 
vetoes, were given top priority by the 
102nd Congress. 

Civil rights, family and medical 
leave, anti-strikebreaker and Hatch Act 
reform bills were reintroduced the first 
day the House was in session. 

In addition, support for national 
health care reform, a major legislative 
priority of the AFL-CIO in this Con- 
gress, was voiced by several Demo- 
cratic leaders. 

“Within the next few weeks, the 
(House) Speaker will announce that 
health care legislation will be our 
highest priority on the domestic agenda 
for the 102nd Congress,” House 
Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt 
(D-Mo.) said in testimony before the 
Senate Labor and Human Resources 
Committee. “I expect we will begin 
work in earnest on major health care 
legislation in the early months of the 
first session.” 

Health care priority 

Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell of Maine, who provided writ- 
ten testimony to the committee, also 
promised health care would be a top 
Senate issue. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1991, as 
H.R. 1, was the first bill introduced in 
the House. Similar legislation was 
vetoed last year after winning by large 
margins in both chambers. 

“The swift passage of this bill will 
give the administration a chance to do 
the right thing,” said Rep. Jack Brooks 
(D-Texas) who introduced the bill. 

The bill is designed to repair the 
damage done by several Supreme Court 
rulings, which made it more difficult for 
minority and female workers to gain 
legal remedies for workplace bias. 

Even though last year’s legislation 
contained language specifying that the 
bill did not require quotas, Bush cited 
quotas as a major reason for his veto. 

Calling the quota charge “a red her- 
ring,” Brooks said H.R. 1 specifies that 
“it shall not be construed to require or 
encourage the adoption of quotas.” 
No House hearings have been sched- 
uled, but Rep. Don Edwards (D-Calif.) 
said, “We hope to have this bill on the 
floor as quickly as possible.” It has not 
yet been introduced in the Senate. 

Family and medical leave legislation 
was the second bill dropped into the 
hopper. Introduced by Rep. William 
Clay (D-Mo.), H.R. 2 is the same 


I n response to inquiries from union 
workers about the possibility of 
federal asbestos compensation legisla- 
tion, AFL-CIO Legislative Director 
Robert M. McGlotten has advised that 
no legislation regarding any asbestos 
compensation system has been 
introduced. 

“Moreover, so far as we are aware, 
no such legislation has even been 
drafted,” McGlotten said. 

McGlotten noted, however, that the 


bipartisan compromise that passed the 
House and Senate only to be struck 
down by Bush last year. The Senate 
version, sponsored by Sen. Christopher 
Dodd (D-Conn.) is S. 5 

The bill allows a worker to take up 
to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth 
or adoption of a child, for the serious 
illness of an immediate family member 
or for the employee’s own illness. 

It also would require the continuation 
of employer-provided health insurance 
during the leave and the reinstatement 
of the employee to the same or equiva- 
lent position after the leave. 

Clay noted that former Rep. Lynn 
Martin (R-Ill.), the newly nominated 
Secretary of Labor, voted for the bill 
and also for the override last year. 
“Hopefully (that) will help the presi- 
dent re-evaluate his position,” he said. 

Legislation banning the use of perma- 
nent replacement workers during an 
economic strike has been introduced in 
the House and Senate (H.R. 5 and 
S. 55). Last year, hearings in both 
chambers highlighted the contradiction 
in the law and the human toll from ex- 
panded hiring of “permanent” 
replacements. 

Workers at the New York Daily 
News are the . latest of thousands of 
workers in recent years who exercised 
their right to strike only to see 
employers hire replacements. 

To reverse 1938 ruling 

The legislation would reverse a 1938 
Supreme Court ruling that, while 
employers cannot fire workers engag- 
ed in a legal strike, they can “per- 
manently replace” them. 

“The striking workers are legally 
helpless to do anything but look on as 
they lose their jobs,” Clay said. The 
bills have gained 132 co-sponsors in the 
House and 22 in the Senate. 

With the reintroduction of Hatch Act 
reform, H.R. 20, federal workers will 
have another chance to receive many of 
the political rights most Americans en- 
joy. This legislation also passed by 
large margins in both houses last year 
but was then vetoed by Bush. 

Hatch Act restrictions on various of 
forms of political activity affect some 
3 million federal and postal employees. 
They cannot speak at political gather- 
ings, serve as convention delegates, cir- 
culate nomination petitions or run for 
partisan office. 

The bill would lift many of the 3,000 
regulations enforcing and interpreting 
the Act. The bill also maintains prohibi- 
tions against on-the-job political activity. 


AFL-CIO has an “open mind” on 
whether the federation would support 
or oppose a substitute for the current 
legal system. 

He emphasized that the AFL-CIO 
would “only consider supporting 
changes in the current law that increase 
the total amount provided to current and 
future asbestos claimants over the 
amount being provided through the cur- 
rent legal procedures.” 

Thousands of workers who were ex- 


Continued from Page 1 

in some state funds by setting minimum 
financing standards and should rework 
the federal extended benefit program so 
that workers in high unemployment 
areas affected by the recession can ac- 
tually receive benefits. 

In a letter to Rep. Dan Rostenkowski 
(D-Minn.), chairman of the House 
Ways and Means Committee, AFL- 
CIO Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten said that modifications to the 
extended benefit program make it “vir- 
tually useless.” The federation is call- 
ing for a 50-percent federal payment to 
extend benefits an additional 39 weeks, 
with the trigger tied to a state’s total 
unemployment rate. 

Testifying for the AFL-CIO before 
the Senate Labor and Human Resources 
Committee, Steelworkers President 
Lynn Williams noted that the number 
of long-term jobless — 26 weeks or 
more — now stands at 799,000 work- 
ers, an increase of 100,000 in the past 
two months. 

Williams called for “a special sup- 
plemental health care program for the 
unemployed ... to pay health care pre- 
miums temporarily for workers who 
lose their jobs and face the loss of health 
insurance.” 

The AFL-CIO also criticized the 
“experience rating” system, under 
which companies with fewer workers 
on jobless benefits pay lower taxes, en- 
couraging employers to support restrict- 
ions on eligibility. 

“Too many state legislators and state 
UI administrators adopt the business 
view that it is more important to keep 
taxes low and eligibility restrictions 
tight, instead of helping workers and 


posed to asbestos in the workplace and 
later developed diseases linked to the 
substance currently are involved in 
long, drawn-out legal battles for com- 
pensation. Many of these workers have 
been contacted by lawyers and groups 
that specialize in representing asbestos 
victims, who have been saying leg- 
islation that would restrict asbestos 
compensation had been introduced in 
Congress. McGlotten ’s comments 
countered this misinformation. 


their families,” said Mark Roberts, 
assistant director of the AFL-CIO 
Department of Economic Research. 

Williams urged the Senate panel to 
address the nation’s infrastructure and 
social ills while trying to stimulate the 
economy and provide jobs. “This 
recession, as other recessions, needs to 
be addressed with specific federal anti- 
recession policies.” 

A jobs program, Williams said, could 
provide “extensive new infrastructure 
as well as repair and replacement of the 
existing system of bridges, highways, 
water and sewage treatment facilities, 
and toxic waste cleanup.” 

“New, low-cost housing is needed as 
well as rehabilitation of existing hous- 
ing for low- and moderate-income 
families,” Williams said. 

Williams disputed the economic 
forecasters who say this recession will 
be short and shallow, noting that 
workers bear the biggest brunt of the 
miscalculations. 

“In the last recession, the consensus 
among economic forecasters widely 
missed the mark on unemployment” as 
the jobless rate in the Reagan recession 
hit 10.7 percent in late 1982, he said. 

“It took until 1985 for unemployment 
to come back down 7.3 percent and un- 
til 1988 for unemployment to drop to 
5.5 percent,” he said. He contrasted 
that with the relatively quick recovery 
from previous U.S. recessions, proving 
that federal anti-recession moves can 
speed the recovery. 

“Unemployment is a terrible experi- 
ence,” he continued. “It is first of all 
a loss of income, but it is more than 
that. It is loss of respect and status, loss 
of using one’s productive capability. 

comp claims 

Some asbestos victims groups also at- 
tacked Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.) for 
stating his concerns about the inade- 
quacies of litigation as the means of set- 
tling asbestos claims. 

McGlotten strongly defended 
Williams, emphasizing that the con- 
gressman has compiled an 89 percent 
labor voting record and has a solid 
record on asbestos questions and on 
workers’ health and safety issues 
generally. 


Federation debunks rumors on asbestos 







Ravenswood 
Steelworkers 
win benefits 



Dale Ferrell/Ferrell Photographies 


Thousands rally in support of Steelworkers locked out by Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

S ome 1,700 Steelworkers, locked out 
Nov. 1 by Ravenswood Aluminum 
Corp. of Ravenswood, W.Va., began 
the New Year with two rulings in their 
favor. 

The state unemployment commission 
reversed findings of a lower panel and 
awarded unemployment compensation 
to the members of USWA Local 5668. 
In addition, the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board issued a formal unfair labor 
practices complaint against the com- 
pany for using strikebreaker security 
forces to interfere with picketing 
activity. 

Vance Security, the same strike- 
breaking outfit hired by Pittston Coal 
Group during its dispute with the Mine 
Workers, was characterized by Jackson 
County Circuit Court Judge Fred Fox 
as a “group of arrogant, quasi-military 
strangers.” 

In granting unemployment compen- 
sation, the review board of the state’s 
Department of Employment Security 
found that the Steelworkers have “il- 
lustrated and shown a willingness to 
work,” adding that “it was the action 
of the employer that prevented them 
from doing so.” 

Ravenswood supervisors ordered 
workers on the overnight shift to leave 
the facility Nov. 1, shortly after union 
negotiators turned down management’s 
final proposal for a new contract to 
replace one that expired midnight Oct. 
31. 

Union representatives offered to ex- 
tend the terms of the expired contract 
while negotiations continued and to give 
48 hours’ notice before any strike was 
called, but the RAC refused the offer. 

“What this company has done is an 
affront to every worker in the state of 


West Virginia,” said Joe Chapman, 
USWA staff representative. 

A proposal submitted by RAC would 
have eliminated both a bonus system, 
which recently has accounted for well 
over 10 percent of each employee’s 
take-home pay, and all cost-of-living 
protection, said the union. 

In addition, the company has failed 
to pay wages and benefits owed to 
workers for work performed prior to 
the lockout, the union said in a lawsuit 
filed in Jackson County Circuit Court. 

“It’s obvious RAC is determined to 
pay off its debt on the backs of its 
workers,” said Chapman. “How else 
does one explain what the company is 
doing? It goes beyond mere corporation 
greed, bad as that is.” 

Chapman noted that the union on 
Nov. 28 presented the company with 
dramatically revised proposals in a 
meeting supervised by federal mediator 
Carmon Newell, offering to withdraw 
a proposal to continue the price-based 
bonus plan if the company agreed to 


restore wage rates existing in 1983. 

That proposal would result in an 
average increase of $1 .34 an hour over 
the current wage rate during the three- 
year-life of the agreement, Chapman 
said. The price bonus has been paying 
workers as much as $2 an hour. The 
union also significantly revised a con- 
siderable number of non-monetary 
items. 

“The company just absolutely, blank- 
ly refused all our proposals,” said 
Chapman. “This is the first time in all 
of my 24 years of bargaining experience 
that a company involved in a work stop- 
page has refused to discuss its reasons 
for rejecting a contract proposal. I’m 
astounded at how hard-headed they 
are.” 

RAC is currently operating the plant 
at reduced production levels, using 
salaried employees and as many as 600 
replacement workers. 

A hearing on the NLRB charge will 
be conducted April 17. The board cited 
the company for removing and damag- 


ing picket signs, and removing an 
American flag raised in a picket area. 
It further cited RAC security forces for 
“in a provocating manner, marching en 
masse” against pickets. 

The charges stem from incidents that 
prompted Circuit Court Judge Fox, in 
a ruling Dec. 5, to order RAC security 
forces to remain on company property. 

“The complaint confirms the union’s 
repeated charges of RAC harassment 
toward union members exercising their 
guaranteed right to publicly protest 
against unfair treatment,” said Chap- 
man. “RAC must learn that intimida- 
tion is not an acceptable labor relations 
tool.” 

Local 5668 President Dan Stidham 
vowed that the workers would continue 
to fight, but noted that “each day the 
lockout lasts threatens the livelihood, 
living standards and economic stability 
of the local’s members.” 

Union members who would like to 
assist Local 5668 in its campaign should 
call 304/768-7395. 


Wheeling Steelworkers win back $70 million 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he 13,500 active and retired Steel- 
workers, whose contract givebacks 
helped return Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel 
Corp. to profitability, recaptured nearly 
$70 million in wages and benefits owed 
to them when the USWA signed a new 
bargaining agreement with the com- 
pany. 

The contract signing followed by one 
day the court approval of Wheeling- 
Pittsburgh ’s amended reorganization 
plan by federal bankruptcy Judge War- 
ren H. Bentz. 

Andrew “Lefty” Palm, chair of the 
union’s negotiating committee and 
director of USWA District 15 in Pitts- 
burgh, hailed the contract signing as a 
“new beginning of a long struggle for 
giving Steelworkers at Wheeling-Pitts- 
burgh their payback for helping this 
company survive bankruptcy.” 
According to USWA District 23 
Director Jim Bowen of Wheeling, 
W.Va., “This signing represents a long 
overdue dividend to the major 
stakeholders of this company that will 
be felt for years to come.” 

The new labor agreement will permit 
the active and retired workers at 


Wheeling-Pittsburgh to recover $35 
million from a profit-sharing plan 
negotiated in 1983. Similarly, workers 
and retirees will receive 2.2 million 
shares, or roughly 11 percent of the 
common stock in the reorganized com- 
pany. The USWA said that other mem- 
bers’ claims, totaling nearly $20 
million, will be paid at about 70 cents 
on the dollar. 

Taken together, Palm said, the total 
financial distribution to USWA mem- 
bers will amount to about $70 million. 

USWA General Counsel Paul White- 
head said the court’s action concludes 
one of the longest bankruptcy 
reorganizations in history. 

An official tally of ballots on file at 
the bankruptcy court shows Steel- 
workers holding claims and stock in 
Wheeling-Pittsburgh had voted 95 per- 
cent in favor of the reorganization plan. 
The contract was ratified, 4,615 to 329. 

Under the labor accord, active 
workers will receive a $1.50 an hour 
increase, retroactive to July 1, 1990, 
and a cash payment equal to an extra 
week of 1990 vacation. The new con- 
tract covers plants in Ohio, West 
Virginia and Pennsylvania. 


Other benefits restored in the new 
agreement are additional holidays, in- 
creased shift differentials and higher 
Sunday shift premiums. The USWA 
members also gained a new profit- 
sharing program, cost-of-living protec- 
tions, enhanced insurance benefits and 
increased protections against contract- 
ing out of work. 

Retirees will be eligible to enroll in 
major medical insurance coverage with 
50 percent of the cost to be paid by the 
steelmaker and certain surviving 
spouses will be eligible for new annual 
cash benefits, the union said. 

The new labor pact was reached in 
mid- August, two days before a strike 
deadline. The 5,500 active members 
had earlier rejected a package that 
would have paid them just 13 cents on 
the dollar for their $114 million in 
claims against the company, while other 
creditors would have gotten 74 cents on 
the dollar. 

Wheeling-Pittsburgh ’s largest share- 
holder and creditor, New York investor 
Ron LeBow, led a group of investors in 
talks with the USWA, eventually pro- 
ducing the accord that provides a 
payback of 52 cents on the dollar. 


Union Privilege 
gains deferment 
on R.I. payments 

Thanks to the AFL-CIO’s Union 
Privilege program, some 6,400 union 
members in Rhode Island will be able 
to defer their credit card payments 
without penalty if they cannot reach 
funds frozen when Gov. Bruce Sundlun 
closed many banks and credit unions. 

“The Bank of New York (Delaware) 
will allow Rhode Island union members 
who carry the Union Privilege Master- 
Card to defer their January payments if 
they’ve been affected by the closings,” 
said Union Privilege Director David 
Silberman. The bank will disregard any 
delinquency and waive any late fees 
caused by the closings, he said. 

“In addition,” Silberman said, “the 
bank has agreed to temporarily increase 
the credit lines of Rhode Island mem- 
bers by up to $500 to help them through 
the crisis.” 

Silberman said that Union Privilege 
MasterCard holders who need as- 
sistance can call the bank at 
800/622-2580. 




ARCO agrees to pay record OSHA fine for explosion 


By Arlee C. Green 

A RCO Chemical Co. has agreed to 
pay a record $3. 48-million fine to 
settle hundreds of safety violations 
found after an explosion killed 17 
workers last July. 

ARCO is the second major chemical 
company fined for safety violations that 
led to explosions in plants in the 
Houston area. Phillips Petroleum Co. 
is contesting a $5.6 million penalty 
related to a 1989 explosion that killed 
23 workers. 

The two explosions prompted the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Admin- 
istration to propose a safety standard for 
chemical plants, which is the subject of 
hearings being conducted in Washing- 
ton and Houston. 

ARCO agreed to pay the $3.48 mil- 
lion in the wake of an OSHA investiga- 
tion that uncovered numerous safety 
violations following the blast at its 
Channelview, Texas, plant on July 5. 
Of the 17 workers killed, a dozen were 
contract workers. The blast’s 200-foot- 
tall fireball leveled a city -block-long 
area inside the non-union ARCO plant. 

Earlier, Phillips was fined $5.6 
million for 575 safety violations related 
to an Oct. 23, 1989, explosion at its 
Pasadena, Texas, plant. Of the 23 
workers killed, 14 were members of the 
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers. 
More than 100 persons were injured. 
In both instances, contract employees 


were doing maintenance work in the 
area where the explosions occurred. 
OC AW repeatedly has urged employers 
not to contract outside firms to do the 
critical maintenance work on equipment 
in an industry where minor mistakes 
can lead to catastrophes. 

OCAW, the AFL-CIO and other 
unions will testify Feb. 26 in Houston 
at a second OSHA hearing on its pro- 
posed chemical process safety manage- 


ment standard. The proposal’s failure 
to address the use of contract workers 
will be cited as a critical shortcoming, 
the unions said. 

At a mid-December hearing, repre- 
sentatives of construction and industrial 
unions underscored the proposed rule’s 
weaknesses and omissions. 

In its findings on the ARCO blast, 
OSHA noted that employees of several 
contract firms were on-site at the time 
of the blast. Since ARCO maintained 
total control of the site and dictated the 
working conditions, OSHA held it 
responsible for worker safety. ARCO 
Chemical Co. is a subsidiary of the Los 


Angeles-based Atlantic Richfield Co. 

OSHA found that an oxygen analyzer 
malfunctioned three weeks before the 
accident, allowing excessive oxygen 
levels in a 900,000-gallon caustic 
wastewater tank. Contract maintenance 
workers shut off nitrogen to the tank at 
a time when it needed to be increased 
to prevent an explosion from the oxygen 
buildup. 

The company was cited for 347 will- 


ful violations for failing to protect 347 
workers on-site against hazards posed 
by failure to monitor conditions that led 
to the explosion, and 15 serious vio- 
lations covering employee training, 
emergency response plans, lockout/tag- 
out devices, fire detection and pro- 
tection equipment, employee alarms, 
medical examinations and hazard com- 
munications. 

As part of the settlement, ARCO will 
revamp its safety programs at facilities 
in Channelview and Bay port, Texas, 
Paines ville, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. It 
will analyze hazards associated with the 
chemical processes used at each plant, 


and develop recommendations to be 
implemented. OSHA will monitor the 
company’s efforts at improving its 
safety preparedness. 

The record ARCO settlement 
eclipsed the mid-December agreement 
with the USX Corp., which agreed to 
pay $3.3 million in fines to settle safety 
citations issued by OSHA in November 
1989. The agency had proposed penal- 
ties totaling $7.3 million for violations 
at USX’s Fairless Hills, Pa., steel mill 
and Clairton, Pa., coke works. 

Safety committees of Steelworkers 
Locals 1557 and 4889 had documented 
thousands of serious hazards at the two 
facilities, where 17 workers had died 
since 1972, including four in the two 
years prior to OSHA’s action. 

The local unions supported the settle- 
ment, saying it confirms their conten- 
tion that “USX willfully allowed the 
safety and health conditions in its 
facilities to deteriorate to such a point 
that workers were in serious danger.’’ 

The company still refuses to provide 
the union with reports it sent to OSHA 
on its plans for correcting the viola- 
tions, the union said. 

In the settlement, USX agreed to cor- 
rect violations relating to hearing im- 
pairment, electricity, hazard com- 
munication, crane operation and record- 
keeping, and to extend the safety effort 
to other plants in Pennsylvania, Illinois 
and Alabama. 


OCAW repeatedly has urged employers not to 
contract outside firms to do the critical main- 
tenance work on equipment in an industry where 
minor mistakes can lead to catastrophes . 


Mine Workers mount drive 
to counter acid rain fallout 



UMWA photo 


UMWA President Richard Trumka tells a conference on acid rain that coalition- 
building is needed to save Mine Workers' jobs. 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he Mine Workers, warning of poten- 
tially high job losses among their 
members in the Midwest, have 
launched a grass-roots campaign to urge 
governors, legislators and public util- 
ity regulators to promote the construc- 
tion of scrubbers and other clean coal 
technologies to reduce emissions at 
electric power plants now burning high- 
sulfur coal. 

UMWA President Richard Trumka 
predicted that the Clean Air Act amend- 
ments enacted last fall could cost the 
jobs of 15,000 miners who dig high- 
sulfur coal unless electric utilities are 
encouraged or required to install expen- 
sive scrubbers to reduce emissions. 

Under the Clean Air Act, utilities 
must reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 
10 million tons by the year 2000. 
Because scrubbers are not required 
under the law, utilities now burning 
locally available high-sulfur coal will be 
tempted to begin “fuel- switching’’ by 
importing low-sulfur coal mined in 
other regions, Trumka said. 

Coalition-building will be a key to the 
union’s success, Trumka told 400 union- 
ists attending a strategy conference in 
Lexington, Ky. He urged strong ties 


with other unions, consumers, the coal 
and utility industries and other groups. 

“We’ll be needing to reach out as 
never before,” Trumka said. “Where 
we have the opportunity to build those 
clean coal coalitions, we want it to be 
as big and as strong and inclusive as we 
can make it.” 

Among the proposals UMWA mem- 
bers will be advancing at the state level 
include measures to provide relief to 
utility companies for the costs of con- 
structing and installing scrubbers and 
other equipment, plus other incentives 
to promote the use of locally mined 
coal, Trumka said. 

Stanley I. Garnett II, vice president 
of finance for Allegheny Power Sys- 
tems Inc. (APS), said, “We cannot see 
the logic of abandoning our local coal 
resources and switching to distant, low- 
sulfur coal. Doing so will inevitably 
lead to massive unemployment in our 
service area, will cost us some of our 
biggest electric customers and will ex- 
pose our energy supply to the dangers 
of the long-haul.” 

APS is a utility holding company 
whose subsidiaries include Monon- 
gahela Power Co., Potomac Edison Co. 
and West Penn Power Co. Nearly 90 


percent of the companies’ generating 
power is coal-fired, with 97 percent of 
the 18 million tons of coal used annually 
coming from mines in West Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio, 
Garnett said. 

He predicted it would cost APS about 
$2 billion over the next 10 years to in- 
stall scrubbers at its power plants. But 
the increasing investment in scrubbers, 
he said, “will not only significantly 
lower the ultimate cost of scrubbers, but 


will also avoid ‘rate shock’ problems 
which occur when utilities are not 
allowed to include new equipment in the 
rate base until after new facilities go in 
service.” 

Rep. Bill DeWeese, majority leader 
of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, 
presented the view from the states and 
urged the participants to press for enact- 
ment of legislation backing installation 
of scrubbers, calling it a good policy for 
utilities and the environment. 


AFSCME, AFGE win units injustice, Treasury Departments 


F ederal workers, in separate elections 
at the Justice and Treasury Depart- 
ments, voted overwhelmingly to 
unionize, selecting AFSCME and the 
Government Employees as their bar- 
gaining representatives. 

At the Justice Department, AFSCME 
District Council 26 won a unit of 1 , 150 
employees that includes secretaries, ad- 
ministrative, clerical, paralegals and 
legal technicians in the six litigating 
divisions and the Office of the Solicitor 
General. The workers selected 
AFSCME, 460-32. 

The council waged a two-year 


organizing campaign where the main 
issue was the lack of upward mobility. 
Carl Goldman, organizing director for 
Council 26, said the union was able to 
point to other sectors of the Justice 
Department where mandated upward 
mobility programs were working. 

The key to the union’s success in win- 
ning the Justice Department employees 
who are spread out in 1 1 buildings in 
downtown Washington was an organiz- 
ing committee of 100 workers that met 
weekly, Goldman said. Now that 
AFSCME has won, the council is work- 
ing to sign up new members. 


AFSCME Council 26 already repre- 
sented about 800 Justice Department 
workers in three other units — U.S. At- 
torney’s Office for District of Colum- 
bia, Justice Management Division, and 
Office of Justice Programs — and 
workers at the Library of Congress, 
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 
Peace Corps and Action. 

AFGE won a unit of more than 400 
workers at the Treasury Department’s 
Office of Thrift Supervision. AFGE 
President John N. Sturdivant said the 
final tally of ballots — 187-5 — “sends 
a clear message to OTS management 


that, like it or not, the union is here to 
stay.” 

The OTS was created under the 
Financial Institutions Reform Recovery 
and Enforcement Act of 1989 to deal 
with the savings and loan crisis. Many 
of its employees formerly worked at the 
now-abolished Federal Home Loan 
Bank Board. 

Although AFGE Local 3295 was the 
certified bargaining agent for bank 
board employees, workers again were 
given a choice regarding union 
representation after the new agency was 
created. 




Steelworkers split profits from bankrupt company’s sale 


By James B. Parks 

S ome 2,000 workers at the Sharon 
Steel Corp. stand to make about 
$17,000 each as their share of the prof- 
its after the company was sold for $300 
million. 

In 1986, in order to save the com- 
pany, production and maintenance 
workers agreed to participate in an 
employee stock ownership plan in lieu 
of concessions that averaged about 
$20,000 each, said Jim English, the 
Steelworkers’ associate general 
counsel. 

But the company declared bankruptcy 
before the employees could get their 
stock. The workers continued to work 
under the contract, but requested that 
the bankruptcy court require the com- 
pany to pay the employees what they 
would have earned under the ESOP. 

The workers will receive the full 
value of their “stock” from the date of 


the bankruptcy filing — March 1987 — 
and about 32 cents on the dollar for its 
value from the date of the contract to 
the filing, English said. 

The sale to the investment banking 
firm of Castle Harlan Inc. will bring 
Sharon out from under the protection 
of the federal bankruptcy court through 
a reorganization plan approved in 
November. 

New 4-year contract 

The bankruptcy judge approved the 
reorganization after members of the 
Steelworkers approved a new four-year 
contract that takes effect with the sale. 

The reorganization leaves two com- 
panies, Sharon Steel, which includes the 
steel operations, and Mueller In- 
dustries, which consists of all former 
Sharon subsidiaries. 

The contract does not change wage 
rates, but establishes a new profit- 


sharing plan and sets up a bonus pro- 
gram linked to the monthly level of steel 
shipments. 

The new contract, English said, con- 
tains several unique features. The 
USWA reached a collective bargaining 
agreement with Castle Harlan that will 
make Sharon Steel more likely to suc- 
ceed, he said. 

The unions thought the buyers paid 
too much for the company and that they 
would be under capitalized, English 
said. 

To protect the workers and to make 
the company more competitive, the 
Steelworkers negotiated restrictive 
language on dividends and several other 
requirements. 

Under the contract, no dividends can 
be paid if the new owners are in default 
on major collective bargaining agree- 
ments, in default to the banks, have 
operating income below a certain 


amount or are not complying with re- 
quired capital expenditures. 

The union also gains a seat on the 
company’s board of directors, he said. 

Guaranteed loans 

Sharon Steel’s former owners must 
guarantee $16.5 million in loans to 
finance a new continuous caster and pay 
for the retiree insurance for the next five 
years. 

As part of the deal, the union now 
holds a mortgage on the steel com- 
pany’s assets to secure the retiree in- 
surance obligations. 

Finally, the seller had to put $65 
million of the sale proceeds into the 
pension fund. The fund was five years 
behind in payments, English said, and 
this will bring it up to two years behind. 
Mueller will agree to a lien on the 
obligation for the remaining two years, 
he said. 


Continental Can pension ploy 
costs $415 million to settle 



Dave Rentz/Steelworkers 


Celebrating the $415 million settlement of a suit on Continental Can Co.'s 
ploy to block workers from getting their pensions are from left: USWA 
Local 4337 President William Donnelly, plaintiff Al Jakub, USWA District 
15 Director Andrew "Lefty" Palm and plaintiff Robert Gavalik. 


Continued from Page 1 

court’s control. The other half is to be 
deposited by Feb. 28. 

Lynch said the exact amounts each 
employee will receive are still being 
computed, but some published reports 
have claimed the amount may range 
from $10,000 to $250,000. 

Meanwhile, the Labor Department is 
investigating whether top Continental 
officials broke criminal laws in connec- 
tion with the secret plan to lay off 
workers to keep them from qualifying 
for pensions. It was that plan which led 
to the civil suits. 

“We don’t know what the investiga- 
tion will show, but in our minds there 
were clear violations of the law and of 
our contract,” Lynch said. “If the in- 
vestigation does uncover violations, we 
hope those responsible will be pun- 
ished.” 

Conspiracy alleged 

The New York Times reported that 
Labor and Justice Department invest- 
igators have gathered evidence they 
believe prove that Continental Can ex- 
ecutives conspired to defraud the work- 
ers of their rightful pensions and are 
guilty of perjury and obstruction of 
justice. 

The suits were filed in 1983. In May 
1989, H. Lee Sarokin, a U.S. District 
Court judge in Newark, N.J., declared 


in a blistering opinion, that Continen- 
tal Can officials had engaged in a 
“complex, secret and deliberate 
scheme” to deny workers negotiated 
pension benefits. 

“The evidence of the plan, its secrecy 
and its execution comes from the files 
of the defendants themselves,” Sarokin 
said. “The documents are more than a 
smoking gun. They are a fusillade.” 

An appeals court this past summer 
unanimously upheld Sarokin’s ruling, 
calling what Continental had run “a 
devious scheme.” 

Computer secretly used 

Sarokin found that Continental vio- 
lated federal pension laws by secretly 
having a computer program written that 
enabled the company to manipulate 
work among its plants so that factories 
would be closed and workers laid off 
just before the workers became eligible 
for pension payments. 

In some cases, laid-off workers 
needed only weeks or months to qualify 
for the pensions, which usually 
amounted to between $300 and $600 
per month for persons whose age and 
service combined totaled at least 65 
years. The pensions also carried a $300 
to $400 monthly supplement to age 62 
as well as health and life insurance 
through retirement. 

During the suit, documents presented 


into evidence showed the company tried 
to conceal the existence of the plan by 
changing the computer program after 
workers found out about it. 

Documents showed the plan was 
called “BELL,” a reverse acronym for 
“Let’s Limit Employee Benefits.” 

The scheme first came to light at 
Continental’s West Mifflin, Pa., plant 
in 1981, when the USWA became 
suspicious of large scale layoffs of 
workers close to pension eligibility and 
the extraordinary lengths the company 


went to in order to prevent recalls. 

Plotkin credited the union for its com- 
mitment to the case. “Most of the class 
members are former members of the 
union, and were former members 
throughout this litigation. And yet the 
union advanced more than $2.5 million 
for out-of-pocket expenses for this 
litigation. 

“Litigation of this size and complex- 
ity could not have been prosecuted 
without the financial support of the 
union,” he said. 


New England pension fund using MacBride Principles 


By James B. Parks 

T he New England Health Care 
Employee Pension Fund has become 
the first Taft-Hartley fund to apply the 
MacBride Principles for justice in 
Northern Ireland for its investments. 

This action opens up a whole new 
sector of labor taking up the campaign 
for human rights in Northern Ireland, 
said Joseph Jamison, the New York 
State AFL-CIO’s director of research 
and director of the Irish-American 
Labor Coalition. 

Expanding movement 

Up to now, the campaign for the 
MacBride Principles has been waged by 
the public employee pension funds, 
Jamison said. He expressed hope that 
the New England fund’s endorsement 
will help the movement catch on. 

Taft-Hartley funds are jointly run by 
trustees from labor and management, 
Jamison said, and fall under the restric- 


tions of the federal Employee Retire- 
ment Income Security Act of 1974. 

Public employee funds are regulated 
by state and local governments and have 
less business influence in making in- 
vestment decisions, he said. So far, 13 
state employee pension funds have 
adopted the MacBride Principles. 

In a letter to the Marco Consulting 
Group, the New England fund’s outside 
investment manager, fund trustees said 
that religious discrimination is en- 
trenched in Northern Ireland. The 
trustees instructed Marco to vote for 
resolutions at various annual stock- 
holders’ meetings supporting the 
principles. 

Last summer, a labor delegation 
headed by AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue visited 
Ireland under the auspices of the Irish 
Congress of Trade Unions. 

The delegation’s report to the AFL- 
CIO Executive Council urged continued 


support for the MacBride Principles 
even though the Irish government had 
approved a new Fair Employment Act. 
The act falls far short of labor’s aspira- 
tions, the report said. 

“By continuing the pressure interna- 
tionally ... the somewhat stronger new 
law on the books can make progress 
toward alleviating the pattern of en- 
trenched sectarian discrimination that 
still exists in the North,” the group’s 
report said. 

Blue-ribbon delegation 

The delegation also included AFL- 
CIO Vice Presidents Morton Bahr of 
the Communications Workers and John 
Sweeney of the Service Employees, and 
Edward Cleary, president of the New 
York State AFL-CIO. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council in 
1985 endorsed the MacBride Principles, 
which were developed by human rights 
activist Sean MacBride. 


The principles lay the foundation for 
justice in the workplaces. They call for: 

• Increasing the number of persons 
from underrepresented religious groups 
throughout the workforce. 

• Guaranteeing security for minor- 
ity employees. 

• Banning provocative religious or 
political symbols from the workplace. 

• Publicly announcing all job open- 
ings and making special efforts to 
recruit applicants from the under- 
represented groups. 

• Abolishing job reservations, ap- 
prenticeships, etc., that discriminate 
against workers on the basis of religion 
or ethnic origin. 

• Developing training programs for 
minorities. 

• Establishing procedures to iden- 
tify and recruit minorities for manage- 
ment positions, and appointing a senior 
manager to oversee the affirmative ac- 
tion plan. 




Report on Congress 

1990 



w 

Record 

Compiled by Mike Hall 


Labor's 1990 report card on Con- 
gress tabulates the votes on major issues 
of concern to the AFL-CIO in the second 
session of the 101st Congress. In the 
tables on the pages that follow, Senate 
and House members have been rated R 
(right) and W (wrong) on the basis of 
positions they took on these issues: 

House 

1 Eastern Airlines Veto Override 

• — More than a year after the 
strike against Eastern Airlines, the 
House voted to override President 
Bush’s veto of H.R. 1231 , which would 
have established a four-member bipar- 
tisan panel to investigate the dispute. 
The vote fell short of the two-thirds 
needed to override, 261-160. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

2 Clean Air, Wise Amendment 
• — During debate on the House 
clean air bill, H.R. 3030, Rep. Robert 
Wise (D-W. Va.) offered an amendment 
to provide extended unemployment 
compensation and training benefits to 
workers who might lose their jobs 
because of the new regulations. Sup- 
ported by the AFL-CIO, the amend- 
ment was adopted by a 274-146 vote on 
May 23. The final version of clean air 
legislation contained a modified 
unemployment allowance and training 
provision. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

3 Housing, Oakar Amentment — 

• The building trades strongly sup- 
ported an amendment to the Housing 
and Community Development Act of 
1990 (H.R. 1180), offered by Rep. 
Rose Mary Oakar (D-Ohio), that would 
have maintained state and local 
authorities’ rights to set structural, elec- 
trical and plumbing codes for modular 
homes. The amendment was defeated 
July 31 by a 200-211 vote. The final 
housing bill set up a study commission 
on the issue. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

4 Textile Veto Override — The 
• Textile, Apparel and Footwear 
Act of 1990, supported by the AFL- 
CIO, would have limited imports in tex- 
tiles and apparel to a 1 percent per year 
increase and limited imports of foot- 
wear to 1989 levels. The legislation was 
badly needed by workers who have been 
hit hard by textile and apparel imports. 
On Oct. 10, the House fell 10 votes short 
of overriding President Bush’s veto. 
Yes — Right No — Wrong 

5 Immigration, Morrison Amend- 
• ment — H.R. 4300, the Im- 
migration Revision and Family 
Reunification Act, struck a balance that 
establishes minimum protections for 
American workers’ jobs while 
establishing visa numbers that are 
realistic in light of present employment 
of alien workers and future employment 
needs. During floor consideration, Rep. 
Bruce Morrison (D-Conn.) offered an 
amendment to further strengthen the job 
protection provisions by requiring 
employers who bring in aliens as non- 


immigrant temporary workers to certify 
that they have agreed to provide educa- 
tion and training for American workers 
or students so those jobs could eventual- 
ly be filled by U.S. workers. The 
amendment was defeated Oct. 2 by a 
194-229 vote. The immigration bill was 
passed and signed into law. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

6 Fish Inspection, Dingell/Wax- 
• man Substitute — The AFL- 
CIO supported H.R. 3155, which 
would have vested fish inspection 
authority in the Food and Drug Ad- 
ministration, which has the expertise 
and experience to develop standards for 
safe and effective seafood inspection. 
The legislation also contained strong 
whistleblower language. Offered as a 
substitute to a Senate-passed bill, H.R. 
3155 passed 277-153 on Oct. 24. 
Because no House-Senate conference 
was completed, the bill died. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

7 Voter Registration, Motion to 
• Recommit — The National Voter 
Registration Act, H.R. 2190, intro- 
duced by Rep. A1 Swift (D-Wash.) and 
backed by the AFL-CIO, would have 
significantly increased the number of 
registered voters in federal elections. 
Besides allowing “motor voter” 
registration, in which driver’s license 
application (along with non-driver ID’s) 
would be considered an application for 
voter registration, the bill would have 
required government agencies to active- 
ly provide for voter registration, and 
would have allowed voters to register 
by mail. The bill passed the House but 
died in the Senate. During debate, Rep. 
Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) moved to 
recommit the bill with instructions to 
change and weaken several key provi- 
sions. The motion, opposed by the 
AFL-CIO, failed by 156-265 vote. 
Yes — Wrong No — Right 


8 Child Care, Stenholm Amend- 
• ment — The AFL-CIO supported 
a comprehensive child care bill, H.R. 
3, that expanded Head Start, provided 
grants for child care services for infants 
and toddlers through community-based 
providers and developed before- and 
after-school care through the public 
school system. A weak substitute was 
offered by Charles Stenholm (D-Texas) 
and Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), which was 
beaten 195-225 on March 29. Eventual- 
ly several provisions of House- and 
Senate-passed child care legislation 
were included in the omnibus budget 
reconciliation bill. 

Yes — Wrong No — Right 

9 Balanced Budget — One of the 
• most bankrupt fiscal remnants of 
the Reagan era resurfaced in the 
House — a call for a constitutional 
amendment to require Congress to 
balance the federal budget regardless of 
economic circumstances. On July 17, 
the amendment fell short of the two- 
thirds majority needed for passage. 
Yes — Wrong No — Right 


1 A Family and Medical Leave 
I U • Veto Override - H.R. 770, 
supported by the AFL-CIO, would have 
allowed up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave 
for the birth, adoption or serious illness 
of a child. The legislation also would 
have allowed leave for a worker’s own 
serious illness, as well as for the care 
of an elderly dependent. Workers 
would be guaranteed their same or 
equivalent jobs following the leave and 
pre-existing health benefits would con- 
tinue during the leave. It would exempt 
employers of 50 or fewer workers. The 
bill passed the House and Senate, but 
President Bush vetoed the legislation. 


On July 25, the House failed to over- 
ride the veto, 232-195. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 


1 1 Civil Rights, LaFalce/Michel 
I • Amendment — The AFL- 
CIO backed legislation in the House, 
H.R. 4000, that would have restored 
civil rights job protections weakened by 
several Supreme Court decisions in 
1989. During debate on the bill, The 
Civil Rights Act of 1990, Reps. John 
LaFalce (D-N.Y.) and Robert Michel 
(R-Ill.) offered a substitute that would 
have gutted several important provi- 
sions of the bill. It was defeated by a 
188-238 vote Aug. 3. President Bush’s 
veto of final civil rights legislation was 
sustained. 

Yes — Wrong No — Right 


1 A Budget, Rostenkowski Sub- 
I Mm % stitute — The AFL-CIO 
worked closely with House Democrats 
to develop a progressive and fair recon- 
ciliation tax package which shifted the 
tax burden from lower- to middle- 
income working Americans to the 
wealthy, who enjoyed a decade of tax 
breaks from the supply side economic 
schemes of two Republican presidents. 
The bulk of the House package’s details 
were contained in amendment offered 
to H.R. 5835, the Omnibus Reconcilia- 
tion bill, by Ways and Means Commit- 
tee Chairman Rep. Dan Rostenkowski 
(D-Ill), which was approved by a 
238-192 vote on October 16. A final 
budget package containing most of the 
Ways and Means provisions was ap- 
proved and signed into law. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

Senate 

1 Clean Air, Byrd Amendment 

• — The AFL-CIO backed many 
aspects of S. 1630, which sets new and 
more stringent standards for toxic emis- 
sions, automobile pollution and sulfur 
emissions from power plants that are 
designed to combat acid rain. The 
federation’s overriding concern was to 
prevent, as much as possible, signifi- 
cant job loss and dislocation for 
American workers and to soften the 
blow for workers who could lose their 
jobs as a result of the legislation. An 
AFL-CIO-supported amendment to the 
bill, introduced by Sen. Robert C. Byrd 
(D-W.Va.), would have offered coal 
miners three years of declining percen- 
tage benefits, in addition to the normal 
unemployment benefits, and also 
granted non-miners the equivalent of 
one year of trade adjustment assistance. 
The amendment was defeated, 49-50, 
on March 29. Clean air legislation ap- 
proved later contained modified 
unemployed worker relief. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

2 Amtrak Veto Override — 
• President Bush vetoed an Amtrak 
reauthorization bill, citing a labor- 
backed provision that would have 
allowed the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission to review and approve the ac- 
quisition of any of the 14 Class I 
railroads by any non-railroad interest to 
make sure that the public’s interest was 
protected. The House overrode the 
veto, but the Senate was three votes 
short, 64-36, on June 12. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

3 Hatch Act Veto Override — S. 

• 135 would have allowed federal 
and postal workers, on their own time 
and out of uniform, to more fully par- 
ticipate in the political process by stuff- 
ing envelopes, answering phones and 
engaging in other campaign activity. 
Workers could also hold offices in a 


political party or club, participate in a 
partisan voter registration drive or cir- 
culate a nomination petition for a can- 
didate and speak at a primary caucus in 
favor of a candidate. President Bush 
vetoed the bill and, on June 21, the 
Senate failed 65-30 to override the veto. 
Yes — Right No — Wrong 

4 Davis-Bacon, Chafee Amend- 
• ment — During debate on Hous- 
ing Reauthorization (S. 566), an amend- 
ment was offered by Sen. John Chaf- 
fee (R-R.I.) that, in effect, would have 
removed prevailing wage protection 
from federal housing construction pro- 
jects. The amendment would have 
nullified the Davis-Bacon Act for HUD 
contracts under $1 million. A motion 
by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) to 
table the amendment, which was back- 
ed by the AFL-CIO, was approved by 
a 59-39 vote. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

5 Textile Trade — S. 2411 set im- 
• port limits for textile, apparel and 
footwear products that would have pro- 
tected the jobs of several hundred thou- 
sand workers in the those industries. 
The bill allowed imports of textiles and 
apparel to grow at a 1 percent annual 
rate and footwear imports to be frozen 
at 1989 levels. The legislation passed 
the Senate, 68-32, on July 17, but was 
later vetoed by President Bush. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

6 Fish Inspection, Hollings/ 
• Stevens Substitute — The AFL- 
CIO opposed S. 2924, the Fish Safety 
Act of 1990, because it did not include 
protections for workers who report 
abuses when inspectors are not in the 
plant. A substitute measure, backed by 
the AFL-CIO and offered by Sens. 
Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), Edward M. 
Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Ted Stevens 
(R- Alaska), which included whistle- 
blower protections, was defeated, 
39-59. 

Yes — Right No — Wrong 

7 Fuel Efficiency, Cloture — 
• While the AFL-CIO supports a 
national energy policy, including the 
need to increase fuel efficiency for 
motor vehicles, it opposed S. 1224, in- 
troduced by Sen. Richard Bryan (D- 
Nev.), which required standards so strict 
that it would have resulted in plant clos- 
ings and significant unemployment. On 
Sept. 25, by a 57-42 vote, the bill failed 
to gain the three-fifths majority needed 
for cloture and effectively was killed for 
the session. 

Yes — Wrong No — Right 

8 0SHA Penalties, Hatch Amend- 
• ment — The AFL-CIO has called 
for comprehensive reform of OSH A, 
including increased criminal penalties 
for willful health and safety violations 
by an employer that lead to injury or 
death. These penalties were included in 
the Senate’s version of budget recon- 
ciliation, but were stricken under an 
amendment offered Oct. 18 by Sen. Or- 
rin Hatch (R-Utah). A motion to table 
the Hatch amendment failed 21-79. 
Yes — Right No — Wrong 

9 Civil Rights Veto Override — 

• S. 2104, the Civil Rights Act of 
1990, introduced by Sens. Edward M. 
Kennedy (D-Mass.) and James Jeffords 
(R-Vt.), would have strengthened 
several provisions of the 1964 Civil 
Rights Act that were weakened by the 
Supreme Court during 1989 decisions. 
The legislation passed the House and 
Senate but was vetoed by President 
Bush. On Oct. 24, the Senate sus- 
tained the veto by a 66-34 vote, one 
short of the votes needed to override. 
Yes — Right No — Wrong 




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9 Yates S (D) 

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11 Annunzio F (D) 

12 Crane P (R) 

13 Fawell H (R) 

14 Hasten D (R) 

15 Madigan E (R) 

16 Martin L (R) 

17 Evans L (D) 

18 Michel R (R) 

19 Bruce T (D) 

20 Durbin R (D) 

21 Costello J (D) 

22 Poshard G (D) 

Indiana 

1 Visclosky P (D) 

2 Sharp P (D) 

3 Hiler J (R) 

4 Long J (D) 

5 Jontz J (D) 

6 Burton D (R) 

7 Myers J (R) 

8 McCloskey F (D) 

9 Hamilton L (D) 

10 Jacobs A (D) 


Iowa 


1 Leach J (R) 

2 Tauke T (R) 

3 Nagle D (D) 

4 Smith N (D) 

5 Lightfoot J (R) 

6 Grandy F (R) 

Kansas 

1 Roberts P (R) 

2 Slattery J (D) 

3 Meyers J (R) 

4 Glickman D (D) 

5 Whittaker B (R) 

Kentucky 

1 Hubbard C (D) 

2 Natcher W (D) 

3 Mazzoli R (D) 

4 Bunning J (R) 

5 Rogers H (R) 

6 Hopkins L (R) 

7 Perkins C (D) 

Louisiana 

1 Livingston B (R) 

2 Boggs L (D) 

3 Tauzin W (D) 

4 McCrery J (R) 

5 Huckaby J (D) 

6 Baker R (R) 

7 Hayes J (D) 

8 Holloway C (R) 

Maine 

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2 Snowe O (R) 

Maryland 

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2 Bentley H (R) 

3 Cardin B (D) 

4 McMillen T (D) 

5 Hoyer S (D) 

6 Byron B (D) 

7 Mfume K (D) 

8 Morelia C (R) 

Massachusetts 

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2 Neal R (D) 

3 Early J (D) 

4 Frank B (D) 

5 Atkins C (D) 

6 Mavroules N (D) 

7 Markey E (D) 

8 Kennedy J (D) 

9 Moakley J (D) 

10 Studds G (D) 

11 Donnelly B (D) 

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2 Pursell C (R) 

3 Wolpe H (D) 

4 Upton F (R) 

5 Henry P (R) 

6 Carr B (D) 

7 Kildee D (D) 

8 Traxler B (D) 

9 Vander Jagt G (R) 

10 Schuette B (R) 

11 Davis R (R) 

12 Bonior D (D) 

13 Crockett G (D) 

14 Hertel D (D) 

15 Ford W (D) 

16 Dinged J (D) 

17 Levin S (D) 


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Key to Symbols 

R Voted Right or was paired Right. 

W Voted Wrong or was paired Wrong. 

A Absent and not paired or voted “present.” 

I Not in Congress at time. 

Number before each name shows congressional district. 


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W 

W 

11 

134 

8 

Missouri 


















Pennsylvania 


















1 Clay W (D) 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

5 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

283 

13 

96 

1 Foglietta T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

137 

5 

96 

2 Buechner J (R) 

W 

W 

R 

w 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

9 

43 

17 

2 Gray W (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

176 

6 

97 

3 Gephardt R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

183 

35 

84 

3 Borski R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

9 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

110 

3 

97 

4 Skelton I (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

147 

72 

67 

4 Kolter J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

104 

7 

94 

5 Wheat A (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

111 

4 

97 

5 Schulze R (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

A 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

59 

206 

22 

6 Coleman E (R) 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

49 

180 

21 

6 Yatron G (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

269 

50 

84 

7 Hancock M (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

1 

23 

4 

7 Weldon C (R) 

R 

R 

A 

R 

W 

R 

4 

1 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

27 

22 

55 

8 Emerson B (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

34 

113 

23 

8 Kostmayer P (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

175 

20 

90 

9 Volkmer H (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

164 

64 

72 

9 Shuster B (R) 

W 

W 

A 

R 

W 

W 

1 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

51 

238 

18 

Montana 


















10 McDade J (R) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

247 

113 

69 


















11 Kapjorski P (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

77 

8 

91 

1 Williams P (D) 

R 

A 

A 

R 

W 

W 

2 

2 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

162 

20 

89 

12 Murtha J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

245 

37 

87 

2 Marlenee R (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

38 

185 

18 

13 Coughlin L (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

117 

213 

35 


















14 Coyne W (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

145 

5 

97 

Nebraska 


















15 Ritter D (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

64 

121 

35 

1 Bereuter D (R) 

2 Hoagland P (D) 

3 Smith V (R) 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

0 

6 

0 

6 

0 

6 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

39 

21 

29 

150 

3 

245 

21 

88 

11 

16 Walker R (R) 

17 Gekas G (R) 

18 Walgren D (D) 

19 Goodling B (R) 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

1 

2 

6 

3 

5 

4 

0 

2 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

w 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

31 

20 

193 

70 

200 

95 

33 

192 

13 

17 

85 

27 

Nevada 


















20 Gaydos J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

286 

29 

91 


















21 Ridge T (R) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

63 

51 

55 

1 Bilbray J (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

46 

8 

85 

22 Murphy A (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

185 

40 

82 

2 Vucanovich B (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

11 

103 

10 

23 Clinger W (R) 

W 

A 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

3 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

73 

111 

40 

New Hampshire 

















Rhode Island 


















1 Smith R (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

12 

73 

14 

1 Machtley R (R) 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

12 

12 

50 

2 Douglas C (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

4 

20 

17 

2 Schneider C (R) 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

101 

42 

71 

New Jersey 


















South Carolina 

















1 Vacancy 

I 

I 

I 

I 

I 

I 

0 

0 

I 

I 

I 

I 

I 

I 

231 

19 

92 

1 Ravenel A (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

20 

34 

37 

2 Hughes W (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

208 

66 

76 

2 Spence F (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

52 

261 

17 

3 Pallone F (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

21 

3 

88 

3 Derrick B (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

152 

117 

57 

4 Smith C (R) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

109 

41 

73 

4 Patterson L (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

31 

23 

57 

5 Roukema M (R) 

R 

W 

A 

R 

W 

R 

3 

-2 

W 

A 

W 

R 

W 

W 

51 

97 

34 

5 Spratt J (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

w 

R 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

70 

43 

62 

6 Dwyer B (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

143 

5 

97 

6 Tallon R (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

w 

W 

3 

3 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

76 

38 

67 

7 Rinaldo M (R) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

240 

52 

82 

South Dakota 


















8 Roe R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

289 

28 

91 


















9 Torricelli R (D) 
10 Payne D (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

6 

0 

0 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

102 

22 

5 

0 

95 

100 

AL Johnson T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

46 

8 

85 

11 Gallo D (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

A 

W 

W 

W 

W 

28 

55 

34 

Tennessee 


















12 Courter J (R) 

W 

W 

W 

w 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

50 

122 

29 


















13 Saxton H (R) 

R 

W 

W 

w 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

30 

55 

35 

1 Quillen J (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

65 

291 

18 

14 Guarini F (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

173 

15 

92 

2 Duncan J (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

3 

3 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

7 

17 

29 

New Mexico 


















3 Lloyd M (D) 

4 Cooper J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

4 

5 

2 

1 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

159 

76 

108 

37 

60 

67 

1 Schiff S (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W r 

W 

W 

W 

5 

19 

21 

5 Clement B (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

R 

30 

7 

81 

2 Skeen J (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

17 

133 

11 

6 Gordon B (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

R 

70 

13 

84 

3 Richardson B (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

104 

11 

90 

7 Sundquist D (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

w 

W 

W 

W 

19 

93 

17 














8 Tanner J (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

R 

w 

w 

R 

R 

15 

9 

63 

New York 


















9 Ford H (D) 

A 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

4 

0 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

238 

19 

93 

1 Hochbrueckner G (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

51 

2 

96 

Texas 


















2 Downey T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

236 

33 

88 


















3 Mrazek R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

97 

15 

87 

1 Chapman J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

47 

30 

61 

4 Lent N (R) 

W 

W 

A 

W 

W 

R 

1 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

96 

212 

31 

2 Wilson C (D) 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

190 

85 

69 

5 McGrath R (R) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

62 

83 

43 

3 Bartlett S (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

5 

110 

4 

6 Flake F (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

50 


98 

4 Hall R (D) 

W 

W 

A 

R 

W 

W 

1 

4 

R 

vv 

W 

w 

A 

W 

50 

94 

35 

7 Ackerman G (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

109 

1 

99 

5 Bryant J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

R 

104 

7 

94 

8 Scheuer J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

308 

27 

92 

6 Barton J (R) 

W 

A 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

5 

W 

W 

w 

W 

W 

W 

3 

80 

4 

9 Manton T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

79 

3 

96 

7 Archer B (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

w 

W 

w 

W 

14 

308 

4 

10 Schumer C (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

132 

12 

92 

8 Fields J (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

w 

W 

w 

W 

10 

140 

7 

11 Towns E (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

105 

1 

99 

9 Brooks J (D) 

A 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

5 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

306 

90 

77 

12 Owens M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

A 

A 

R 

4 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

108 

1 

99 

10 Pickle J (D) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

191 

164 

54 

13 Solarz S (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

242 

28 

90 

11 Leath M (D) 

W 

R 

A 

R 

W 

W 

2 

3 

R 

W 

W 

W 

A 

W 

53 

126 

30 

14 Molinari G (R) 

I 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

4 

I 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

44 

94 

32 

12 Geren P (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

9 

8 

53 

15 Green B (R) 

W 

w 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

107 

98 

52 

13 Sarpalius B (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

4 

2 

R 

A 

w 

W 

W 

W 

10 

13 

43 

16 Rangel C (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R- 

R 

R 

293 

17 

95 

14 Laughlin G (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

A 

w 

W 

W 

W 

8 

12 

40 

17 Weiss T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

208 

17 

92 

15 de la Garza E (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

R 

208 

128 

62 

18 Garcia R (D) 

R 

A 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

A 

6 

0 

A 

A 

R 

172 

6 

97 

16 Coleman R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

R 

98 

14 

88 

19 Serrano (D) 

O 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

5 

0 

O 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

10 

0 

100 

17 Stenholm C (D) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

1 

5 

R 

W 

w 

W 

W 

R 

36 

149 

19 

20 Engel E (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

A 

R 

5 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

23 

0 

100 

18 Washington (D) 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

R 

5 

0 

R 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

10 

0 

100 

21 Lowey N (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

24 

0 

100 

19 Combest L (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

9 

76 

11 

22 Fish H (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

154 

170 

48 

20 Gonzalez H (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

337 

34 

91 

24 Gilman B (R) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

221 

73 

75 

21 Smith L (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

7 

46 

13 

24 McNulty M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

23 

1 

96 

22 DeLay T (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

2 

82 

2 

25 Solomon G (R) 

A 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

2 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

45 

137 

25 

23 Bustamante A (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

78 

4 

95 

26 Boehlert S (R) 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

78 

37 

68 

24 Frost M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

143 

34 

81 

27 Martin D (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

45 

99 

31 

25 Andrews M (D) 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

73 

40 

65 

28 Walsh J (R) 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

2 

4 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

8 

16 

33 

26 Armey D (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

2 

83 

2 

29 McHugh M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

222 

46 

83 

27 Ortiz S (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

94 

16 

85 

30 Horton F (R) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

253 

111 

70 



















31 Slaughter L (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

50 

3 

94 

Utah 


















32 Paxon B (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

2 

22 

8 


















33 LaFalce J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

222 

45 

83 

1 Hansen J (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

5 

138 

3 

34 Nowak H (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

253 

22 

92 

2 Owens W (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

63 

9 

88 

35 Houghton A (R) 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

2 

4 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

18 

34 

35 

3 Nielson H (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

11 

103 

10 

North Carolina 

















Vermont 


















1 Jones W (D) 

2 Valentine T (D) 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

6 

1 

0 

5 

R 

R 

A 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

171 

51 

156 

64 

52 

44 

AL Smith P (R) 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

3 

3 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

12 

12 

50 

3 Lancaster H (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

33 

21 

61 



















4 Price D (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

4 

2 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

45 

9 

83 

Virginia 

1 Bateman H (R) 

2 Pickett O (D) 

3 Bliley T (R) 

4 Sisisky N (D) 

5 Payne L (D) 

6 Olin J (D) 

7 Slaughter D (R) 


















5 Neal S (D) 

6 Coble H (R) 

7 Rose C (D) 

8 Hefner W (D) 

9 McMillan A (R) 

10 Ballenger C (R) 

11 Clarke J (D) 

A 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

2 

1 

4 

3 

2 

2 

3 

5 

2 

3 

4 

5 
4 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

W 

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143 

13 

180 

148 

13 

7 

61 

119 

72 

95 

118 

72 

46 

21 

55 
15 
65 

56 
15 
13 
74 

W 

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W 

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0 

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6 

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W 

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W 

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11 

39 

18 

73 

15 

66 

11 

103 

15 

132 

42 

14 

48 

74 

10 

72 

12 

63 

52 

58 

13 

North Dakota 


















8 Parris S (R) 

9 Boucher R (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

2 

6 

4 

0 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

36 

93 

107 

19 

25 

83 

AL Dorgan B (D) 

R 

R 

A 

W 

R 

W 

3 

2 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

111 

35 

76 

10 Wolf F (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

25 

124 

17 

Ohio 


















Washington 


















1 Luken T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

188 

51 

79 

1 Miller J (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

30 

55 

35 

2 Gradison B (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

36 

233 

13 

2 Swift A (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

158 

30 

84 

3 Hall T (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

149 

34 

81 

3 Unsoeld J (D) 

R 

R 

A 

W 

R 

R 

4 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

22 

1 

96 

4 Oxley M (R) 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

w 

W 

W 

W 

11 

133 

8 

4 Morrison S (R) 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

36 

112 

24 

5 Gillmor P (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

w 

R 

W 

W 

2 

22 

8 

5 Foley T (D) 

S 

S 

S 

S 

S 

S 

0 

0 

S 

S 

s 

S 

S 

S 

266 

65 

80 

6 McEwen B (R) 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 


5 

W 

W 

w 

W 

w 

W 

24 

122 

16 

6 Dicks N (D) 

R 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

192 

35 

85 

7 DeWine M (R) 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

w 

R 

w 

W 

16 

99 

14 

7 McDermott J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

w 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

23 

1 

96 

8 Lukens D (R) 

W 

A 

W 

R 

W 

O 

1 

3 

W 

W 

w 

W 

w 

W 

8 

65 

11 

8 Chandler R (R) 

W 

W 

W 

w 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

19 

94 

17 

9 Kaptur M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

A 

R 

R 

102 

9 

92 

West Virginia 


















10 Miller C (R) 

11 Eckart D (D) 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

3 

6 

3 

0 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

48 

133 

296 

17 

14 

89 




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R 





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107 


94 

12 Kasich J (R) 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

R 

2 

4 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

17 

97 

15 

1 Mollohan A (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

7 

13 Pease D (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

192 

38 

83 

2 Staggers H (D) 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

4 

2 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

105 

10 

91 

14 Sawyer T (D) 

15 Wylie C (R) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

50 

4 

93 

3 Wise B (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

106 

7 

94 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

72 

265 

21 

4 Rahall N (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

199 

25 

89 

16 Regula R (R) 

17 Traficant J (D) 

W 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

4 

6 

2 

0 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

107 

84 

194 

1 

36 

99 

Wisconsin 


















18 Applegate D (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

177 

54 

77 

1 Aspin L (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

263 

44 

86 

19 Feighan E (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

106 

7 

94 

2 Kastenmeier R (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

347 

39 

90 

20 Oakar M (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

211 

15 

93 

3 Gunderson S (R) 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

41 

106 

28 

21 Stokes L (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

6 

0 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

295 

16 

95 

4 Kleczka G (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

81 

16 

84 

Oklahoma 


















5 Moody J (D) 

R 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

5 

1 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

98 

12 

89 


















6 Petri T (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

1 

5 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

45 

142 

24 

1 Inhofe J (R) 

2 Synar M (D) 

3 Watkins W (D) 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

W 

A 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

0 

4 

4 

6 

1 

2 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

R 

7 

120 

111 

46 

67 

125 

13 

64 

47 

7 Obey D (D) 

8 Roth T (R) 

9 Sensenbrenner F (R) 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

W 

R 

W 

W 

W 

W 

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5 

1 

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A 

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R 

W 

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286 

25 

16 

42 

154 

169 

87 

14 

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4 McCurdy D (D) 

5 Edwards M (R) 

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W 

W 

w 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

2 

0 

4 

6 

R 

W 

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R 

W 

R 

W 

R 

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65 

22 

76 

203 

46 

10 

Wyoming 


















6 English G (D) 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

3 

3 

R 

W 

W 

R 

R 

R 

91 

185 

33 

AL Thomas C (R) 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

6 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

0 

20 

0 



HOW YOUR SENATORS VOTED 


Alabama 

Heflin H (D) 

Shelby R (D) 

Alaska 

Murkowski F (R) 

Stevens T (R) 

Arizona 

DeConcini D (D) 

McCain J (R) 

Arkansas 

Bumpers D (D) 

Pryor D (D) 

California 

Cranston A (D) 

Wilson P (R) 

Colorado 

Armstrong W' (R) 

Wirth T (D) 

Connecticut 

Dodd C (D) 

Lieberman J (D) 

Delaware 

Biden J (D) 

Roth W (R) 

Florida 

Graham B (R) 

Mack C (R) 

Georgia 

Fowler W (D) 

Nunn S (D) 

Hawaii 

Akaka D (D) 

Inouye D (D) 

Matsunaga S (D) 

Idaho 

McClure J (R) 

Symms S (R) 

Illinois 

Dixon A (D) 

Simon P (D) 

Indiana 

Coats D (R) 

Lugar R (R) 

Iowa 

Grassley C (R) 

Harkin T (D) 

Kansas 

Dole B (R) 

Kassebaum N (R) 

Kentucky 

Ford W (D) 

McConnell M (R) 

Louisiana 

Breaux J (D) 

Johnston J (D) 

Maine 

Cohen W (R) 

Mitchell G (D) 

Maryland 

Mikulski B (D) 

Sarbanes P (D) 

Massachusetts 

Kennedy E (D) 

Kerry J (D) 

Michigan 

Levin C (D) 

Riegle D (D) 

Minnesota 

Boschwitz R (R) 

Durenberger D (R) 

Mississippi 

Cochran T (R) 

Lott T (R) 

Missouri 

Bond C (R) 

Danforth J (R) 

Montana 

Baucus M (D) 

Burns C (R) 

Nebraska 

Exon J (D) 

Kerrey R (D) 


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Bryan R (D) 

Reid H (D) 

New Hampshire 

Humphrey G (R) 

Rudman W (R) 

New Jersey 

Bradley B (D) 

Lautenberg F (D) 

New Mexico 

Bingaman J (D) 

Domenici P (R) 

New York 

D’Amato A (R) 

Moynihan D (D) 

North Carolina 

Helms J (R) 

Sanford T (D) 

North Dakota 

Burdick Q (D) 

Conrad K (D) 

Ohio 

Glenn J (D) 

Metzenbaum H (D) 

Oklahoma 

Boren D (D) 

Nickles D (R) 

Oregon 

Hatfield M (R) 

Packwood B (R) 

Pennsylvania 

Heinz J (R) 

Specter A (R) 

Rhode Island 

Chafee J (R) 

Pell C (D) 

South Carolina 

Hollings E (D) 

Thurmond S (R) 

South Dakota 

Daschle T (D) 

Pressler L (R) 

Tennessee 

Gore A (D) 

Sasser J (D) 

Texas 

Bentsen L (D) 


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Leahy P (D) 

Virginia 

Robb C (D) 

Warner J (R) 

Washington 

Adams B (D) 

Gorton S (R) 

West Virginia 

Byrd R (D) 

Rockefeller J (D) 

Wisconsin 

Kasten B (R) 

Kohl H (D) 

Wyoming 

Simpson A (R) 

Wallop M (R) 


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Utah 












Garn J (R) 

W 

W 

w 

w 

R 

R 

R 

W 

3 

5 

W 

Hatch O (R) 

W 

W 

w 

w 

R 

R 

R 

W 

3 

5 

w 


WWRRRWWW 3 5 R 

WRRRRWWW 44 R 


WRRWRRWW 44 R 

WRRWRRRW 53 W 


RRRRWRWR 62 R 

WWWWWWWW 0 8 W 


RRRRRRRW 71 R 

RRRRRRWW 62 R 


R W 


17 2 

37 5 


14 167 
27 122 


154 28 

98 7 


87 19 

67 213 


71 78 

202 19 


26 262 
36 6 


315 52 

36 7 


208 49 

220 13 


78 106 
5 145 


158 152 
145 166 


147 73 

104 45 


104 121 
328 31 


186 130 

46 350 


35 7 

57 115 


61 9 

177 43 


158 131 
3 74 


27 238 
29 191 


8 11 
222 44 


13 6 

35 155 


36 6 

2 17 


291 102 

71 8 


Key to Symbols 

R Voted Right or was paired Right. 

W Voted Wrong or was paired Wrong. 

A Absent and not paired or voted “present.” 

I Not in Congress at time. 

Number before each name shows congressional district. 


89 


85 

93 


82 

24 


9 

86 


84 


81 

94 


42 

3 


51 

47 


67 

70 


46 

91 


59 

12 


83 

33 


87 

80 


55 

4 


10 

13 


42 

83 


68 

18 


86 

11 


74 

90 


w 

R 

W 

R 

R 

R 

W 

4 

4 

W 

37 

113 

25 

R 

R 

R 

R 

W 

W 

W 

5 

3 

R 

15 

4 

79 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

1 

7 

W 

13 

173 

7 

W 

W 

W 

W 

W 

R 

W 

1 

7 

W 

17 

201 

8 






CIWA helps 
IAM gain 
major unit 



The largely Hispanic workforce at American Racing Equip- 
ment, behind Spanish "Union Yes” banners, celebrate 


Mary Ann Stuehrmann 

victory in the NLRB election of the Machinists as their 
bargaining representative. 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Machinists, bolstered by the ef- 
forts of the California Immigrant 
Workers Association, won a major 
organizing victory at American Racing 
Equipment Inc. in Los Angeles. 

The 1,200 workers, nearly all Mex- 
ican and Salvadoran immigrants, voted 
for the IAM by a 655-403 margin in a 
National Labor Relations Board election 
held last month. 

AFL-CIO Regional Director David 
Sickler noted that the win at American 
Racing was the largest manufacturing 
election victory in the Los Angeles area 
since 1964. 

Cooperation among the five unions 
earlier involved in organizing attempts 
at the plant, the IAM’s full scale effort 
and organizers “able to relate to the im- 
migrant workers” were key to the vic- 
tory, he added. 

Ernest Medrano, an AFL-CIO field 
representative who worked with CIWA 
on the project, cited a litany of prob- 
lems that workers had with American 
Racing management: promises made 
during an earlier organizing campaign 
were broken; time and motion con- 
sultants were brought in to cut jobs and 
speed up production; health insurance 
coverage was woefully inadequate, and 
workers who suffered a job injury or 
took maternity leave were not rehired. 

While workers were earning about $7 
an hour, the biggest issue was workers’ 
need for respect and dignity on the job, 
Medrano said. A key slogan in the cam- 
paign became “don’t get rid of me like 
a machine,” he noted. 


Last July, as the auto aluminum 
wheel manufacturer pressed its speed- 
up, workers walked out in a wildcat 
strike, completely shutting down pro- 
duction and winning a promise of a pay 
raise. The workers later united behind 
the IAM organizing drive. 

CIWA members joined the team of 
nine organizers in making more than 
600 house calls, and offered English- 
as-a-second-language instruction to 
ARE workers. 

CIWA is an associate member pro- 
gram of the AFL-CIO’s Los Angeles/ 
Orange County organizing committee, 
with membership made up primarily of 
immigrant workers who came into con- 
tact with the labor movement through 
legal assistance, English and civics 
classes and other programs offered by 
the city, state and national organizations 
of the AFL-CIO. 

Medrano said CIWA’s greatest con- 


tribution may have been a “know your 
rights” presentation conducted early in 
the campaign, informing the immigrant 
workers that they need not be in- 
timidated by management threats. 

“That helped to establish trust, 
especially in workers who had doubts,” 
Medrano said. He noted that a 1988 
Teamsters organizing campaign was 
stymied when management threatened 
workers, then contacted the Immigra- 
tion and Naturalization Service, scar- 
ing away many union supporters. 

“We wanted to prevent that this time, 
so workers would know what to do if 
the company raised INS fears again,” 
he said. 

Organizers also focused on workers’ 
cultural concerns, filling the IAM’s 
nearby hall with Spanish-language 
posters and materials, tying campaign 
activities to Latin American holidays 
and bringing in Farm Workers Presi- 


dent Cesar Chavez to meet with work- 
ers before the election. 

With three factory shifts, the IAM 
hall was open nearly round the clock, 
Medrano said, as volunteers and com- 
mittee members worked on handbills 
and house call schedules. 

The campaign also gained the support 
of the Hispanic community and “La 
Hermandad Mexicana,” a well-known 
publication that ran updates on the cam- 
paign, giving the drive even more 
credibility, Medrano said. 

The aggressive campaign beat back 
anti-union techniques employed by 
ARE, which hired unionbuster Ed 
Villanueva and held weekly captive- 
audience meetings from November until 
the election. 

The IAM members have elected a 
negotiating committee and are waiting 
for a company response to the call for 
contract talks. 


New York City unions gain contract, gird for budget battle 


By James B. Parks 

D espite new labor agreements, two 
major municipal unions expect 
“some pretty good battles” with New 
York City Mayor David Dinkins over 
proposed layoffs and salary freezes to 
solve the city’s fiscal crisis. 

AFSCME District Council 37 and 
Teamsters Local 237 signed a 15-month 
contract with the city in early January. 

The contract calls for a 4.5 percent 
wage increase for over 150,000 city 
employees. But Dinkins “arbitrarily” 
announced that he will freeze wages at 
the end of the contract, said Stanley 
Hill, president of District 37. 

The unions say the proposed freeze 
should be part of the bargaining for a 
new contract. ‘ ‘It is our view that at the 
end of the contract, we’ll go in and 
negotiate a new contract,” said Frank 
Mazza, spokesman for Local 237. 

Hill agreed. “The mayor cannot ar- 
bitrarily make that decision. We will 
deal with that in 1992” when the cur- 
rent contract expires, he said. 

The unions also plan to fight the 


mayor on layoffs proposed under a 
budget that Dinkins unveiled Jan. 16. 
The proposed budget, which seek to 
eliminate an expected deficit of $2.6 
billion, would cut 24,600 full- and part- 
time city jobs, with two-thirds of those 
coming through layoffs. 

“I feel very strongly that there are 
other options the city can try,” Hill 
said. Above all, the city should allow 
attrition to reduce the staff, he said. 

Hill proposed cutting city contracts 
by 40 percent, which he said would 
save $2.6 billion, and eliminating waste 
in government. 

“There are other ways to cut costs,” 
Hill said, “but we must sit down with 
the city and talk about it and not go at 
it helter-skelter as we’re doing now.” 

The contract calls for the city to first 
reduce its staff by attrition, Mazza said, 
and then let people go in inverse order 
of seniority. And the unions intend to 
make sure the city abides by the con- 
tract, he said. 

Dinkins has appointed a labor- 
management task force to resolve the 


layoff issues. “I expect some pretty 
good battles within the task force as to 
the number of reductions and how to go 
about doing it,” Mazza said. 

But both Barry Feinstein, president 
of Local 237, and Hill stressed that they 
want to work with the city to solve the 
crisis. 

“This is the time for the healing to 
start to take place,” Feinstein said. 

“The negotiations were strained and 
tough and I’m glad they’re over,” Hill 
said. “We have a long way to go to heal 
some wounds.” 

The contract calls for 1.5 percent of 
the increase from the city budget in the 
first 12 months and 2 percent from 
changes in the pension fund invest- 
ments. 

Another 1 percent will come from 
next year’s city budget to cover the last 
three months of the contract. 

The contract with the Teamsters is 
retroactive to July 1, 1990, and expires 
Sept. 30, 1991. The agreement with 
District Council 37 is retroactive to Oct. 
1, 1990, and expires at the end of 1991 . 


Feinstein and Hill said they both 
wanted larger increases, but they said 
they came away with the most they 
could get. 

The municipal unions’ contract fol- 
lowed a one-year agreement signed in 
October by the United Federation of 
Teachers, Local 2 of the national AFT. 
That pact called for a 5.5 percent wage 
increase. 

The talks began last spring in a 
friendly climate, with Dinkins sitting in 
on the opening sessions with the unions 
that had been vital to his election. 

The tone of the negotiations changed, 
however, after the contract with the 
UFT was signed. 

The municipal unions requested the 
same deal won by the UFT. The teach- 
ers’ contract was higher than the 
municipal unions’ because the school 
board was able to use state education 
funds to finance its agreement. 

The UFT contract called for 1 .5 per- 
cent in city money, 2.5 percent from 
pension fund changes and 1.5 percent 
from the Board of Education. 


Georgia AFL-CIO program to help educate workers’ children 


Savannah, Ga. 

K ids Chance Inc., a non-profit 
organization designed to provide 
educational assistance to children whose 
parents die in the line of work, was 
established by the Georgia AFL-CIO’s 
34th annual convention. 

“This worthwhile organization will 
demonstrate that people in organized 
labor are willing to see that children 
who want educational assistance receive 


it,” said Georgia AFL-CIO President 
Herb Mabry, who will serve as presi- 
dent of Kids Chance Inc. “I encourage 
each member and local to support the 
organization and urge other states to 
develop similar organizations,” he said. 

Mabry, who has served as president 
of the state federation since 1972, was 
unanimously re-elected by the conven- 
tion, which also unanimously elected 
Richard Ray as secretary-treasurer to 


replace Martha True, who retired. Ray, 
of the Flint Glass Workers, served as 
president of the Atlanta AFL-CIO for 
eight years. 

Tom Payne, business manager of 
Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 72, 
was elected executive vice president. 
The convention also elected 10 mem- 
bers to the executive board. 

Workshops were conducted on effec- 
tive communications and get-out-the- 


vote campaigns and election phone 
banks. 

In the keynote address, AFL-CIO 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Dona- 
hue praised the state federation for its 
fights against anti-union companies. 

“There are few places in this coun- 
try where trade unions have been 
harassed as much as in Georgia,” 
Donahue said, “but you’ve fought back 
and in the end you’ve survived it all.” 





Steve Yormola/AFL-CIO News 

Lane Kirkland meets with Dr. Konstantin Trenchev, leader tion, at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington. An in- 
of Podkrepa, the Bulgarian free trade union confedera- terpreter, Azalea Rosholt, is at center. 

Bulgarian unions feed democracy 

Labor addresses society's ills with charity and work 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

P odkrepa, the Bulgarian confedera- 
tion of free trade unions that helped 
bring down the government of Prime 
Minister Andrei Lukanov through a 
general strike, has now turned its atten- 
tion to the social needs of that country, 
said Dr. Konstantin Trenchev, the fed- 
eration’s leader. 

Trenchev met with AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland, along with other 
union officials and representatives of 
human rights organizations and 
members of Congress, during a visit to 
the United States arranged by the 
AFL-CIO. 

Trenchev explained how Lukanov ’s 
Bulgarian Socialist Party, the reformed 
communists, was ineffective “because 
of the fear of change. The government 
had no program and no clear idea of 
how to help the country.” 

The Podkrepa strike, ultimately sup- 
ported by the opposition group, the 
Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), 
paved the way for a new government 
of transition, led by a non-communist. 
New elections are tentatively scheduled 
for early spring. 

Meanwhile, Podkrepa has moved be- 
yond traditional union issues to an ef- 
fort to address the widespread malaise 
in Bulgarian society, Trenchev said. He 
noted that a recent poll in Sofia, the na- 
tion’s capital, showed that 14 percent 
of the population believe they will not 
make it through the winter. 

“We try to help through charity 
work,” Trenchev said. “After the 
strike in November, everyday problems 
began increasing because there were no 


A 15-member delegation of Soviet free 
trade union leaders touring the 
United States denounced the actions of 
Soviet troops in Lithuania. 

“We the representatives of the Rus- 
sian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, 
Kazakhstan and Komi Autonomous 
S.S.R. labor movement are declaring 
our strongest protest regarding the in- 
humane actions of the USSR govern- 
ment concerning the people of 
Lithuania,” the unionists said in a let- 


new rules. Prices were decontrolled. 
This will put the inflationary spiral to 
work. Entire groups of people will have 
to struggle for survival.” 

Trenchev met with Joseph Velasquez, 
director of the AFL-CIO Department of 
Community Services, to discuss what 
social and human services Podkrepa 
could offer its members. 

“Trenchev was looking for ways of 
providing services to the union mem- 
bers,” said Velasquez. “We talked 
about unemployment insurance and ac- 
cess to health care. Much of the govern- 


‘7 am deeply con- 
vinced in order to get 
results, you must in- 
vest in yourself. ” 

Dr. Konstantin Trenchev 
Podkrepa leader 


ment services we take for granted they 
don’t even have in that country.” 

“The strength of our organization 
depends on the structure, financial in- 
dependence and prestige,” Trenchev 
explained. “We are not equally 
developed now, but we have some of 
all three.” 

But Podkrepa is looking beyond the 
winter’s survival. “The only way to 
become a true labor union is when a 
market economy is a reality,” Trenchev 
said. 

Podkrepa, which means “support” in 
Bulgarian, was founded two years ago 


ter to Soviet President Mikhail 
Gorbachev. 

“During the last three years, the 
country’s leadership has clearly 
demonstrated its hostility toward its 
own people. We also recognize these 
actions by our government as a viola- 
tion of the USSR peoples’ rights for 
freedom, sovereignty and democracy.” 

The labor leaders, including miners, 
machinists, journalists, and worker ac- 
tivists, represent newly created, in- 


as Bulgaria’s first free trade union 
organization since imposition of com- 
munist rule more than 45 years ago. 
The union membership has grown to 
more than 420,000 paid members. In 
calling for the general strike that ousted 
Lukanov, Podkrepa mobilized more 
than a million workers. 

“Iam deeply convinced in order to 
get results, you must invest in. your- 
self,” said Trenchev, who is a 
pathologist by profession. Unlike U.S. 
trade unions, the Bulgarian free trade 
unions rose first from professional 
organizations. 

Soon after Podkrepa was founded, 
Trenchev and other union leaders were 
jailed. 

Under international pressure and an 
increasingly restless population, 
Trenchev was released. 

A few months following his release, 
a noticeable movement toward democ- 
racy had begun. Todor Zhivkov, long- 
time communist party leader was 
replaced. The nation’s first free elec- 
tions in more than 45 years were 
scheduled. 

Podkrepa, as the largest member of 
the UDF, used its network of members 
to help UDF candidates run strongly, 
particularly in the cities. 

While Podkrepa was growing, the 
Bulgarian Socialist Party struggled to 
form a government or to put together 
a comprehensive program of economic 
reforms, despite its victory in the June 
parliamentary elections. 

With the fall of Lukanov, hopes for 
democratic change ride with Podkrepa’ s 
coalition. 


dependent labor organizations not con- 
nected with the official Soviet govern- 
ment-sponsored unions. The unionists 
are here for 30 days to study the 
American labor movement. 

The trip is being arranged by the 
AFL-CIO and is funded through a grant 
provided by the U.S. Information 
Agency’s International Visitor Pro- 
gram. This is the second time in as 
many years that the AFL-CIO has 
hosted Soviet trade unionists. 


Foreign trade 
unionists end 
exchange tours 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

P olish and Israeli trade unionists 
recently completed tours of the 
United States as part of AFL-CIO in- 
ternational exchange programs. 

The Polish tradesmen were in the 
United States for an apprenticeship pro- 
gram that provided hands-on experience 
with construction equipment, while the 
Israeli Histadrut members completed an 
exchange tour under the auspices of the 
AFL-CIO and the Histadrut. 

The Polish trades program co- 
sponsored by the AFL-CIO Building 
and Construction Trades Department, 
Coca-Cola and the U.S. Department of 
Labor, was designed to assist Poland in 
its shift to a free-market economy while 
also easing that country’s severe hous- 
ing shortage. 

Housing is scarce in Poland due to a 
lack of materials and commitment to 
housing during nearly 50 years of com- 
munist rule, said Iron Worker Vice 
President Ray Robertson. 

Many families live in cramped flats 
with relatives, waiting years for their 
name to be called from a waiting list. 
In Poland, it can take seven years to 
complete an apartment building that 
would take seven months to build 
anywhere in the United States, he said. 

Craft training 

The training program began this sum- 
mer with 10 Polish trainers representing 
bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and 
pipefitters, electrical workers and iron 
workers. The Polish trainers spent three 
weeks at the George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies, where they were taught 
the latest in teaching methods. 

Following that session, the Poles 
traveled to Chicago, home of thousands 
of Polish- Americans. There they met 
with Polish- American trainers and ap- 
prenticeship directors from each craft 
and worked on construction projects. 

Ultimately, the goal is to train enough 
Polish construction workers to make 
construction projects within Polish 
borders both feasible and attractive to 
European and American businesses, 
Robertson said. Besides boosting Polish 
society, an accelerated construction 
pace would triple what Polish workers 
earned while working for the state-run 
Polish system, he said. 

The trainers returned to Poland to 
teach other Polish laborers at a new 
center established by the AFL-CIO and 
the Department of Labor, which is be- 
ing outfitted with equipment provided 
by U.S. companies. 

Histadrut tours 

The delegation of Histadrut leaders, 
which toured Washington, Atlanta, 
Chattanooga, Tenn., and New York, 
was briefed on the history, structure 
and organization of American labor. 

The Histadrut delegation also par- 
ticipated in workshops and lectures on 
labor-management relations, new tech- 
nologies and trends in organizing. 

The Histadrut tour followed a visit by 
an AFL-CIO delegation to Isreal. 

The AFL-CIO delegation members 
had an “opportunity to raise various 
issues of concern, such as their unions’ 
relationships with those in the West 
Bank,” said Timothy Ryan of the 
Asian- American Free Labor Institute. 

Besides Ryan, the delegation in- 
cluded: Kim Floyd, Wyoming AFL- 
CIO; Anthony Holly, Frontlash; Gerald 
Summers, Service Employees, and 
William Lloyd, SEIU and the A. Phillip 
Randolph Institute. 


Soviet free trade union leaders visiting U.S. 




Workers struggle with 


Continued from Page 1 

plant from DinnerBell, filed for 
bankruptcy protection soon after that. 
Meanwhile, deductions made by B .J. 
Packing for credit union contributions, 
support payments and other items were 
kept by the company, Bramlett said. 

Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 1099, representing the workers, 
has petitioned the bankruptcy court over 
the meatpacker’s tactics. “We got no 
severance pay, no profit-sharing, even 
though the plan was in effect for more 
than two years. Nobody knew the com- 
pany was shutting down,” Bramlett 
said. 

“My unemployment benefits ran out 
the last of August and there were no 
federal benefits. It’s been rough,” he 
said. 

Bramlett has received some help from 
the union food bank and the Veterans 
Administration for rent, water and 
heating oil payments, and the UFCW 


local helped brighten the holidays with 
Christmas gifts and food. 

Sue Thompson, coordinator of the 
Job Training Partnership Act labor pro- 
gram at the Ohio AFL-CIO, pointed out 
that workers need 20 credit weeks of 
employment — about five months — to 
qualify for jobless benefits in the state. 

“It’s a terribly depressed area” and 
employers are using this to their full ad- 
vantage, including hiring part-time 
workers who will not be eligible for 
benefits, she said. 

As the recession deepens, “I don’t 
know what’s going to be there for 
workers seeking jobs in six months or 
a year,” she added. 

Under the current economic condi- 
tions, workers are hard-pressed to find 
jobs that will support families, said 
Leonard Ciskowski, a former Chrysler 
worker and UAW member. 

“I drive 50 or 60 miles some days 
just to be able to fill out an applica- 


AFL-CIO panel documents 
Cuba worker rights abuses 


Miami 

T he AFL-CIO Labor Committee for 
a Free Cuba finalized its documen- 
tation of cases of forced labor, retalia- 
tion and other worker rights violations 
in Cuba during a regional meeting here 
Jan. 17-18. 

The committee, chaired by AFL-CIO 
Vice President John DeConcini of the 
Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers, will present the documenta- 
tion of rights abuses to the International 
Labor Organization (ILO) through the 
International Confederation of Free 
Trade Unions (ICFTU) during an ILO 
meeting in March. 

“With this action, the case against 
Cuba for violations of worker rights 
will be officially re-opened,” DeCon- 
cini said. 

The Miami meeting was the second 
regional meeting conducted by the com- 
mittee, which also has distributed a 
worker rights questionnaire to a number 
of individuals and organizations with 
first-hand knowledge about conditions 
in Cuba. 

The response to the questionnaire, 
DeConcini said, “was tremendous and 
without this help our task would have 
been impossible to accomplish.” 
Besides gathering information on 
worker rights abuses, the committee has 
mounted an appeal for the release of 
two trade unionists who have been in 
Cuban jails for 25 years. Mario Chanes, 
leader of the brewery workers union in 
Puente Grande, and Ernesto Diaz, a 
transport worker and fisherman, are 
thought to be the longest-held political 
prisoners in the world. 

Last September, members of the 
committee attempted to deliver to the 
Cuban interest section of the Czecho- 


slovakian embassy in Washington a 
package of letters written by U.S. union 
leaders to Fidel Castro demanding the 
release of Chanes and Diaz. To date, 
there has been no Cuban reply to the 
appeals. 

“We will not give up,” DeConcini 
vowed. “We will recommend to the 
AFL-CIO Executive Council to launch 
an international appeal for the release 
of these two political prisoners and 
many others.” 

Among the individuals speaking to 
the committee in Miami were: Angel 
Cofino, exiled labor leader and former 
political prisoner; Jorge Bello, Com- 
mission of United Cuban Workers; 
Agustin Garcia, National Cuban Com- 
mission; Conrado Rodriguez, Indepen- 
dent Trade Union Action; Tony 
Calatayud, Independent Cuban Party; 
Huber Matos, Independent and Demo- 
cratic Cuba, and Antonio Navarro, 
Radio Marti. 

In addition to DeConcini, the AFL- 
CIO Labor Committee for a Free Cuba 
includes: Leon Lynch, Steelworkers 
vice president; Marty Urra, president 
of the South Florida AFL-CIO; William 
C. Doherty, executive director, 
American Institute for Free Labor 
Development; Murray Sisselman, 
president, United Teachers of Dade, 
AFT; Jack Otero, vice president of the 
Transportation Communications Union; 
Ed Pulver, secretary-treasurer of the 
New Jersey AFL-CIO; Jose Collado, 
Carpenters representative; Rick Icaza, 
president of Food and Commercial 
Workers Local 770; Olga Diaz, vice 
president of the Clothing and Textile 
Workers, and Robert Harbrant, presi- 
dent of the AFL-CIO Food and Allied 
Service Trades Department. 


layoffs amid recession 


tion,” Ciskowski said. “But when I get 
there, I find out the job is $4 or $6 an 
hour with no benefits. I have five peo- 
ple to support and without health in- 
surance a doctor won’t even give me the 
time of day.” 

The nation’s economic woes are ex- 
acerbated by the government’s inactiv- 
ity over the past decade, said Steel- 
workers President Lynn Williams, testi- 
fying for the AFL-CIO before the 
Senate committee. “This recession has 
many ghosts from the 1980s hanging 
over it. However, concerted national 
action is needed to turn the economy 
onto the right growth path.” 

That siren also was sounded by the 
committee’s chairman, Sen. Edward 
M. Kennedy (D-Mass). “It is time the 
Bush administration got serious about 
fighting this recession,” he said. 

Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the lone 
Republican at the hearing, sympathized 
with the plight of the worker witnesses, 


noting that “the great legacy of the 
Reagan administration is that we have 
forgotten too many Americans.” 

Harvard economist John Kenneth 
Galbraith urged the committee to look 
at unemployment not in the hard 
unemotional numbers, but in “what lies 
behind those numbers — the personal 
and family trauma, the loss of self- 
esteem, the tight-lipped fear as to the 
future, the wonder as to whether there 
will be a job and income soon or ever 
again. 

“The government should abandon the 
idea of balancing the budget as long as 
the recession persists,” Galbraith said. 
“In addition, the Federal Reserve 
should make substantial reductions in 
interest rates.” 

Economist Robert Eisner of North- 
western University said the government 
should not accept as natural unemploy- 
ment rates in the range of 6 to 7 per- 
cent. 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Monsignor George Higgins, right, recently celebrated Mass in commemora- 
tion of two trade unionists, Mike Hammer and Mark Pearlman of the 
American Institute for Free Labor Development, and Jose Rodolfo Viera 
of the Salvadoran land reform agency, who were killed in El Salvador 10 
years ago. Attending the services were, from left: the Rev. John McCor- 
mick; Hammer's widow, Marita; AIFLD Executive Director William Doherty; 
Pearlman's widow, Anne Pearlman Morton; her husband, Bubba Morton; 
and Mike Hammer Jr. 


Maritime unions crew vessels 
headed to support Desert Storm 


M aritime unions continue to answer 
the call by the Military Sealift 
Command for support of Operation 
Desert Storm. 

A total of 67 ships from the Ready 
Reserve Fleet have been activated for 
service — including 20 in recent 
weeks — since the crisis began in the 
Persian Gulf region in early August, ac- 
cording to the Maritime Administra- 
tion, which maintains the 96-vessel 
RRF fleet. 

Maritime union hiring halls have 
been operating at an all-out pace to meet 
the demand for crews, and Mar Ad Ad- 
ministrator Warren G. Leback praised 


the U.S. merchant marine for its quick 
and cooperative response. 

The number of qualified merchant 
seamen has dropped from 43,000 to 
12,800 since 1970 as the U.S. -flag 
maritime fleet declined sharply in the 
last two decades, Mar Ad noted. The 
call-up of more than 60 RRF vessels has 
required the services of 2,340 merchant 
mariners, according to the agency, 
creating severe pressure on the 
maritime unions to fill the positions. 

It commended “the tireless efforts of 
seafaring labor organizations in lining 
up active and retired members to meet 
national defense needs.” 


Government must act to balance Japan trade, study says 


T he U.S. government must take direct 
action to restore a balanced trade 
relationship with Japan, instead of try- 
ing to persuade the Japanese to allow 
more imports into the country, the 
Economic Policy Institute argues in a 
new study. 

The conclusions represent a major 
shift for the study’s author, Fordham 
University economics professor 
Dominick Salvatore. The Economic 
Policy Institute commissioned the study 
by Salvatore. 

Salvatore’s study, “The Japanese 


Trade Challenge and the U.S. 
Response,” found that Japan’s interna- 
tional economic strategy flagrantly 
violates the rules of open trade. It com- 
bines domestic protection for develop- 
ing industries with aggressive targeting 
of U.S. markets, the study said. 

The result is that the trade imbalance 
with Japan accounted for more than 60 
percent of the increase in the overall 
U.S. trade deficit in the 1980s. 

Each $1 billion in the trade deficit 
translates into 25,000 lost American 
jobs. 


The government should take strong, 
temporary retaliatory action to correct 
the imbalance, including a 15 percent 
multilateral import surcharge on 
specific manufactured goods to curb im- 
ports and give the U.S. bargaining 
leverage with Japan. 

The surcharge would stay in effect 
until Japan opens up its markets more 
widely to American exports of high tech 
and manufactured products and the 
trade deficit has significantly decreased. 

Salvatore also recommended more 
government support for strategic 


domestic industries that have been 
targeted for export drives by Japan or 
other foreign countries. 

To increase American competitive- 
ness, Salvatore said the government 
should increase its support for worker 
education and job training. 

Salvatore said Japan targeted the U.S. 
computer industry in the 1980s and the 
commercial aircraft and space in- 
dustries in the 1990s. Unless it takes 
corrective measures now, the United 
States will lose its dominance in these 
areas, the study concluded. 





Unemployment picture 

December, 1990 





Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 


Escalating 
jobless rate 
exceeds 6 % 

By John R. Oravec 

A nother 263,000 workers were swept 
into the jobless vacuum in Decem- 
ber as the nation’s unemployment rate 
climbed to 6.1 percent — the highest 
since mid- 1987. 

With the recession deepening since 
November, when the jobless rate was 
5.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics counted 7.6 million as official- 
ly unemployed in its year-end report, 

1 million more than in December 1990. 
With additional pending layoffs and 
companies announcing more job cut- 
backs, the employment outlook for 
1991 turned bleak. 

The gloomy prospects were reflected 
in the fourth quarter BLS data, as the 
number of discouraged workers — 
people who want to work but are not 
looking for jobs because they believe 
they could not find any — increased by 

110,000 to 940,000. On top of that, 
workers in part-time jobs who want 
full-time jobs increased by 140,000 to 
5.6 million. 

As a result, AFL-CIO chief econom- 
ist Rudy Oswald noted, 14.1 million 
workers were hit by partial or total 
unemployment in December. 

Only about four in 10 of the official- 
ly unemployed, 3. 1 million, were draw- 
ing jobless benefits in December. That 
left 4.5 million without compensation 
who could not qualify under the 
stringent regulations. 

The spreading recession took its toll 
in jobs in major industrial states, with 
jobless rates soaring to 7.4 percent in 
Massachusetts, 7.3 percent in Michigan, 
7.2 percent in Texas and 7.1 percent in 
California. 

Job losses were heavy throughout 
most sectors of the country in 
December, . pursuing a deteriorating 
trend since mid-year. 

BLS Commissioner Janet Norwood 
told the Joint Economic Committee of 
Congress that “virtually every major 
demographic group — whether defined 
by age, gender or race — has seen a 
rise in joblessness over the June-to- 
December period.’’ 

For adult males, the December rate 
rose to 5.6 percent; adult women, 5.3 
percent; whites, 5.3 percent; unchanged 
for blacks at 12.2 percent; Hispanics, 
9.3 percent, and little changed for 
teenagers at 16.6 percent. 

Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), chair- 
man of the JEC, said the year-end BLS 
data flashed warning signs that the 
recession may be neither shallow nor 
short, as the Bush administration and 
some private economists have pre- 
dicted. 

Sarbanes noted that the jobless rate 
has risen on the average of 3 percen- 
tage points in postwar recessions. That 
should push the rate to more than 8 per- 
cent, figuring that the pre-recession low 
rate was 5.1 percent in March 1989. 
Bush administration economists have 
estimated the rate will peak around 6.8 
percent. 

BLS said nonfarm payroll employ- 
ment declined in December by 75,000, 
a bit less than in the previous two 
months. The largest losses came in 


retail trade, 50,000; manufacturing, 
35,000, and construction, 30,000. 

Factories have laid off 570,000 
workers since December 1989 and 
slashed nearly 2 million jobs over the 
last two years. Construction employ- 
ment is down 22 1 ,000 over the year and 
about 275,000 from January 1989. 

Jobs in health care services increased 
by 55,000 in December and are up 
about 600,000 over the year. Jobs in 
education increased by 300,000 during 
the same period. 

In early January, Sears, Roebuck and 
Co. said it would lay off 21,000 
workers at its more than 800 stores 
across the country. It cited disappoint- 
ing sales as the reason for the cutbacks. 

And shortly after the Department of 
Defense canceled plans for the develop- 
ment of the A- 12 Navy warplane, three 
Pentagon contractors announced layoff 
plans that will affect some members of 
the Machinists, Electronic Workers and 
the UAW. 

McDonnell Douglas Corp. said 5,000 
employees could lose their jobs within 
a few days and General Dynamics 
Corp. said it would begin laying off 

4.000 workers in Fort Worth, Tex., and 
Tulsa, Okla. General Electric Co., 
meanwhile, said it would lay off an “un- 
disclosed number’’ of the 8,500 em- 
ployees at its Lynn, Mass., plant 
because of the A- 12 cancellation. 

Ford Motor Co. announced it would 
lay off some 26,000 workers during 
January with the temporary shutdown 
of 12 assembly plants in the United 
States and Canada. Eighteen General 
Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. 
plants were not expected to resume pro- 
duction until late January, leaving some 

47.000 U.S. and Canadian workers on 
temporary layoff. 

In other reports: 

• The Commerce Department said 


new orders for manufactured goods 
plunged $14.7 billion in November, the 
sharpest one-month decline on record. 
The 5.9-percent drop in factory orders 
to $235 billion exceeded the previous 
record 5.5-percent fall to $227 billion 
in January 1990. 

• The government’s index of 
leading economic indicators dropped 
1.2 percent in November, the fifth 
straight monthly decline. The Com- 
merce Department said eight of the in- 
dex’s 1 1 components were on the down- 
side. Three components, paced by 
higher stock prices, were on the upside. 
But stock prices have nose-dived in re- 
cent weeks as the Dow Jones industrials 
index skidded more than a 100 points 
in the first trading week of the new 
year. 

• Industrial production plunged at 
an annual rate of 8 percent in the fourth 
quarter of 1990, the Federal Reserve 
Board reported. In December, produc- 
tion was off 0.6 percent after falling 1 .8 
percent in November. For the year, out- 
put dropped 1 .4 percent from the 1989 
level. The central bank also said the 
operating rate of the nation’s factories, 
mines and utilities fell 0.6 of a point to 

80.4 percent in December — the lowest 
level since April 1987. Overall factory 
output slipped 0.9 percent in December, 
the third consecutive drop. Durable 
goods production was hit the hardest, 
with declines of 1 .2 percent in October, 

2.4 percent in November and 1.5 per- 
cent in December. 

• Retail sales edged up an anemic 
3.8 percent last year, the slowest pace 
since the 3-percent rise in the 1982 
recession, the Commerce Department 
said. Sales in December fell 0.4 percent 
from November as retailers were socked 
with a dismal Christmas shopping 
season that usually provides about one- 
half of their annual profits. 


Inflation rate 
at 9-year high 
in ’90 — 6.1% 

I nflation in 1990 put its harshest bite 
on workers in nine years as the 
government’s consumer price index for 
urban wage earners shot up 6. 1 percent. 

In the preceding three years, the cost 
of living increased an average of 4.5 
percent annually, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics reported. 

Exploding petroleum prices — 
touched off by the Persian Gulf 
crisis — fueled the calamity, including 
hikes of 36.7 percent at the gas pumps 
and 28.7 percent for heating oil. 

Overall energy costs in the CPI-W 
advanced 19.2 percent over the year, 
compared with 5.2 percent in 1989, 
BLS reported. Natural gas and electri- 
city rates rose only 1.4 percent last 
year to lower the overall increase in the 
index’s energy component. 

Inflation took its sharpest upturn in 
August, September and October before 
retail price increases slowed in 
November and December when the 
CPI-W advanced 0.3 percent. 

The cost of medical care continued to 
climb during 1990, rising 9.1 percent, 
compared with 8.3 percent in 1989, and 
remained as one of the fastest increas- 
ing components in the BLS index. In the 
final quarter of the year, health care 
costs were rising at an annual rate of 
9.8 percent. 

In a separate report, BLS said real 
average weekly earnings increased 0.9 
percent in December, but were down 
1.6 percent over the year because pay 
gains did not keep pace with the higher 
prices. Workers are even worse off 
over the decade, AFL-CIO economist 
Anne Draper pointed out, with real 
weekly pay last month 5.4 percent 
below that of December 1980. 

Gulf war clouds 
economic picture 

H ostilities in the Middle East cloud 
the outlook for the U.S. economy, 
which slipped into recession well before 
the Jan. 15 United Nations deadline for 
Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, AFL-CIO 
chief economist Rudy Oswald said. 

Forecasts of a mild and brief reces- 
sion “may be too upbeat,” Oswald 
warned. 

He noted that the consensus projec- 
tion among economic forecasters now 
is that the total output of goods and 
services will fall by 0. 1 percent in 1991 
from last year’s feeble level. And some 
forecasters in the group foresee a worse 
recession with gross national product 
declining by more than 1 percent. 

“Such a down year is quite possible 
in view of announced layoffs, the many 
areas of weakness in the economy, in- 
cluding weak real estate and banking 
sectors, and highly leveraged com- 
panies with heavy debt service obliga- 
tions,” Oswald said. 

“The economy is much weaker and 
more vulnerable to a deep and long 
recession than is widely recognized at 
this time. To counter the recession, 
direct government action is needed to 
alleviate the sufferings of the 
unemployed and to turn the economy 
around.” 





AFL-CIO staff additions 
to boost communications 



T he AFL-CIO has bolstered its head- 
quarters communications program 
with several recent staff additions to the 
Legislative Department, the Depart- 
ment of Information and the Labor In- 
stitute of Public Affairs. 

The Legislative Department will have 
a full-time congressional news media 
representative for the first time. 

David Saltz, 38, joins the AFL-CIO 
as the primary media representative on 
legislative issues. He was previously 
managing editor of the Mine Workers 
Journal and also worked on media rela- 
tions and other writing for the UMWA. 
A member of the Newspaper Guild, 
Saltz graduated from Washington 
University in St. Louis with a degree 
in history in 1977 and worked for 
several news organizations, including 
The Greenville (Miss.) Delta Demo- 
crat-Times and Jack Anderson’s syn- 
dicated column. 

James B. Parks has joined the 
Department of Information as an assis- 
tant editor of the AFL-CIO News. 
Parks, 41, was an assistant metro editor 
at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the 
Baltimore Sun. A native of Asheville, 
N.C., he has a bachelor’s degree from 
the University of North Carolina and is 
a former alternate board member of the 
National Association of Black Journal- 
ists. 

The Department of Information also 
has hired two media relations special- 
ists, Colleen M. O’Neill and Muriel H. 
Cooper and one staff writer, Sharolyn 
A. Rosier, all of whom will contribute 
to the AFL-CIO News and media cam- 
paigns. 

O’Neill, 28, has a bachelor’s degree 
from University of North Carolina and 
a master’s degree in political science 
from American University. She worked 
for the North Carolina Democratic Par- 
ty during the 1984 election and was a 


copy editor at the Raleigh (N.C.) News 
and Observer. O’Neill will concentrate 
on the health care reform campaign for 
the AFL-CIO. 

Cooper, 32, has a bachelor’s degree 
in broadcast journalism from Howard 
University and a master’s in public rela- 
tions management from American 
University. She worked as both a 
newspaper and television reporter in 
Macon, Ga., and is a member of the 
Newspaper Guild. 

Rosier, 24, also earned her jour- 
nalism degree from Howard Universi- 
ty before becoming a legislative assis- 
tant to U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler (D- 
Ga.). A native of Augusta, Ga., Rosier 
will write for the AFL-CIO News as 
well as handle media inquiries. 

Additions at LIPA include Richard 
Foster, the assistant director of the in- 
stitute, Deborah Sedillo Dugan, senior 
coordinator for media and marketing, 
and Pauline Steinhorn, supervising 
producer. 

Foster, 40, joined LIPA last 
September from Gannett Television’s 
Washington bureau, where he was 
assignment manager and producer. He 
worked in television news in Atlanta, 
Baltimore and Miami before coming to 
Washington. 

Dugan, 31, who was public affairs 
director at WTTG-TV in Washington 
and a staff member on the Mondale- 
Ferraro campaign, joined LIPA last 
summer and was instrumental in plan- 
ning and distributing the federation’s 
health care reform television adver- 
tisements in the fall. 

Steinhorn, 38, joined LIPA in 
November after working as a producer, 
director and editor of Public Broad- 
casting System documentaries and 
children’s programs. Her credits in- 
clude editing for PBS’s MacNeil/Lehr 
“Newshour.” 


TS 


AFL-CIO Vice President Susan 
Bianchi-Sand, president of the Flight 
Attendants, has been elected to a one- 
year term as an at-large member of the 
board of the National Committee on 
Pay Equity. The NCPE, founded in 
1979, is a national coalition that works 
to eliminate sex- and race-based wage 
discrimination and to achieve pay 
equity. 

Members of the Marine Engineers 
licensed division elected Gordon M. 
Ward as chairman in secret ballot elec- 
tion. Also elected were Joel E. Bern as 
vice chairman and three directors, 
Mark Austin, Nick Hajdu, and Alex 
Shandrowsky. MEBA President Gene 
DeFries congratulated the newly 
elected division officials, and said, “I 
look forward to working with you as 
you take your place as the newest 
members of our union’s leadership 
team.” 

AFL-CIO Vice President William 
Wynn, president of the Food and Com- 
mercial Workers, will be the deputy 
marshall at the Martin Luther King Jr. 
Holiday Parade in Atlanta Monday, 
Jan. 21 . This is the Sixth Annual Parade 
sponsored by the King Holiday Com- 
mission. 

President John J. Barry of the Elec- 
trical Workers has been appointed to the 
city management advisory committee 
by Washington Mayor Sharon Pratt 
Dixon. The committee will advise 
Dixon on management policies and ef- 
ficiency. Its primary task is to help pin- 
point government excesses and offer 
solutions to streamline city operations. 


Dan Dolan, former president of the 
Communications Workers Local 7400 
and a member of the Nebraska AFL- 
CIO executive board, has been named 
the state’s Commissioner of Labor by 
the new governor, Ben Nelson. Nelson 
also named Fernando “Butch” Lecu- 
ona III, a special assistant with 
Operating Engineers Local 571, to be 
deputy commissioner. 

Arnold Cantor has retired from the 
AFL-CIO headquarters staff after 15 
years as assistant director of economic 
research. He joined the department in 
1968 as an economist. In the 1950s, 
Cantor had been research director for 
the Upholsterers and later was an 
economist at the U.S. Labor Depart- 
ment, Commerce Department and the 
federation’s Industrial Union Depart- 
ment. He was a member of the News- 
paper Guild. 

Don Judge has been elected ex- 
ecutive secretary of the Montana AFL- 
CIO, replacing Jim Murry, who 
resigned after 25 years with the state 
federation. Judge, 42, who had been the 
state federation’s political director and 
lobbyist, will serve out Murry’s term 
until elections are held at the August 
convention. Murry, 55, will direct a 
newly created national basic skills 
upgrading program for steelworkers 
whose jobs are being transformed by 
technology. 

Bren Leiss has joined the AFL-CIO 
Department of Organization and Field 
Services as a staff representative in the 
office of state government liaison. 
Leiss, 48, has been with the federation 
for 18 years, most recently with the 
Department of Information. She will 
oversee the production of the State Ties 
newsletter, among other duties. Also 
joining the state government liaison of- 
fice is Maria G. Hernandez, who served 
on the staffs of Rep. Esteban E. Torres 
(D-Calif.) and former Rep. Robert 
Garcia (D-N.Y.). Hernandez, 35, also 
worked for the National Democratic 
Committee. 



Convention Calendar 


AFL-CIO and international affiliates, state central bodies and fraternal 


ORGANIZATION 

Woodworkers 

Louisiana 

Arizona 

Plate Printers 

Metal Polishers 

Novelty & Production 

Arkansas 

Flint Glass Workers 
Grain Millers 

Longshoremen & Warehousemen 

Pattern Makers 

Musicians 

Michigan 

Utility Workers 

Newspaper Guild 

Teamsters 

CWA 

TCU 

Virginia 

Railroad Signalman 
TV & Radio Artists 
School Administrators 
Iron Workers 
Boilermakers 
Plumbers & Pipefitters 
OCAW 

Locomotive Engineers 
Iowa 
Texas 
Wyoming 
Sheet Metal 


DATE 

March 4-6 
March 18-20 
May 1-3 
May 6-12 
May 18-24 
May 20-23 
June 2-5 
June 3-15 
June 3-5 
June 3-7 
June 10-14 
June 17-20 
June 19-21 
June 21 -July 2 
June 24-28 
June 24-28 
June 24-26 
July 14-19 
July 18-20 
July 22-26 
July 25-28 
July 31 -Aug. 4 
Aug. 5-9 
Aug. 11-18 
Aug. 12-16 
Aug. 12-16 
Aug. 19-23 
Aug. 20-22 
Aug. 21-24 
Aug. 23-24 
Aug. 26-30 
Aug. 26-30 


Steelworkers 

Allied Industrial Workers 

United Transportation Union 

Laborers 

Vermont 

Washington 

North Dakota 

Rhode Island 

Minnesota 

Nebraska 

Oregon 

Kansas 

Delaware 

Carpenters 

Electrical Workers 

North Carolina 

Alabama 

West Virginia 

New Hampshire 

Tennessee 

Train Dispatchers 

Flight Attendants 

Maine 

Oklahoma 


Pittsburgh 

St. Louis 

Honolulu 

Las Vegas 

Rutland 

Everett 

Jamestown 

Providence 

Minneapolis 

Grand Island 

Portland 

Topeka 

Rehoboth Beach 

Atlantic City, N.J, 

St. Louis 

Charlotte 

Birmingham 

Charleston 

Conway 

Knoxville 

Las Vegas 

Honolulu 

Rockport 

Oklahoma City 


Reno, Nev. 
Baton Rouge 
Tucson 

Lake George, N.Y. 
Las Vegas 
Orlando, Fla. 
Hot Springs 
Hollywood, Fla. 
Las Vegas 
Seattle 
Las Vegas 
Las Vegas 
Detroit 

Hollywood, Fla. 

Montreal 

Orlando, Fla. 

San Francisco 

San Francisco 

Norfolk 

Las Vegas 

Washington 

San Francisco 

Las Vegas 

Las Vegas 

Las Vegas 

Denver 

Cleveland 

Waterloo 

Austin 

Casper 

Montreal 

Anaheim, Calif. 


Meetings 


Feb. 18-22 
March 20-21 
May 1-2 
May 3-6 
May 13-17 
Nov. 4-7 


AFL-CIO Executive Council 
IUD Legislative Conference 
Secretary-Treasurers Conf. 
Union-Industries Show 
AFL-CIO Lawyers Conf. 
AFL-CIO Convention 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

Washington 

Minneapolis 

Minneapolis 

San Francisco 

Detroit 


Workers 
Government Employees 




Daily News 
unions press 
boycott drive 



Milwaukee Labor Press 

Bruce Colburn, president of ATU Local 998 and head of leads the call for justice for Greyhound strikers at a 
the Milwaukee central body's solidarity committee, rally outside Milwaukee's federal building. 

Unionists rally at NLRB hearing on Greyhound 


Continued from Page 2 

the nine unions went out on strike Oct. 
25 after working six months without a 
contract. 

Theodore Kheel, a legal adviser to the 
strikers, said the management an- 
nouncement on selling or closing down 
“shows the labor movement can with- 
stand an attack as gross” as the Daily 
News’ effort to destroy the unions. But, 
Kheel said, the announcement was not 
good news for the 2,300 workers. 

Several issues must be settled before 
any sale can take place, Kheel said. 
First is deciding who will assume the 
shutdown liabilities, which he estimated 
at $150 million. These include 
severance pay and unfunded pensions. 

Second is determining the status of 
several Daily News lawsuits against the 
striking unions, including one that 
charges Kheel conspired to coerce the 
paper into selling. 

The News also must establish what 
it has to sell, particularly since the paper 
has few advertisers and very little 
circulation. 

Meanwhile, a Printing Trades Coun- 
cil committee is continuing to make 
plans to pressure the Tribune Co. into 
settling the strike. And the striking 
unions continue to meet separately with 
the News management and federal 
mediators. 

The New York Times reported that 
the unions had agreed to drop its request 
that 800 replacement workers be let go, 
provided that all striking workers return 
to work. 

In other actions, the striking unions 
set up a 900 number to help support the 
strike. Callers can hear the unions’ side 
of the story and learn how to help the 
strike by calling 900/740-4777. 

Contributions to the strike fund 
should go to the Daily News Boycott 
Office, 218 West 40th Street, Room 
204, New York, N.Y. 10018. 


Milwaukee 

U nion members rallied outside the 
Reuss Federal Plaza at the start of 
a National Labor Relations Board hear- 
ing on a complaint of unfair labor prac- 
tices against Greyhound Lines Inc. 

The NLRB complaint charges that 
Greyhound violated federal law in 
bargaining and illegally fired 
Amalgamated Transit Union members 
because of their union activities. 

With strains of “scabs out, union in” 
and “Solidarity Forever,” a crowd of 
100 ATU members and union sup- 
porters showed their support for the 
9,300 Greyhound strikers, who have 
been walking picket lines since 
March 2. 

Administrative Law Judge Robert 
Giannasi must determine whether 
Greyhound violated the law when it 
unilaterally declared an impasse in 
bargaining and imposed its so-called 
final offer, as the NLRB general 
counsel outlined in a complaint. 

The complaint also states that 
Greyhound illegally fired strikers, 


coerced and threatened employees, and 
refused to provide ATU with informa- 
tion. 

The NLRB complaint also is seeking 
an order requiring Greyhound to rehire 
strikers who were victims of the bus 
line’s illegal practices and to award 
back pay. Greyhound, which filed for 
federal bankruptcy protection in June, 
has hired about 3,000 strikebreakers. 

ATU estimated that the back pay 
owed exceeds $90 million, with Grey- 
hound’s liability increasing monthly. 
While not admitting any wrongdoing, 
Greyhound has called for any back pay 
award to be limited to $40 million. 

After reviewing the facts, Giannasi 
will issue a ruling and make a recom- 
mendation to the full board. That deci- 
sion then can be appealed through the 
federal appeals court, an action that 
could take several years to resolve. 

ATU noted that the Greyhound com- 
plaint is one of the largest unfair labor 
practice cases considered by the board 
in recent years and one that could have 
far-reaching effects on company at- 


tempts to hire strikebreakers as perma- 
nent replacements. 

At the rally, Greyhound workers 
were joined by members of the Brewery 
Workers, Steelworkers, Office and Pro- 
fessional Employees, Communications 
Workers, UAW, the Carpenters, the 
Operating Engineers, the Ladies’ Gar- 
ment Workers and other unions, as well 
as the Milwaukee AFL-CIO. The 
demonstration gained public approval 
as well, as passing motorists honked 
their horns in support. 

The evening prior to the opening of 
the hearing, union members gathered at 
the Milwaukee AFL-CIO headquarters. 
They heard from union members locked 
in similar disputes with employers — 
workers who had been replaced at In- 
ternational Paper, Cudahy and Eastern 
Airlines. 

The crowd called for legislation to 
ban the permanent replacement of 
strikers and held a moment of silence 
for Robert Waterhouse, the California 
ATU member who was crushed on the 
picket line by a scab-driven bus. 




UI reform , jobs plans 
sought for recession 

Congress should act to help workers 
and their families who are suffering 
under a flawed unemployment compen- 
sation system and a deepening reces- 
sion, the AFL-CIO said. 



Key labor measures 
top Congress's agenda 

The 102nd Congress began its session 
by assigning top priority to health care, 
civil rights, family and medical leave 
and Hatch Act reform. 



CIWA helps IAM 
gain major unit 

With the help of the California Im- 
migrant Workers Association, the 
Machinists win a big organizing victory 
at a Los Angeles firm that manufactures 
auto wheels. 



Rail unions hopeful 
after panel's report 

A presidential emergency board issues 
recommendations to end a three-year 
dispute between railroad workers in 1 1 
unions and 56 rail transport companies. 



AFL-CIO grades 
101st Congress 

The AFL-CIO ’s 1990 voting record 
compiles votes by members of the 101st 
Congress on labor and policy issues im- 
portant to working Americans. 



Calendar lists 
1991 conventions 

The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions 
and state central bodies announce their 
scheduled conventions and conferences 
for the coming year. 



No one is authorized The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 

Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


1 / 21/91 






Labor scorns 
U.S.-Mexico 
trade accord 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy examines the transcript of the Kirkland speaks at a Capitol Hill news conference. At 
AFL-CIO health care hearings while President Lane right is Rep. Henry Waxman. 

Health care campaign reaches Hill 

AFL-CIO presents evidence of America's deplorable ’ system 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he AFL-CIO reported to Capitol Hill 
on its campaign for national health 
care reform as President Lane Kirkland 
presented Congress with the findings of 
the federation’s eight regional hearings. 

Kirkland, characterizing the state of 
America’s health care as “deplorable,” 
urged fundamental reform of the system 
during a Jan. 29 news conference at- 
tended by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy 
(D-Mass.) and Donald W. Riegle Jr. 
(D-Mich.) and Rep. Henry Waxman 
(D-Calif.). 

“What we found — and what the 
hearing record shows — is a growing 


problem that is no longer exclusive to 
the fringes of our society,” Kirkland 
told the lawmakers. “It’s now hitting 
at the solid, working middle class — 
the backbone of the country — people 
who do their level best to pay their bills 
and meet their obligations.” 

The AFL-CIO heard from 94 wit- 
nesses at hearings last fall in Provi- 
dence, R.I.; Chicago; San Francisco; 
Louisville, Ky.; Detroit; New Bruns- 
wick, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala., and 
Austin, Texas. They included victims 
of the system, health care professionals, 
elected officials, union members and in- 
surance industry representatives. 


In his remarks, Kennedy called the 
488-page transcript from those hearings 
“must reading for every member of 
Congress,” and thanked the AFL-CIO 
for the work in documenting the health 
care crisis. 

“This document is powerful for all 
workers — Americans are just a pink 
slip away from no insurance,” he said. 

Kennedy noted that “this is the year 
for action. Labor, business, hospitals 
and physicians and consumers are 
mobilized as never before, and it is time 
for Congress to act.” He pledged that 
the 102nd Congress would be known 
Continued on Page 12 


By Mike Hall 

T he AFL-CIO has placed containment 
of a potentially disastrous U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement high on 
labor’s agenda for the 102nd Congress. 

In one of the first battles of the new 
session, the federation will seek to get 
the trade agreement off the “fast 
track,” a procedure that avoids a 
thorough congressional debate. Senate 
hearings are scheduled Feb. 6. 

The AFL-CIO legislative agenda con- 
tains a broad range of workplace, fam- 
ily, social and trade issues. Many of the 
issues, such as striker replacement, 
Hatch Act reform, family and medical 
leave and civil rights are carryovers 
from the last session. 

Broad-ranging agenda 

New concerns, besides the U.S.- 
Mexico free trade proposal, include 
health care legislation, major OSHA 
reform, an anti-recession program and 
reauthorization of the nation’s highway 
and mass transit program. (See list, 
Page 3). 

A free trade agreement with Mexico 
would allow complete access for 
Mexican-made products to enter the 
United States. These items are made by 
Mexican workers, most making less 
than $1 per hour. If these low- wage 
products flood the American market- 
place, thousands of U.S. workers could 
lose their jobs. 

In addition, free trade could allow 
Mexican contractors to bid on 
American construction projects and 
allow them to use Mexican crews, 
which would throw thousands of U.S. 
construction workers out of an already 
slumping industry. 

The fast track authority, created 
under the 1988 Trade Act, means the 
administration can negotiate any deal it 
wants, draft the specific legislation and 
leave Congress with only a simple yes 
Continued on Page 3 


Deregulation blamed for disintegrating airline industry 


“Today, major air carriers are dis- 
integrating and the administration is 
looking for foreign saviors to fix an in- 


nation’s oldest carriers, including Pan 
American World Airways and Trans 
World Airlines, are scrambling for 


9 


A chronicle of mismanagement 

Pages 8-9 


By Candice Johnson 

B lame for the current financial crisis 
in the U.S. airline industry should 
be laid squarely on the full-scale de- 
regulation of airlines in 1978, said 
Richard Kilroy, president of the AFL- 
CIO Transportation Trades Depart- 
ment. 

Kilroy criticized attempts by the Bush 
administration to blame labor and fuel 
costs for the current turmoil in the in- 
dustry, and said an administration pro- 
posal to increase foreign investment in 
the U.S. industry would not work. 


dustry crisis whose roots lie in the failed 
experiment of airline deregulation,” he 
said. 

The January shutdown of Eastern 
Airlines was just the latest jolt to the 
now not-so-friendly skies. Some of the 


cash, while the fate of regional and 
smaller lines also is up in the air. 

Many airlines — including TWA, 
US Air, Hawaiian, Midway, America 
West and Northwest — are struggling 
under, in some cases, billions of dollars 


of debt undertaken during the wave of 
leveraged buyouts in the 1980s. 

The Bush administration has pro- 
posed increasing foreign ownership of 
U.S. airlines from the current 25 per- 
cent to 49 percent, but Kilroy said the 
plan would not bail out the industry. In- 
stead, the administration should re- 
assess the failed policies of airline 
deregulation, he said. 

Since deregulation, the airline in- 
dustry has experienced 5 1 mergers and 
more than 150 bankruptcy filings, with 
Continued on Page 8 





Kheel exploring possible 
Daily News ESOP buyout 



Steve Miller/Miller Photography 


Soviet trade unionists join a picket line at the Daily News behind Barry Lip- 
ton, president of the New York City Newspaper Guild. The Soviets were 
on a 30-day tour of the United States. 


By James B. Parks 

W ith prospects for a negotiated set- 
tlement appearing no better, the 
unions striking the New York Daily 
News are exploring possible ways of 
buying the newspaper through an 
employees stock ownership plan. 

The News’ parent Tribune Co. has 
agreed to recognize Theodore Kheel, an 
unpaid adviser to the unions, as a 
potential buyer “on behalf of an 
employee stock ownership plan now be- 
ing formed. ’ ’ Kheel said he was notified 
of the development by officials of 
Lazard Freres, the investment group 
advising the News on possible sales. 

This would allow Kheel to receive 
confidential financial information about 
the company’s assets and liabilities. 
Kheel has agreed to keep the informa- 
tion secret and to resign as an adviser 
to the unions to pursue the buyout. 

“My only interest is in saving the 
Daily News for the people of the city 
and the workers,’’ said Kheel, who will 
not accept any fees for his work. 

About 2,300 News employees from 
nine unions went out on strike Oct. 25 
after working six months without a con- 
tract. Last month, the parties got back 
to discussions with the aid of federal 
mediators with no immediate success 
and News publisher James Hoge subse- 
quently announced the paper would 

Steelworkers, 

By James B. Parks 

N egotiations between the Steel- 
workers and USX Corp., the na- 
tion’s largest steelmaker, continued past 
the strike deadline late last week after 
the union agreed to a short contract 
extension. 

The USWA extended by 24 hours the 
midnight Jan. 31 strike deadline because 
of some progress on economic issues 
and concern over the possible restruc- 
turing of the company, said union 
spokesman Dick Fontana. 

The prospects for settlement were not 
clear, but Andrew “Lefty” Palm, the 
union’s chief negotiator, said “there is 
still a long way to go.” 

Steelworkers President Lynn 
Williams had said a brief extension 
would make sense if substantial progress 
is made at the bargaining table. Details 
of the negotiations were not divulged 
because of a news blackout. 

Williams dismissed as a “ploy” the 
company’s request for a 90-day exten- 
sion of the current four-year contract, 
reached after a six-month lockout that 
began in 1986. 


close or be sold unless a settlement was 
reached. 

Under a stock ownership plan, the 
employees would own part of die paper, 
similar to the 20 percent stake 
negotiated with the New York Post last 
summer. 

The paper might be operated under 
a joint venture with the Post, using the 
same facilities and services, but with an 
independent editorial and news staff, 
Kheel said. 

No deal yet 

Kheel said he has talked with Post 
publisher Peter Kalikow and British 
publisher Robert Maxwell and both 
have expressed an interest in hearing 
what he has to say. But he emphasized 
that while the lines of communication 
are open, there is no deal. 

The unions consider April 3 the “D- 
Day” by which the News must close or 
sell, Kheel said. That assumes a 14-day 
extension of the 60-day notice required 
by law of possible closing. 

The unions still will try to settle with 
the News or any new owners, Kheel 
said. The key issues that must be set- 
tled are the contract conditions on the 
table when the strike began, the status 
of replacement workers, settlement of 
management lawsuits against the 
unions, and shutdown liabilities. 


The company wants to avert the pos- 
sibility that a work stoppage would be 
ruled a lockout, as happened in 1986, 
Williams said. The 1986-87 USX lock- 
out was the first project of the AFL- 
CIO’s then new strategic approaches 
method — which Williams later was 
named to head. 

The contract covers approximately 
20,000 USX steel and mining workers 
in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Minnesota, Alabama and California. 
Talks resumed Jan. 7 after early at- 
tempts to reach a contract failed in 
November. 

The USWA is seeking a “pattern 
plus” contract, Palm said, which would 
entail the same wages and benefits as 
other major steelmakers. 

The union wants to restore cuts taken 
during the steel industry downturn in the 
early 1980s. The other major steel- 
makers have already accepted the pat- 
tern increases in contracts signed since 
1989. 

The average USX worker makes 
$10.84 an hour plus benefits. Workers 
are seeking about $2.30 more per hour. 


In the continuing negotiations under 
the auspices of federal mediators, the 
Mailers were presented with proposals 
“just as bad as their original proposal, 
if not worse,’’ said George McDonald, 
who heads both the Mailers and the 
Allied Printing Trades Council, the 
striking unions’ umbrella organization. 

McDonald said the Mailers proposed 
a wage freeze and a 25 -percent cut in 
mailroom staff, but the News 
negotiators rejected the offer. 

Negotiations also were scheduled last 
week between the company and the 
Newspaper Guild, Electrical Workers, 
Paper Handlers and the Machinists. 


About $1.30 of that raise would restore 
pay concessions. 

The union also is seeking guarantees 
that would protect pensions, insurance 
and other employee interests if USX 
restructures its US Steel division. 

The company’s board of directors, 
hours before the original strike deadline, 
voted to issue a new class of stock for 
its steel division, a move that paves the 
way for USX to pull out of the steel 
business and concentrate on its more 
profitable energy operations. 

The board’s decision did not surprise 
the union, Fontana said, only its timing. 
“It certainly gives us something more 
to think about,” he said. 

The board’s vote is part of a pattern 
towards selling the steel division. Last 
November, while negotiations were 
under way, the board decided to transfer 
the division’s assets and liabilities to a 
wholly owned subsidiary. 

Meanwhile, about 300 local union 
presidents attending the Basic Steel In- 
dustry Conference pledged to consider 
a boycott of USX’s Marathon service 
stations if a strike occurs. 


Meanwhile, the unions will continue 
their boycott of the News and keep 
pressuring the Tribune Co. to settle. 

Twelve unions are sponsoring an 
ongoing paid advertising campaign in 
several New York newspapers calling 
on the News’ owners to “settle or sell” 
the paper. 

The striking workers will receive a 
boost this week when leaders of the 
Printing Trades Council, New York 
State AFL-CIO and the New York City 
AFL-CIO hold a rally in Chicago with 
members of the Chicago AFL-CIO and 
the Tribune Co. unions to support the 
strike. 

BLE and ATDA 
agree to merge 

Cleveland 

T he Brotherhood of Locomotive En- 
gineers and the American Train 
Dispatchers have voted overwhelmingly 
to merge their unions. 

BLE members voted for merger by 
a 98 percent margin, with ATDA 
members supporting affiliation by an 84 
percent vote. BLE has 51,000 mem- 
bers, including 28,000 rail employees 
and engineers, while the ATDA 
represents 2,200 railroad dispatchers. 

Merger of the two unions will be 
completed by 1996, said BLE President 
Larry D. McFather, noting that pro- 
posed changes in constitutions should 
be completed this year, following the 
unions’ separate conventions. The move 
will strengthen both dispatchers and 
engineers in collective bargaining, he 
said. 

ATDA President Robert J. Irvin said 
both unions will benefit under the 
merger, adding that the two crafts are 
essential to “making the nation’s rail- 
roads go.” 


USX talk past strike deadline 


B Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 3 



MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1991 







The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00I-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 


Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





LEGISLfflON 




Priorities for Congress: 


Continued from Page 1 

or no vote and no amendments allowed. 
However, the fast-track authority runs 
out June 1 and the administration must 
ask for an extension by March 1 . Then 
either house has until June 1 to disap- 
prove the extension. 

The administration has announced its 
intention to seek a two-year extension 
of the fast-track authority, for both the 
U.S. -Mexico free trade negotiations 
and for further negotiations to complete 
the Uruguay Round of the General 
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which 
broke down in December. 

Fast-track fight 

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO has writ- 
ten to both the Senate Committee on 
Finance, where hearings are set to begin 
Feb. 6, and to the House Ways and 
Means Committee, urging that they 
disapprove President Bush’s request to 
negotiate under fast-track authority. 

The process also could be short-cir- 
cuited through a vote to revoke fast- 
track authority, which essentially is 
merely a rule-making exercise in both 
the House and the Senate. It can be 
changed at any time with a vote to 
change the rules. 

During the last session of Congress 
in November, 37 senators co-sponsored 
legislation that would remove the ex- 
isting fast-track authority. It would only 
take the vote of 51 senators to kill it. 

As the legislative maneuvering gets 
under way, the AFL-CIO is pointing to 
current U.S. -Mexico trade patterns as 
indicative of the kind of impact a free 
trade agreement with Mexico would 
have. The current maquiladora, or 
“twin plant’’ program, which now 
employs close to half a million Mexican 
workers in 1,800 plants along the 
border, has cost U.S. jobs, damaged the 
environment on both sides of the border 
and exploited workers in Mexico (see 
stories, Pages 6-7). 

A free trade agreement with Mexico 
also could eliminate existing trade pro- 
tections for U.S. industries such as 


steel, textile and apparel and certain 
agricultural products. And it could en- 
courage Japanese and other foreign 
companies to set up shop in Mexico to 
secure even more access to the U.S. 
market, perhaps as transshipment points 
for their goods. 

Saving, creating jobs 

While the proposed U.S. -Mexico free 
trade agreement poses a serious threat 
to American jobs, the reauthorization 
of the nation’s highway and mass tran- 
sit program would maintain existing 
jobs, while creating additional ones. 

The reauthorization for the program, 
which began in 1956, would include 
funding for completion of the interstate 
system and its maintenance and repair, 
along with urban mass transit systems. 
It would also cover any other highway 
or transportation-related projects ap- 
proved by Congress. 

It is expected that the reauthorization 
will cover either a two- or five-year 
period. Estimates show that if the pro- 
gram is reauthorized for two years, 
some 300,000 jobs could be created and 
700,000 jobs would be created under a 
five-year reauthorization. 

AFL-CIO lobbyists also will take the 
case for worker safety to Congress, em- 
phasizing the need for overall reform 
of the Occupational Safety and Health 
Act, and for specific construction safe- 
ty measures. 

Safety reform needed 

The OSH A is now 21 years old and 
the law is in need of overhaul to reflect 
changes in the workplace as well as ex- 
perience with the law. The overhaul is 
needed to follow up on gains workers 
have made in recent years on the right- 
to-know about toxic chemicals and 
stronger standards on certain hazards. 

Hazards such as lead exposure in the 
construction industry and exposure to 
many other chemicals remain unregu- 
lated. There are fewer OSH A inspec- 
tors today than in 1980 and only a hand- 
ful of dangerous workplaces are in- 


jobs, safety 

spected each year. OSH A regulations 
do not cover millions of workers. 

The reform legislation also should set 
stronger health and safety standards and 
seek tougher enforcement procedures 
and penalties. It should also establish 
worker health and safety committees, 
which would have the right to act con- 
cerning unsafe and dangerous practices. 

Last year, Congress held hearings on 
construction safety legislation and that 
will be reintroduced later this year. It 
will call for a separate construction 
safety office within OSHA, make con- 
tractor health and safety programs man- 
datory on construction sites and require 
construction safety specialists to 
monitor the programs. 

Bills reintroduced 

Labor’s supporters in the House acted 
quickly to reintroduce major programs 
backed by the AFL-CIO and adopted by 
Congress last year, but vetoed by Bush. 

House sponsors said they hope to pass 
a civil rights bill as quickly as possible, 
to restore legal remedies to victims of 
workplace discrimination that were 
severely restricted under recent 
Supreme Court rulings. 

A family and medical leave bill, 
which would allow working parents to 
take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave on 
the birth or adoption of a child, or for 
the worker’s or a family member’s 
serious illness, has been re-introduced 
in both the House and Senate. 

With the reintroduction of a Hatch 
Act reform bill in the House, labor is 
pressing Congress to allow the nation’s 
3 million federal and postal workers 
some opportunity to exercise the 
political rights Americans enjoy. 

Bills banning the use of permanent 
replacement workers during an 
economic strike have been reintroduced 
in both chambers, and labor is continu- 
ing its campaign to press Congress to 
correct the contradictions in the law that 
give workers the right to strike yet 
allow their jobs to be permenently taken 
away for exercising that right. 


102nd Congress 

Labor’s Agenda 

The AFL-CIO ’s legislative 
agenda, determined by the 
Executive Council’s Legislative 
Priorities Committee, is 
non-exclusive and not in order of 
priority. It may be changed 
during the course of the 102nd 
Congress as events warrant. 

Airline Labor Protections 
Anti-Recession Program 
Asbestos Removal 
Black Lung Reform 
Budget 
Buy America 

Campaign Finance Reform 
Cargo Preference 
Civil Rights 
Construction Safety 
Davis-Bacon Reform 
Drug Lab Certification 
Education/Skilled Training 
Energy 

Family and Medical Leave 
FEHBP Overhaul 
Fish Inspection 
Fringe Benefits 

• Education 

• Legal 

Hatch Act Reform 
Health Care 
Highway/Mass Transit 
Minimum Wage 
NLR A Amendments 

• Security Guards 

• University Professors 

• Performing Arts 

Public Employees’ Collective 
Bargaining 

Nuclear Waste/Toxic Waste 

OSHA Reform 

Pension Reform 

Railroad Shortline LPPs 

Revenue Foregone 

Strikers Replacement 

Student Aid/Loans 

Tax Modification/Section 936 

Telephone/Workplace Monitoring 

Trade 

• Mexico Free Trade 
•GATT 

• Voluntary Restraints 

• Textile and Apparel 

• GSP Reform 

Unemployment Insurance 
Universal Voter Registration 


Free trade plan raises alarm on child labor abuses in Mexico 


M exican children, already forced at 
an early age to work, may bear a 
heavier burden of work under the pro- 
posed U.S. -Mexico free trade agree- 
ment, it was reported at a Capitol Hill 
forum. 

Although Mexican law sets its 
minimum working age at 14 years, 11.5 
percent of all children aged 10-14 are 
working in Mexico today, according to 
statistics compiled by the labor-backed 
Child Labor Coalition. In addition, 10 
million of that country’s children aged 
6 to 15 are self-employed — selling 
chewing gum, washing windshields, 
cleaning shoes and delivering 
packages — the group said. 

Many children now are employed by 
maquiladora plants operated by U.S. 
corporations, said AFL-CIO economist 
Mark Anderson, who warned that a 
U.S. -Mexico free trade agreement, 
essentially extending the maquiladora 
concept to all of Mexico, would open 
up new avenues for abuse. 

Today, some 1,800 maquiladora 
plants, nearly 90 percent of them owned 
by U.S. corporations, employ 500,000 


Mexican workers to assemble products 
for the U.S. market, including con- 
sumer electronics, autos and parts, and 
textiles and apparel. 

Maquiladora workers earn about 50 
cents an hour, less than half the average 
wage in Mexico, and more than 60 per- 
cent of maquiladora workers are young 
women, Anderson said. The workers 
and their families live in shanties 
without running water or electricity and 
far from schools, hospitals and other 
amenities, he said, and wells have been 
polluted by toxics from the plants. 

Anderson said a free trade agreement 
with Mexico, rather than promoting 
Mexico’s economic development as its 
proponents claim, would only intensify 
the flight of U.S. capital and an unfair 
competition between U.S. and Mexican 
workers. 

Labor organizers are collaborating 
with Mexican laborers in the ma- 
quiladora plants, so that workers will 
not be pitted against one another, said 
Shelley Herochik, assistant education 
director of the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers. 


U.S. -Mexican free trade not only 
would open the gateway to more loss 
of jobs in this country, but would lead 
to further exploitation of workers in 
Mexico, especially the children, 
Herochik said. 

“We can’t control child labor in the 
United States, because the federal 
government has thrown its hands up in 
the air,” Herochik said. In Mexico, 
where tools of enforcement are even 
less stringent, child labor at U.S.- 
owned plants would go unchecked, she 
said. 

The Child Labor Coalition estimates 
that 1 .5 million of the Mexican children 
aged 6-15 are living on the streets, 
abandoned and often addicted to drugs. 
Half of Mexican children drop out of 
primary school, and only 10 percent 
receive a secondary school education, 
the group said. 

It is virtually impossible to count the 
numbers of working children in the 
United States or Mexico, said Linda 
Golodner, executive director of the Na- 
tional Consumers League. Much of 
child labor is uncountable, performed 


at home or illegally for organizations. 

Noting that while Mexican workers 
are paid much less than American 
workers, many of Mexico’s children 
work unpaid, Golodner said. Some 
work with pesticides have already pro- 
ven to have severe effects on bone 
development, she said, and “opening 
the borders will make the situation 
worse.” 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) told the 
crowd of some 350 forum participants 
that she and other members of Congress 
“will only support a trade agreement 
that raises the Mexican standard of liv- 
ing toward the U.S. standard of living, 
rather than lowering the U.S. standard 
of living toward the Mexican stan- 
dard.” 

The forum sponsors included the Na- 
tional Wildlife Federation, National 
Toxics Campaign, National Consumers 
League, Child Labor Coalition, Fair 
Trade Campaign, Institute for Policy 
Studies and United Methodist Board of 
Church and Society along with the 
AFL-CIO and three of its affiliated 
unions. —Press Associates 




(MON* 


■IHI WKKKKM I I I I ■■■■ 

OSHA enforcement better in unionized workplaces 


By Arlee C. Green 

S afer workplaces can officially join 
wages and benefits as areas in which 
union members top nonunion workers. 
Two studies have confirmed what 
millions of unionized workers in 
manufacturing and construction already 
knew, or at least suspected. 

The studies, by David Weil of Boston 
University’s School of Management, 
found union workplaces in those two in- 
dustries are more likely than nonunion 
establishments to receive health and 
safety inspections — and those inspec- 
tions are more intense and result in 
higher fines or shorter abatement 
periods. Both studies are based on an 
analysis of the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration’s enforcement 
activity during 1985. 

“The studies demonstrate that unions 
play a key role in safety and health in 
making sure the OSHA law works to its 
fullest to protect workers on the job,” 
said AFL-CIO Safety Director Peg 
Seminar io. “Unfortunately, it shows 
that nonunion workers have little or no 
protection and can’t depend upon the 
government to protect their safety and 
health on the job.” 

The studies credit union health and 
safety training, contract language bar- 


ring employer retaliation against 
workers exercising OSHA rights, union 
pressure on the agency for the increased 
involvement of union members in the 
OSHA process, and union members’ 
higher level of hazard awareness. 

“Union impact on enforcement ac- 
tivities will be most pronounced where 
they are best organized — in larger 
workplaces” where they are likely to 
have the number of people to create, 
train and maintain effective safety and 
health committees, Weil said. 

This finding underscores one aspect 
of the AFL-CIO ’s push for legislative 
reform of the nation’s job safety law — 
mandatory labor-management safety 
committees. 

Weil stressed that because of the 
positive effects of unions in the 
workplace, “implementation of OSHA 
therefore seems highly dependent upon 
the presence of a union in the work- 
place.” Employees’ exercise of their 
OSHA rights is critical to achieving the 
quality of enforcement envisioned 
under OSHA, he said. “If workers do 
not become ‘partners’ in this regulatory 
process, the chances for OSHA success 
seem dim indeed.” 

Underscoring the contrast in one 
study, Weil concluded, “A de facto 


‘two-tiered’ system of regulation has 
emerged in the construction industry. 
For the union sector, OSHA represents 
a real force in ensuring the enactment 
of safety and health standards, par- 
ticularly in larger sites. In contrast, for 
the nonunion worker, OSHA has be- 
come the ‘toothless tiger’ commonly 
cited by its critics.” 

Both the manufacturing and construc- 
tion studies found that unions substan- 
tially raise the probability of receiving 
a complaint inspection, an effect that 
grows with the size of the establishment 
or worksite. 

In manufacturing, unionized 
workplaces with more than 500 
employees face the probability of a 
complaint inspection 8.5 times greater 
than nonunion establishments. 

For unionized construction, the pro- 
bability of a complaint inspection is 
more than three times higher than for 
nonunion. Weil found too that the pro- 
bability of a programmed inspection for 
union worksites is three times grater 
than for nonunion. 

Union workers or their represen- 
tatives are more likely to accompany an 
OSHA inspector during a workplace 
tour, an action that Weil said increases 
the intensity of the inspection. 


Employees exercise their “walk- 
around” rights in 69.8 percent of union 
OSHA inspections compared to just 3.7 
percent for nonunion manufacturing 
workplaces with 500 or more workers. 
Similar results were found for all sizes 
of construction employers, ranging 
from 34.2 to 47.6 percent for union 
workers, compared to 2.3 to 4.6 per- 
cent for nonunion. 

Worker involvement in the OSHA in- 
spection lengthens the time of an inspec- 
tion, intensifying the inspector’s focus 
on prevailing conditions in the 
workplace. This, in turn, leads to more 
citations, Weil found. 

In manufacturing, union involvement 
led to significantly higher penalties and, 
in construction, led to shorter abatement 
periods. 

Specifically, fines in unionized 
workplaces are higher by anywhere 
from $18.05 per violation (for firms 
with 100-249 employees) to $67.48 per 
violation (for companies with more than 
500 employees) than those paid by com- 
parable nonunion establishments. The 
magnitude of these union effects can be 
appreciated, Weil said, by noting that 
“the average manufacturing establish- 
ment paid only $34 per violation in 
OSHA penalties in 1985.” 


Court upholds overtime pay 
for county fire battalion chiefs 


T he Supreme Court has let stand a 
lower court decision that requires 
Kern County, Calif. , to pay back over- 
time to its 28 fire battalion chiefs. 

The decision “reinforces the gen- 
erally accepted viewpoint that the over- 
time and minimum wage protections of 
the Fair Labor Standards Act are prop- 
erly applied to state and local govern- 
ment employees,” said Fire Fighters 
President Alfred K. Whitehead. 

Congress has amended the law to 
allow governments to substitute com- 
pensatory time off for overtime pay for 
many workers. 

The court declined to review a deci- 
sion by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of 
Appeals that FLSA overtime provisions 
applied to the county’s 7,000 
employees. 

In so doing, the high court also re- 
jected a move to reconsider its land- 
mark 1985 decision, in Garcia vs. San 


Antonio Metropolitan Mass Transit 
Authority, that overtime and minimum 
wage provisions apply to public 
employees. 

Almost all the Kern County chiefs are 
scheduled to work 144 hours during an 
18-day period. The county classified the 
chiefs as executives, which barred them 
from time-and-a-half pay for working 
more than 136 hours in that period. 

The appeals court ruled the chiefs 
were not executives, because they are 
not salaried workers under the law. 

The chiefs are subject to deductions 
in pay for missing less than a full day’s 
work, the court said, while executives 
do not punch a time clock. 

Several jurisdictions, including Los 
Angeles County, said the ruling could 
cost billions of dollars if it was applied 
nationwide. But Whitehead said the 
decision was based “on a very narrow 
ground.” 



Elizabeth Wilson/Georgia AFL-CIO 

Flush with victory in landing union recognition and a contract at Delta Pride 
Catfish Inc., members of Food and Commercial Workers Local 1529 march 
in Atlanta's Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration. UFCW President 
William H. Wynn was deputy marshal of the parade. 


Machinists sue defense firms for violating 60-day layoff notice 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he Machinists are suing General 
Dynamics Corp. and McDonnell 
Douglas Corp. to recover back pay and 
benefits for 3,200 I AM members who 
were laid off without proper notice. 

The workers were laid off after the 
U.S. Department of Navy canceled its 
A- 12 stealth bomber contract. 

The IAM suit, filed in the U.S. 
District Court for the Eastern District 
of Missouri, charges the dismissals 
violate the Worker Adjustment and 
Retraining Notification Act by not pro- 
viding the required 60-day advance 
notice. 

The suit was filed by the IAM and 
District Councils 837 and 776, seeking 
back pay and benefits for a 60-day 


period, plus interest and court costs. 

“The contractors had no basis for 
breaking federal law by refusing to pro- 
vide 60 days’ notice of the layoffs,” 
declared IAM President George J. 
Kourpias. “The ‘prior notice’ law was 
designed to protect workers in exactly 
this type of situation. We intend for the 
contractors to obey the law.” 

Kourpias stressed that the contractors 
knew months ago that the A- 12 pro- 
gram was in deep trouble. “Secretary 
(of Defense Richard) Cheney publicly 
warned on Dec. 14 that he might cancel 
the A- 12, and the problems afflicting 
the program were widely publicized by 
the press for most of last year,” Kour- 
pias said. 

In January 1988, General Dynamics 


and McDonnell Douglas were selected 
to work jointly on the A- 12 program to 
design and build an advance attack jet 
using sophisticated ‘ ‘ stealth ’ ’ tech- 
nology. According to the IAM, Pen- 
tagon records show that by July 1988, 
the contractors knew the project, which 
operated under a fixed-price contract, 
was running behind schedule and above 
cost. 

By October 1989, the IAM said, Pen- 
tagon analysts were warning that work 
was $500 million over budget and two 
years behind schedule. 

Last June, the companies jointly 
notified the Navy that the program was 
$1.4 billion over budget and one year 
behind schedule. Recent Pentagon 
estimates cost overruns on the $4.8 


billion development program may ex- 
ceed $2.72 billion. 

The contractors’ handling of the A-12 
program is being investigated by the 
Securities and Exchange Commission, 
the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Congress 
and the Pentagon. 

Both firms received notification of the 
A-12 cancellation on Jan. 7, 1991. One 
day later, General Dynamics dismissed 
1 ,200 workers at its Fort Worth, Texas, 
division. IAM District Council 776 
represents the employees, who were 
terminated. 

Likewise, on the same day, McDon- 
nell Douglas laid off 2,000 of its pro- 
duction and maintenance employees 
who had been working on the A-12 pro- 
gram at its St. Louis plant. 




Desert Storm affects rail unions’ strike plan 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he 11 unions representing workers 
on the nation’s major railroads, 
dissatisfied with a Presidential 
Emergency Board’s recommendations 
for reaching a national contract, are 
counting down to the Feb. 15 deadline 
when they will be free to initiate strikes. 

Most agree, however, they will not 
take action while Operation Desert 
Storm continues. 

The unions, representing 235,000 
workers, have bargained for three years 
with the National Railway Labor Con- 
ference on a new national contract. The 
conference, which represents 98 rail- 
road firms, has sought an eight-year 
wage freeze and crippling work rule 
changes. 

Richard I. Kilroy, president of the 
Transportation Communications Union, 


said the next step is “self-help, that is, 
we must strike the railroad industry if 
we are to secure a new national agree- 
ment. Of course, we are sensitive to the 
war in the Persian Gulf and that will 
certainly be taken into consideration at 
the appropriate time.” 

United Transportation Union Presi- 
dent Fred Hardin said his union will not 
“initiate a strike while the military 
situation remains unresolved.” 

Electrical Workers Vice President Pat 
McEntee said that the Gulf War will 
“certainly influence what our decision 
will be.” He warned, however, that if 
carriers proceed to institute severe work 
rule changes, “our members will have 
no choice but to go out. The strike vote 
we took passed by the highest per- 
centage ever.” 

The Locomotive Engineers said it is 


not planning an offensive strike action 
upon the expiration of the cooling off 
period. 

“Our plan is to support our nation’s 
and the allied forces’ efforts by staying 
on the job,” the union said. “Without 
management’s respect for our decision 
not to strike, any moratorium is mean- 
ingless. They must resist locking out or 
unilaterally implementing substandard 
wages and work rules.” 

The Railroad Signalmen’s executive 
council, which unanimously voted to 
authorize a nationwide strike, indicated 
the union, in support of the troops in 
the Gulf War, would postpone any 
strike action for up to 90 days during 
continuing hostilities. 

TCU prepared a special newsletter 
for its leadership calling the emergency 
board report “unacceptable.” Kilroy, 


who met with NRLC representatives, 
reported on that meeting that “in less 
than two hours, it was clear that not on- 
ly was the railroads’ position impossi- 
ble for us to agree on, but their inter- 
pretation of the key issues was even 
worse than the emergency board report 
itself.” 

The Railway Labor Executives’ 
Association’s health and welfare com- 
mittee, on which most of the unions are 
represented, will meet Feb. 6 to review 
the emergency board’s recommenda- 
tions on health and welfare. 

The rail unions bargaining for a na- 
tional master contract include: TCU and 
its Carmen division, Train Dispatchers, 
BLE, BMWE, Railroad Signalmen, 
Boilermakres, IBEW, Firemen and 
Oilers, Sheet Metal Workers, and the 
UTU. 


Workplace casualty figures 
will be recorded by OSHA 



By Arlee C. Green 

T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration’s new Office of 
Recordkeeping and Data Analysis has 
assumed responsibility for setting the 
requirements and guidelines for record- 
ing occupational injuries and illnesses, 
duties previously handled by the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics. 

The transfer of responsibilities oc- 
curred on Jan. 1 as outlined in a 
memorandum of understanding reach- 
ed between the two agencies last July. 

AFL-CIO safety director Peg 
Seminario said the federation is glad to 
see that after 20 years, OSHA has come 
to realize it needs data to run its pro- 
grams more effectively. Hopefully, she 
said, with the creation of the new of- 
fice, data will be collected by the agen- 
cy to improve its enforcement and stan- 
dard setting duties. 

Organized labor has long maintained 
that employers severely underreported 
both injuries and illnesses on the OSHA 
logs. During the mid-1980s, OSHA 
stepped up its enforcement of record- 
keeping requirements, imposing large 
fines on corporations that systematically 
underreported. 

A new study, published in the 
January issue of the American Journal 
of Public Health, found that data com- 
piled by BLS “significantly 
underestimated” the incidence of 
workplace injuries and illnesses. The 
University of California study centered 
on 1984 health clinic records for 10 
semiconductor manufacturing sites. 

Of 416 cases, 101 met OSHA report- 
ing criteria, the study said. Only 60 per- 
cent of those cases were reported on the 


companies’ OSHA 200 logs. If the 60 
percent figure is representative of other 
industries, the study said, then the in- 
cidence of on-the-job injuries and ill- 
nesses may be nearly 70 percent higher 
than reported. 

Further, only 44 percent of occupa- 
tional illnesses were recorded, sug- 
gesting the incidence of such illnesses 
may be 130 percent higher than 
reported, the study said. 

Acting Labor Secretary Roderick 
DeArment announced the transfer, say- 
ing it will give OSHA firsthand know- 
ledge of health hazard statistics so the 
agency can direct its resources in the 
most effective manner. “Accurate data 
on injuries and illnesses are essential to 
workplace safety and health pro- 
grams,” he said. 

Under the agreement, BLS will con- 
tinue to conduct a national statistical 
survey of occupational injuries and ill- 
nesses based on data from OSHA 
records. Its annual survey is based on 
data from OSHA logs of occupational 
injuries and illnesses. 

The new OSHA office will define the 
types of cases that employers must enter 
on the OSHA logs, and provide record- 
keeping guidance to employers and 
others involved in recordkeeping. 

Guidelines that were published by the 
BLS will remain in effect until the new 
OSHA office produces revised guide- 
lines that it expects to finish later this 
year. 

Recordkeeping criteria for 
cumulative trauma disorders and noise- 
induced hearing loss are currently be- 
ing prepared and will be available in the 
near future, OSHA said. 


Inbrief 


OCAW seeks halt 
to runaway plants 

T he Oil, Chemical and Atomic Work- 
ers have launched a campaign to 
remove the runaway shop aspects of 
Section 936 of the Internal Revenue 
Code, which now encourages U.S. cor- 
porations to move their operations to 
Puerto Rico. 

Section 936 currently exempts Puer- 
to Rican profits from aft U.S. corporate 
income taxes. It also includes tax and 
development incentives for companies 
to move to Puerto Rico. 

“Our union is not opposed to com- 
panies expanding in Puerto Rico,” said 
Richard Leonard, OCAW’s director of 
special projects, “but when it comes to 
destroying existing jobs and ripping off 
taxpayers, we’ve got to draw the line. 

“America’s rustbelt is littered with 
the remains of plants that have shifted 
production . . . The American labor 
movement is gearing up to do battle 
with this longstanding injustice,” 
Leonard said. 

The AFL-CIO has placed modifica- 
tion of Section 936 on its 1991 
legislative agenda. (See list, page 3) 
OCAW has filed suit to prevent the 
shutdown of a Whitehall-Robbins phar- 
maceutical plant in Elkhart, Ind., with 
775 employees and the shifting of the 
work to a plant in Puerto Rico. 


Illinois groups agree 
to avoid fundraisers 

O rganized labor in Illinois has forged 
an agreement with state business 
organizations to avoid political fund- 
raisers held by individual lawmakers 
during April, May and June 1991, the 
closing months of the General 
Assembly’s annual spring session. 

Illinois State AFL-CIO President 
Richard Walsh and Illinois Manufactur- 
ing Association President Arthur R. 
Gottschalk said they are pleased with 
the initial reaction to the proposal and 
confident that more groups will join 
their efforts. 

The policy statement maintains “no 
legislator or lobbying group need be 
placed in a position where the receipt 
or gift of a contribution must be ex- 
plained at a later date in relation to con- 
temporaneous action on a particular bill 
of importance to that lobbying group. ’ ’ 
Walsh noted that more than 40 
groups, including most major unions 
and business groups most involved in 
the Illinois legislative process, have 
joined in this effort. 

“There certainly seems to be a con- 
sensus that appearances of impropriety 
are inevitable when political contribu- 
tions are made to individual legislators 
within hours of important votes being 
cast as expressed in the policy state- 
ment,” Walsh said. 

1991 convention reset 
for Detroit Nov. 11-14 

The 1991 AFL-CIO Convention will 
be held at the Westin Renaissance Hotel 
in Detroit Nov. 11-14. 

The convention was originally sched- 
uled for Nov. 4-7. 

enforcement 


Rules covering disabled will hinge on 


By James B. Parks 

T he test of the effectiveness of the 
Bush administration’s proposed 
regulations for implementing the 
American with Disabilities Act of 1990 
will be in its enforcement, according to 
the AFL-CIO ’s Department of Civil 
Rights. 

The administration released the first 
in a series of regulations required by the 
act last month. The new rules set archi- 
tectural standards for physical access 
for the disabled, including workers. 

The most-anticipated rules will come 
later this month when the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission 
issues proposed regulations on employ- 
ment of the disabled. 

Those guidelines will specify the 
steps employers must take to ensure 
they are not discriminating against 


qualified job applicants with a 
disability. 

The Justice Department also this 
month will issue regulations to protect 
the disabled against discrimination in 
public accommodations. 

The proposed rules on physical ac- 
cess were published in the Jan. 22, 
1991, Federal Register. They require 
all but the smallest businesses to pro- 
vide access to the disabled. 

The bill was the “most important 
piece of civil rights legislation since the 
Civil Rights Bill of 1964 because it 
brings the estimated 43 million 
Americans with disabilities into the 
mainstream,” said AFL-CIO Civil 
Rights Director Richard Womack. 

The architectural regulations “are a 
big step in ensuring equal opportunity 
for those persons covered by the bill,” 


he said. ‘ The test will be in the enforce- 
ment.” 

“These are sensible technical regula- 
tions that should not cost much in new 
construction or alterations. Many can 
be carved out in existing buildings 
without great expense,” he said. 

The rules were released by the Archi- 
tectural and Transportation Barriers 
Compliance Board, an independent fed- 
eral agency, which will review public 
comments on the rules and issue a final 
version on Jan. 26, 1992. 

The rules only apply to new construc- 
tion or renovation after Jan. 1, 1992. 
The law applies to companies with 25 
or more employees, but that number 
drops to 15 in 1995. 

The employment and public accom- 
modations provisions would go into ef- 
fect in July 1992. 


The physical access rules include re- 
quirements for convenient heights of 
work surfaces for people who must sit 
or are in wheelchairs. 

Also, automatic elevators would have 
to meet standards regarding the length 
of time that the elevator doors should 
stay open to accommodate people who 
must use wheelchairs, walkers or 
crutches. 

Audible and visible signals are re- 
quired to allow vision and hearing im- 
paired persons to be able to call the 
elevators and to know when a call has 
been answered. 

The rules call for a certain number 
of telephones be equipped with volume 
controls and telecommunication devices 
that allow the hearing impaired to type 
messages back and forth over a phone 
line. 







Tale of two plants 

AT&T maquiladora project exploits 
workers on both sides of the border 


This report is excerpted from a two-part series by Dave 
Kent of the Communications Workers, which appeared in 
the CWA News. The series won the ILCA ’s 1990 Max 
Steinbock award for best labor reporting. 


By Dave Kent 

T his is a tale of two plants — one in Radford, Va., and 
the other 3, 000 miles away in Matamoros, Mexico, just 
across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, Texas. 
Until December 1990, workers in both plants made elec- 
tronic components, such as transformers, inductors and 
rectifiers, for AT&T Microelectronics. 

Starting in 1980, people came from the hills and valleys 
around Radford to get a job in the brand-spanking-new 
AT&T factory. Appropriately enough, the facility was 
called the New River Valley Works. At the time, it seemed 
like a golden river of opportunity, they said. 

And, for the first four or five years, their dreams were 
realized. 

The people of the southwestern Virginia community 
went through a union organizing campaign, finally win- 
ning the Communications Workers as their bargaining 
agent. They signed up as members of CWA Local 2261 . 
They were proud to be about the only workers in or 
around Radford with a union to represent them. They were 
the envy of their friends. 

Employment just kept growing, through the roof. The 
workforce soared from ground zero in 1980 to 2,400 by 
1984. 

Many quit other jobs, although they were making bet- 
ter money, just to get on the AT&T payroll. They just 
knew that, over the long haul, they’d make out better at 
the AT&T plant. 

Others went from earning the minimum wage to jobs 
that paid $7, $8 or even $9 an hour. They went from lit- 
tle or no credit to getting loans for cars, homes and plots 
of land. 

From dream to nightmare 

Things started to go sour on July 19, 1985. That’s when 
management announced that 157 workers would be laid 
off, effective the next week. 

“Our customer requirements are softening,’’ an AT&T 
spokeswoman told the local newspaper, The Southwest 
Times, at the time the layoffs were announced. The 
spokeswoman, “was unable to say whether this meant 
AT&T was expecting fewer orders, smaller orders, or 
a combination of both. It’s complex, she said.” 
Complex or not, Bill Burton, then president of CWA 
Local 2261, said the first layoff announcement hit him 
like a thundering semi-truck. “It came as a total surprise. 
Not long before, they had been hiring as many as 30 new 
employees a day,” Burton recalls. 

Three months later, on Oct. 7, 1985, 205 more layoffs 
were announced. This time, AT&T said, the layoffs were 
caused by “a softening in the computer and microelec- 
tronics industry. We have to adjust the production level 
to reflect trends in the industry.” 

On Nov. 4, 1985, the third layoff of the year was an- 
nounced, 262 workers, bringing the total for 1985 to 624 
layoffs. Employment was down to 1,841. 

CWA Local 2261 executive board members told the 
newspaper that they had been told by management that 
no further layoffs were expected. Still, the layoffs con- 
tinued: another 154 workers in October of 1986, 96 more 
in January of 1987 and another 146 workers in November, 
1988. And, each time, a management spokesperson told 
the local newspaper that the layoffs were due to “a decline 
in demand for our products.” 

Shipping work to Mexico 

What management didn’t tell the workers or the 
newspapers was that the work was being shipped to an 
AT&T maquiladora (twin plant) operation in Matamoros. 
By 1989, only 876 hourly workers were still on the payroll 


at the New River Valley plant, and by the end of 1990, 
the plant was closed. 

Throughout the layoff process, management in Radford 
talked only about a downturn in business and not the up- 
turn in AT&T’s profits by moving the work to Mexico. 
They did not discuss the $8 or $9 an hour wages, plus 
benefits, that workers make in Radford, compared to the 
90 cents an hour with no benefits that workers make in 
Matamoros. 

Workers at the New River Valley plant took pride in 
themselves and their jobs. They designed the codes that 
were being shipped away: “We get them up and running 
and then they take them to Mexico.” Management even 
videotaped the work and sent the videotapes to Matamoros 
as training films. 

Luckily, many of the Radford workers had a safety net. 
Patricia and Mark Witt, for example, were laid off 
together Nov. 25, 1988, and took advantage of career 
counseling and training opportunities offered by the CWA- 
AT&T Alliance for Employee Growth and Development. 
They attended the New River Community College under 
the program negotiated by CWA in the 1986 contract. 

Harry Carver, 30, secretary-treasurer of Local 2261, 
got a job as western state coordinator of Doug Wilder’s 
successful campaign for governor. But his layoff from the 
New River Plant left him bitter at AT&T. 

“They gave us 30 days’ notice of the layoff — not out 
of the kindness of their heart but because they were re- 
quired to,” he said. 

Jobs no boon to workers 

Meanwhile, the plant in Matamoros continued to 
blossom. A 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility 
employing 600 workers opened in 1987, and an even 
larger plant opened nearby in June 1989. 

But, while the workers in Radford were making about 
$8 to $9 an hour, buying homes and cars and trying to 
live the American dream, the workers in Mexico are paid 
less than $1 an hour, and their only benefit is a health 
plan under the Mexican national system. They live in 
poverty, in neighborhoods called “colonias,” often 
without running water, electricity or sewage facilities. 

Socorro Leos lives in a concrete block home with an 
outdoor privy in a colonia with her husband, Javier, and 
their two daughters, aged three and seven. They have no 
electricity and use butane gas for cooking. They consider 
the gas too expensive for heating. 

Socorro is grateful, however, that the family now has 
a water spigot within a few yards of the house. Previous- 
ly, she and her neighbors shared a common faucet a half- 
block away. 

Socorro quit her job with AT&T Microelectronica de 
Mexico in January 1989 for health reasons. Despite work- 
ing with soldering equipment and various chemicals, there 
was no extractor and the fumes caused dizziness, nausea 
and headaches, Socorro says. 

Once, when she complained about feeling ill, her super- 
visor took her to a company nurse and, 30 minutes later, 
she was sent back to work. “They blamed my problem 
on high blood pressure, although I’ve never had a high 
blood pressure problem in my life,” Socorro says. When 
she asked to be transferred to another job, she was told 
nothing else was available. 

Her last AT&T paycheck, dated Dec. 25, 1988, was 
for 96,000 pesos (about $40 U.S.) for 42 hours of work. 

Information hard to get 

The AT&T workers in Matamoros manufacture power 
rectifiers and transformers that provide the current to run 
computers and electronic switching systems. Many carry 
the job title of “wire handler” — the same jobs the U.S. 
workers performed in Radford. Getting accurate figures 
from AT&T on current and future employment in Mata- 
moros has been difficult and confusing. 

The CWA News attempted to tour the plants and meet 
with AT&T public relations personnel, but efforts by 


Richard “Toby” Tarver, president of CWA Local 6229 
in Harlingen, Texas, to arrange a tour met with what he 
called a “runaround.” He was bucked from office to of- 
fice, and the people who were said to be able to make 
the arrangement were never available. 

After the CWA News reporter and photographer had 
come and gone, the company did invite other CWA of- 
ficials to visit the facilities. CWA Representative Jack 
Limmroth and Local 6260 President David Amesquita of 
Mesquite, Texas, toured the plants in late April 1989. 

AT&T management told Limmroth and Amesquita that 
600 Mexican workers were on the payroll in 
Matamoros — a figure that jibes with Tarvar’s estimate. 
However, while Tarver and others in his local had heard 
that AT&T employment would soar to over 6,000 wh*»^ 
the large new facility opened in June, AT&T claimed that 
the combined employment in the two plants would be only 
645. 

Limmroth and Amesquita were told that although Mex- 
ican law permits employment of children as young as 14 
years, AT&T only hires youngsters who are 16 and up. 

The company also maintained that it adheres to U.S. 
occupational safety standards in the Matamoros plant, and 
said that it plans to ship 255 drums containing chemical 
waste back to the United States eventually. 

Environmental peril 

In February 1989, however, the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council said many of the maquiladoras “pose a deadly 
threat to those living on both sides of the border as they 

release toxic wastes 
into the air, the water 
and the soil. Further, 
because of the uncon- 
trolled growth of the 
so-called ‘twin plant’ 
program, essential 
infrastructure devel- 
opment of housing 
sewage systems, 
water supplies and 
roads and bridges has 
not kept pace and is 
dangerously inade- 
quate.” 

Leslie Kochan, in a 
report commissioned 
by the AFL-CIO, 
called “The Ma- 
quiladoras and Tox- 
ics: The Hidden 
Costs of Production 
South of the Bor- 
der,” says one 
researcher estimated that 20 million tons of waste are 
generated each year, and that another 100 million tons 
of accumulated waste are improperly stored. 

In the United States, firms that keep waste on their pro- 
perty more than 90 days must obtain waste storage facili- 
ty permits; Mexico has no limit on how long waste can 
be stored. And, Mexico has no standards to protect 
workers from exposure to industrial chemicals in plants, 
although regulations are now being developed. 

Mexican law supposedly requires that if raw chemicals 
or any other hazardous materials are imported for useiTf“~' 
the maquiladoras, the toxic waste that is generated must 
be returned to the country of origin. However, a 19 '66 
survey by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte showed that 
only 20 out of 772 U.S. maquiladora plants along the 
border notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
that they were returning waste to this country — although 
86 percent of the surveyed plants use toxic chemicals. 

Further, the U.S. Customs Service has found many 
cases of hazardous substances being moved at will, 
without permits, in spot checks at border crossing points. 

Imelda Cortinas was 17 when she was one of the first 
workers hired at Matamoros. She lives in a colonia that 
has no water, sewage facilities or electricity and where 
large storage barrels sit near the dirt path that leads past 
the family shelter. Water trucks pass by several times a 
week to fill the barrels. The water is used for drinking, 
washing and cooking. 

The barrels cost about $4 each (half a day’s wages) and 
were used for chemical storage before becoming water 
barrels. Several persons interviewed by the CWA News 
in Matamoros expressed anger and outrage about these 
barrels, saying they feel certain that some have been used 
for toxic waste storage in the past. 



Earl Dotter 


Stream behind colonias is 
dumping ground. 



I 



\ 


Maquiladora has come to mean any plant in the so-called "twin 
plant" system. But literally, the word means "golden mill" and is 
derived from the mill that is central to an agrarian village. Thus, 
the "value-added" in manufacturing evolved from the word for 
the processing of grain into flour in the village mill. 


San Diego 
^Tijuana 


USA 


Ciudad 

JuSrez 


' El Paso 


Comparative labor 
costs in production- 
sharing countries* 

Korea $8.65 

Taiwan 2.95 

Singapore 2.30 

Hong Kong 2.05 

Jamaica 1.25 

Costa Rica 1.05 

Dominican Republic... .95 
Mexico (Maquiladoras) ... .89 


I# Laredo 


Radford, Virginia 

2,400 jobs lost as 
work transferred to 
Matamoros, Mexico 


Border 


Del Rio 

ji 

Ciudad ®\* Ea 9 le Pass 
Acuffa 

Piedras 
Negras 

Nuevo %. McA nen 1 




Laredo 



Reynosa 


,Jl> 1 Brownsville 

’Matamoros 


MEXICO 


r Source: American Friends Service Committee, 1987; map source, CWA News 



Earl Dotter 


Socorro Leos uses common faucet she shared with neighbors a half-block from her colonia home 


Firms strike gold 
south of border 

By Dave Kent 

U.S. businesses have found a pot of gold just 
south of the border, in Old Mexico. Their good for- 
tune is called the Maquiladora (Twin Plant) Pro- 
gram, which gives them a virtual tax-free safe har- 
bor, a pool of cheap labor, and lax regulation on 
the use and dumping of hazardous chemicals. 

In 1989, some 1,500 U.S. firms were operating 
maquiladora plants on the Mexican side of the 2,000- 
mile border that stretches from Brownsville, Texas, 
to San Diego, Calif. They employed an estimated 

370.000 workers — and experts predict that 
employment will grow to more than a million 
workers by 1995 along the border strip. 

Among the major corporations with maquiladoras 
in Mexico are AT&T, Zenith, General Motors and 
a host of parts suppliers to the auto industry. 

Some companies, including the Zenith Electronics 
Corp., have found that by shipping nearly finished 
products back into the United States, they can still 
claim the “Made in the USA” label. 

Richard (Toby) Tarver, president of CWA Local 
6229 in Harlingen, Texas, says, “I’ve lived in south 
Texas 34 years, and I’ve never seen anything like 
the growth they’re experiencing now.” 

Tarver co-chairs the AFL-CIO Twin Plant Task 
Force, created three years ago to track the ma- 
quiladora explosion. 

Although the original concept envisioned true 
“twin plants” on each side of the border, the vast 
number of workers are on the Mexican side of the 
border where wages are cheap, and only “shelter” 
operations are maintained on the U.S. side. 

According to the Brownsville Economic Develop- 
ment Council, AT&T occupies a two-room suite in 
Brownsville at 3543 East 14th Street. A spokesman 
for AT&T said that, in fact, AT&T also utilizes 

15.000 square feet of warehousing space in Browns- 
ville with three full-time employees and one part- 
time worker. 

A new U.S. plant opens in Matamoros nearly 
every week, Tarver says. Matamoros collects no 
taxes from the maquiladoras, so there’s very little 
money to provide city services to the workers. 

When the United States developed the twin plant 
program in the 1960s, the theory was that each plant 
on the Mexican side of the border would have a 
comparable plant on the U.S. side paying good 
wages. 

And, so the theory went, good American jobs 
would eventually bring up wages, benefits and 
working conditions for the Mexican workers. 

With good wages, the incentives for workers to 
sneak across the Rio Grande River would be 
eliminated, stabilizing the population of both na- 
tions. All that changed during the administration of 
Ronald Reagan. 

After the debt crisis and peso collapse in 1982, 
cheap Mexican wages triggered the maquiladora 
explosion. 

The plants employ more than a tenth of Mexico’s 
industrial workforce and in 1988 sent $8 billion 
worth of parts and products back across the border 
into the United States. 

When the materials come back across the border, 
the American company pays taxes only on the 
“value added” in Mexico. U.S. companies pay no 
taxes to the city of Matamoras. 

U.S. employers on the Mexican side, from the 
start, turned to the most vulnerable and cheapest 
workers: young women and girls. Females repre- 
sent two-thirds of the maquiladora labor force, and 
many are teenagers. 

Even by Mexican standards, maquiladora workers 
are exploited, making only half what other industrial 
workers earn in the interior of Mexico. The average 
Mexican manufacturing wage was $1.57 an hour 
including benefits in 1987; the usual maquiladora 
wage including benefits was 89 cents an hour. 







Cooperative 
pact highlights 
URW victory 



Executive Council members join informational pickets at for a fair contract settlement before the Machinists' 
the Miami headquarters of Eastern Airlines in February strike deadline. Members of the Air Line Pilots and 
1989 in hopes of convincing management to negotiate Transport Workers joined the walkout. 


Support solid for Eastern strikers to the end 


W orkers at a second Tennessee 
Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. plant in 
Tennessee are the newest members of 
the Rubber Workers, signing on under 
a cooperative agreement between the 
union and the Japanese-owned tire maker. 

A majority of operating and engineer- 
ing technicians at Bridgestone’s War- 
ren County plant signed representation 
cards supporting the URW. While 
Bridgestone recognized URW Local 
1 155 as the plant’s bargaining unit, the 
local first will structure itself before 
beginning negotiations, the URW said. 

URW President Kenneth Coss said 
the union-company cooperation leading 
to the agreement was “exemplary” and 
“in the best interests of all employees. ’ ’ 
The URW has worked closely with 
Bridgestone since 1983, when the 
tiremaker bought a Firestone facility in 
LaVergne, Tenn. The distrust that 
marked Firestone’s management has 
been replaced by a cooperative at- 
mosphere in which the union is a full 
partner, the URW said. 

While workers at the LaVergne plant 
had to walk the picket line for a month 
in 1979 to win union recognition, and 
again for three more months that same 
year to win a first contract, the URW 
has been working with Bridgestone 
“since before the first spade of dirt was 
dug” at the new plant, the union said. 

The agreement reached between the 
URW and Bridgestone called for full 
cooperation on the development of 
work policies and practices at the War- 
ren County plant, about 70 miles south 
of Nashville. As employees were hired, 
they received information from the 
company and the union concerning the 
plant’s objectives and labor policies. 

Some 150 production workers are 
already on the job, making radial truck 
tires, and 600 are expected to be work- 
ing by 1994 when the plant reaches full 
production capacity, the URW said. 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Machinists ended a nearly 
23-month strike at Eastern Airlines 
on Jan. 24, a week after the carrier shut 
down operations. 

Nearly 8,000 IAM members held 
firm throughout the strike, leafletting, 
walking picket lines and running food 
pantries and strike kitchens through its 
final days. 

IAM strikers received a $100 week- 
ly strike benefit, with a final disburse- 
ment from the AFL-CIO Fairness at 
Eastern fund made to the IAM as of 
Jan. 25. 

AFL-CIO affiliates and union mem- 
bers contributed a total of $1 .89 million 
to the Eastern fund, which was estab- 
lished in April 1989 for emergency 
needs of the striking Machinists, Air 
Line Pilots and Transport Workers 
flight attendants. 

Solidarity was the watchword from 
the beginning of the strike, as AFL-CIO 
union members and allies from civil 


rights, women’s and student groups 
joined fund-raisers and rallies, food 
drives and prayer vigils, in support of 
the 19,000 union members honoring 
picket lines at Eastern. 

Union solidarity 

There were these and countless more 
demonstrations of union solidarity: 

• Community services represen- 
tatives in Michigan and Ohio organized 
food collections and trucked the dona- 
tions to Atlanta. 

• Unionists joined ALPA, IAM and 
TWU members on the national Journey 
for Justice, a month-long trek that 
began in Miami and ended at the steps 
of the U.S. Capitol just before Labor 
Day 1989. 

• Red ribbons, armbands and hats 
worn by unionists demonstrated that 
another “Stand up to Lorenzo” day was 
being observed on picket lines in 
Eastern hub cities. 

With the strike officially ended, the 


IAM and the AFL-CIO Department of 
Community Services will be working 
with union members and their families 
to provide training and job search 
assistance, and in assessing housing, 
food and other needs, said Community 
Services Director Joseph Velasquez and 
Charles Bradford, director of employ- 
ment and training for the IAM. 

Although the Pilots and TWU Local 
553 voted to end their support strikes 
in November 1989, after President 
Bush vetoed legislation to resolve the 
dispute through the appointment of a 
bipartisan commission, ALPA and 
TWU members continued their solidari- 
ty campaign with the IAM. 

The unions pressed their case in the 
bankruptcy court, with the creditors’ 
committee, with trustee Martin Shu- 
grue, with the Bush administration, in 
federal appeals courts and in public 
forums, but were not heard, noted 
ALPA President Randolph Babbitt, a 
former Eastern pilot. 


Federal deregulation steers troubled airlines into tailspin 


Continued from Page 1 

commercial air travel concentrated in 
the hands of just a few carriers, the 
Economic Policy Institute has reported. 

Fifteen independent airlines in opera- 
tion at the beginning of 1986 were 
merged into six major carriers in less 
than two years. 

Deregulation has fulfilled AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland’s prediction 
that the nation would learn why it was 
necessary to regulate that industry in the 
first place. 

The 1977 AFL-CIO convention pre- 
dicted that “small communities, pas- 
sengers and workers will pay the price” 
if deregulation is enacted, which it was 
on Oct. 15, 1978. 

In addition to Eastern’s demise, Pan 
Am and Continental Airlines have filed 
for bankruptcy. TWA, American 
Airlines and USAir have announced 
layoffs and service cutbacks, and 
Braniff and Presidential liquidated 
assets to service billions of dollars of 
debt after filing for bankruptcy. 

“Supporters of deregulation prom- 
ised us unprecedented competition, 
lower prices and benefits for the 
traveler,” Kilroy said. Instead, “we got 
monopolies and price gouging, hun- 
dreds of thousands of lost jobs, deter- 
iorated service, the oldest aircraft fleet 
in the developed world, and powerful 
mega-carriers” that have devoured the 
competition. 


Since the start of war in the Persian 
Gulf, carriers have raised domestic 
ticket prices by 15 percent or more, 
citing increased fuel and security costs. 
But as ticket prices skyrocket, more 
passengers are postponing travel plans. 

Airline balance sheets show that the 
Middle East crisis only added to an 
already critical situation. Analysts 
estimate that the airline industry lost 
more than $2 billion last year. 

In many cases, airlines have overex- 
tended their operations, opening new 
routes to Europe and the Far East, but 
shifting costs for those operations to 
passengers flying U.S. routes, par- 
ticularly those in cities with few carrier 
choices. 

A General Accounting Office study 
found that, 10 years after deregulation, 
a flight from an airport with just one or 
two major carriers cost an average of 
27 percent more than one from an air- 
port served by many airlines. 

Here’s how unions are coping with 
the situation at various airlines: 

• At United, an offer by the three 
unions — Air Line Pilots, Machinists 
and Flight Attendants — to buy the car- 
rier was rejected by management in Oc- 
tober 1990 after earlier winning board 
approval. The unions had offered a 
$201 -per-share, $4.4 billion package, 
but the board claimed the offer did not 
have enough support from banks and 
other investors. 


With that deal off, new contracts with 
all three unions to replace already ex- 
pired agreements must be settled. While 
ALPA and company officials are meet- 
ing with federal mediators, ALPA’s 
United Chairman Frederick Dubinsky 
said the unions may reprise their buyout 
bid once the economy improves, with 
some banks and investors indicating 
their willingness to back an offer. 

United has purchased $22 billion in 
new aircraft and is under pressure from 
financial institutions to settle its labor 
contracts, analysts said. 

• Pan Am was the nation’s seventh 
largest carrier when it filed for bank- 
ruptcy protection last month. 

The Teamsters, ALPA, Flight Engi- 
neers and an unaffiliated flight atten- 
dants union discussed a buyout of the 
carrier with Los Angeles financier Kirk 
Kerkorian in an effort to block sale of 
Pan Am’s U.S. -London routes. But the 
federal bankruptcy court judge ap- 
proved the sale Jan. 10. The sale also 
must be approved by the British and 
U.S. governments. 

The Teamsters, representing 6,800 
passenger service and cargo agents, 
clerical workers and supply clerks, won 
restoration of an 8 percent wage cut IBT 
members accepted in 1988. The new 
contract includes a 26 percent wage in- 
crease over the three-year term — 
through February 1994 — and restores 
cuts in vacation, holiday and sick days 


as well as full seniority and assignment 
rights. 

• At American, members of the 
unaffiliated Allied Pilots Association 
have been trying to negotiate a new con- 
tract since early 1990, when their agree- 
ment expired. Both the pilots union and 
management are meeting with federal 
mediators. 

• TWA is $2.6 billion in debt, due 
to chairman Carl Icahn’s use of junk 
bond financing. The unions have 
charged that Icahn, while continuing to 
demand deep concessions, has used 
TWA resources for his own gain. 

Last year, ALPA, the IAM and the 
independent flight attendants unions 
staved off an Icahn deal with America 
West that the unions feared would be 
used to break them. 

TWA has no fleet replacement plans, 
even though it owns the oldest aircraft 
in the industry. Last month, TWA cut 
its service to Europe and said it would 
lay off 2,500 workers. The carrier is 
pressing the Transportation Department 
to allow the sale of its London routes, 
stressing that it needs the funds to avoid 
“Pan Am’s fate.” 

• Continental, the first victim of 
Frank Lorenzo, filed for bankruptcy 
protection in December 1990, saddled 
by a $2.2 billion debt. While the Pilots 
recently agreed to a wage freeze to save 
the airline, the carrier has sold some 
routes to American and Delta. 




Eastern fails: a chronology 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


Striking Eastern workers rally in Washington in September 1989 at end of their "Journey for Justice." 


December 1983 — In an effort to keep Eastern 
Airlines flying, the Machinists, Air Line Pilots and 
Transport Workers, representing nearly 19,000 
workers, agree to wage cuts of 18 percent in ex- 
change for 25 percent of stock in Eastern. 

January 1986 — Eastern President Frank Bor- 
man seeks another $450 million in concessions, 
unilaterally imposing a 20-percent wage cut and 
work rule changes on TWU flight attendants. 

February — Texas Air Corp. takes over Eastern 
for a bargain-basement price of $606 million. 
Unions, wary of chairman Frank Lorenzo because 
of his union-busting efforts at Continental Airlines 
in 1983, try to block the takeover and put together 
an employee buyout. Despite a better per-share offer 
from the workers’ coalition, stockholders accept 
Lorenzo’s offer of $6.25 in cash and $3.75 in junk 
bonds per share. 

November — A federal appeals court upholds 
Lorenzo’s takeover. 

April 1988 — Despite union workers’ investment 
of nearly $1 billion in Eastern since 1976 — through 
forgone wages and benefits — Lorenzo seeks ad- 
ditional wage concessions from workers of up to 
50 percent. Unions continue to raise concerns about 
safety and service and Federal Aviation Administra- 
tion agrees to a plane-by-plane inspection. 

July — Eastern demands $161 million in 
givebacks from the IAM and $69 million from 
ALP A and announces it will cut service to 14 cities 
and eliminate 4,000 jobs. 

February 1989 — The Machinists request sup- 
port from the AFL-CIO Strategic Approaches Com- 
mittee, which earlier directed labor’s solidarity cam- 
paigns in disputes with USX and the National Foot- 
ball League. 

Feb. 1, 1989 — National Mediation Board ends 
its efforts to mediate dispute between IAM and 
Eastern and sets 30-day cooling-off period. IAM 
accepts NMB offer of binding arbitration but 
Eastern refuses. 

Feb. 24 — The NMB recommends that President 
Bush appoint an emergency board. 

March 3 — President Bush refuses to appoint 
emergency board, becoming first president to ig- 
nore recommendation of his own NMB in an airline 
dispute. 

March 4 — 8,500 IAM members strike Eastern. 
Honoring the picket lines are 3,600 Pilots and 8,000 
Transport Workers flight attendants. 

March 9 — Eastern files for federal bankruptcy 
protection. Judge Burton Lifland calls Eastern “a 
national treasure” and declares he will not tolerate 
delays in reorganization. 

March 11 — AFL-CIO establishes Fairness at 
Eastern fund to aid members of the three unions. 

March 15 — By a 252-167 margin, the House 
approves a bill calling on Bush to appoint an 
emergency board to help resolve the strike. 

April 5 — Denying the union appeal for a trustee, 
Lifland appoints David Shapiro as examiner. 

April 6 — Sale of airline to investment group led 
by former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth 
seems likely as unions agree with him on terms. But 
Lorenzo jettisons the deal by changing his agree- 
ment with Ueberroth and refusing to accept a trustee 
during interim period. 

April 12 — U.S. District Judge Edward Davis 
upholds right of Pilots to honor IAM picket lines. 

Mid-April — Lorenzo says Eastern is no longer 
for sale but Shapiro cites four serious bidders and 
Lifland opens Eastern’s books to potential buyers. 

April 26 — A Harris poll shows “a 60-26 per- 
cent majority of the American people say their sym- 
pathy is more with the striking Machinists’ than with 
the management.” 

May — ALPA newspaper ad traces “Texas Con- 
nection” between Lorenzo and Bush Administra- 
tion, noting former Texas Air official Frederick 
McClure, the top White House lobbyist, among 
others. 


Mid-May — Purchase bids submitted by Joseph 
Ritchie and former Piedmont officer William 
Howard. Donald Trump and Air West bid for shut- 
tle only. 

June 1 — Ritchie’s $100 million bid for Eastern 
gains the “unanimous support of Eastern’s unions,” 
including $25 million from the IAM and ALPA and 
an additional $50 million in loan guarantees from 
the AFL-CIO and 13 affiliates. 

June 7 — Trump buys Eastern shuttle. 

June 21 — Eastern petitions bankruptcy court to 
void its contract with ALPA. 

June 29 — Unions press Congress to direct the 
Transportation Department to investigate Texas Air 
Corp.’s stripping of Eastern assets. 

July — Eastern begins limited service. 

July 21 — Court grants Eastern an extension for 
submitting its operating plan. 

July 25 — House aviation subcommittee chair- 
man James Oberstar (D-Minn.) requests that the 
General Accounting Office investigate Eastern 
management practices and evaluate the Ritchie 
offer. 

July 26 — Eastern withdraws request to abrogate 
its agreement with ALPA. 

Aug. 4 — Pilots, Machinists and flight attendants 
begin “Journey for Justice,” starting in Miami and 
scheduled to end on the steps of the U.S. Capitol 
in early September. Along route is a rally with AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland, Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue and several vice presidents in 
Richmond. 

Aug. 8 — Pilots vote overwhelmingly to continue 
their sympathy strike against Eastern. 

Sept. 12 — Lifland approves sale of Eastern 
assets in Philadelphia to Midway Airlines. 

Sept. 15 — Eastern’s right to exclusivity in pro- 
posing reorganization plan is extended by Lifland. 

Oct. 26 — Senate votes 65-35 to establish a blue- 
ribbon panel to investigate and help end the Eastern 
strike. 

October — House passes bill requiring 
Transportation Secretary to disqualify from airline 
transactions anyone who had filed for bankruptcy 
on two occasions, i.e., Frank Lorenzo. 

November — Arbitrator rules Eastern owes 
ALPA members $65 million in back wages. 

Nov. 7 — On a voice vote, House adopts Senate 
version of bill calling for a blue-ribbon commission 
to investigate practices at Eastern and in the airline 
industry. 

Nov. 21 — Bush vetoes Eastern bill, claiming its 
enactment “would create the expectation of further 
intervention by Congress that would significantly 
disrupt chances for an orderly reorganization by the 
bankruptcy court. This would hinder saving Eastern 
Airlines and the jobs of its employees.” Pilots and 


Transport Workers Local 553 vote to end strike. 

March 1, 1990 — Shapiro finds that Texas Air 
provided Eastern with “less than fair consideration” 
in 12 transactions preceding bankruptcy filing, in- 
cluding excessive fuel charges and the sale of the 
reservation system. Shapiro says appointment of a 
trustee “could so disrupt Eastern’s business and its 
ability to sell tickets as to make its continued viabil- 
ity as an air carrier untenable.” 

March 8 — The House fails to override Bush’s 
veto, falling 20 votes short of the two-thirds ma- 
jority needed. In a March 5 letter to Congress, 
Shapiro argues that the commission would “make 
it impossible for the parties to settle.” 

March — Losing more than $2 million a day, 
Eastern announces it can’t meet the 50-cents-on-the- 
dollar cash payment plan accepted by some mem- 
bers of the unsecured creditors committee — which 
includes ALPA, IAM and Transport Workers as 
well as industry suppliers. 

April 10 — More than a year after Eastern filed 
for bankruptcy, Lifland reverses his stand and 
names Martin Shugrue as trustee. 

June — Negotiations with ALPA stall over 
Eastern’s demand to ignore seniority rights in recall. 
Eastern recalls another 240 TWU attendants — in 
order of seniority — under an agreement reached 
with the union in February. 

July — A federal grand jury issues an indictment 
against Eastern and nine current and former top 
managers for service and recordkeeping violations 
uncovered at two New York airports. 

August — A federal district court judge rules that 
striking union pilots who earlier offered to return 
to work can reclaim the jobs taken by trainees. 
Eastern appeals. Lorenzo bails out of Continental 
Holdings Inc. with a $30 million golden parachute 
from Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). 

October — The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. 
reaches an agreement with Eastern parent Continen- 
tal Holdings Inc. , calling for the company to make 
an immediate $80.5 million pension payment and 
assume responsibility for fully funding the plan, 
now underfunded by more than $700 million. The 
PBGC takes over seven plans covering 51,000 
workers and retirees. Eastern losses since filing for 
bankruptcy protection now exceed $1.6 billion. 

November — Lifland rejects a creditor commit- 
tee request that Eastern be shut down and allows 
another $135 million to be taken from escrow. 

December — Appeals court upholds ruling that 
union pilots who offered to return to work should 
displace trainees, affecting 800 pilots. 

Jan. 18, 1991 — Eastern shuts down after 62 
years in the skies. Unsecured creditors are owed 
about $2 billion, secured creditors, including Boe- 
ing and Airbus, $1.2 billion, and customers hold 
about $82 million in unused tickets. Less than $123 
million remains in escrow. 






Source: Associated Press; Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. 


GNP plunges 
2.1 percent in 
last quarter 

By John R. Oravec 

T he spreading economic slump took a 
turn for the worse in the fourth 
quarter of 1990 as the nation’s output 
of all goods and services skidded at a 
2.1 -percent annual rate. 

The dismal showing in the gross na- 
tional product dragged down economic 
growth to 0.9 percent for the year, the 
weakest annual performance since the 
2.5-percent drop in 1982, when the 
country was in the grips of the Reagan 
recession, according to the Commerce 
Department’s preliminary data. 

A consensus of economic analysts 
points to continued GNP decline in the 
first quarter of 1991, AFL-CIO chief 
economist Rudy Oswald noted. Con- 
sidering the depth and the breadth of the 
downturn, most economists feel the cur- 
rent recession began in the third quarter 
of 1990, Oswald said, “and the worst 
is yet to come. ’ ’ Most analysts don’t ex- 
pect a pickup in the economy until the 
second quarter of the year. 

Even if there is a recovery at the end 
of the tunnel, unemployment rates will 
remain high for a long time, Oswald 
warned. 

Some experts feel the economy would 
have skidded deeper into recession dur- 
ing the last quarter without the military 
buildup for the Persian Gulf war. 

Commerce Department figures 
showed the economy muddled through 
much of 1990, edging up 1.7 percent 
in first quarter, then slowing to 0.4 per- 
cent in the second, struggling to a 
1 .4-percent pickup in the third, before 
plunging 2.1 percent in the final 
quarter. 

The manufacturing sector was hit 
hard in the fourth quarter. Keyed to 
1982 “real’’ dollars, the output of 
durable goods dropped nearly $10 bil- 
lion from the third quarter to $420 
billion and nondurables slipped more 
than $13 billion to $903 billion. Ser- 
vices showed little gain at $1 .35 trillion. 

Business and residential construction 
dropped sharply, particularly in single 
family homes. Business investment in 


T he United States edged closer to 
another $ 100-billion annual foreign 
trade deficit as November’s shortfall in 
exports pushed the 1 1 -month trade gap 
to $94.9 billion, the Commerce Depart- 
ment reported. 

Since early in the Reagan administra- 
tion, when imports pushed the nation’s 
merchandise trade balance into the 
minus column, America has amassed a 
trade deficit of more than $900 billion. 
It has logged deficits of more than $100 
billion each year since 1983. 

The November deficit of $9.7 billion 
was less than October’s $10.9 billion, 
but was 12 percent above 1990’s mon- 
thly average of $8.6 billion. Over the 
month, imports eased $2.6 billion to 
$43.3 billion, while exports declined 
$1.4 billion to $33.6 billion. 

Petroleum imports declined by $900 
million to $6.3 billion as the volume 
dropped by 35 million barrels to 214 


equipment was also down in the fourth 
quarter. 

Consumer demand for goods and ser- 
vices fell 4.2 percent — reflecting the 
failure of paychecks to keep pace with 
inflation — after rising 1.6 percent in 
the third quarter. Real GNP at year-end 
was $4. 148 trillion, up $38 billion over 
the year. Inflation as measured by the 
fixed weight GNP price index rose 4.5 
percent last year, the same as 1989. But 
the consumer price index as measured 
by the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
climbed 6.1 percent last year. 

Leading indicators sluggish 

Meanwhile, the government’s index 
of leading economic indicators inched 
up just 0.1 percent in December after 
five straight months of declines, in- 
cluding drops of 1 .2 percent in October 
and 1.1 percent in November. 

The index, which is designed to 
forecast economic performance six to 
nine months in advance, suggests that 
the current recession may ease in 
several months. 

The Commerce Department said six 
of the index’s 11 components were up 
in December, including higher stock 
prices, a longer average workweek, and 
orders for plants and equipment. The 
department data showed that consumer 
confidence in the economy also rose in 
December, although other studies 
showed consumers expressed serious 
concerns about their economic outlook. 

In other reports: 

• The military buildup for the Per- 


million. The average price per barrel 
was $29.44, compared with $29.04 in 
October. 

The deficit in manufactured goods 
eased to $9. 1 billion in November with 
imports of $33.8 billion and exports of 
$24.7 billion. The October gap was 
$10.4 billion. 

The deficit in manufactured goods for 
the first 11 months of 1990 amounted 
to $85.4 billion, with imports of $358.3 
billion and exports of $272.9 billion. 

AFL-CIO economist Mark A. An- 
derson pointed out that, for each $1 
billion in deficit trade, 25,000 U.S. jobs 
are eliminated. The 1990 surge in un- 
employment — exacerbated by layoffs 
in the manufacturing sector — under- 
lines that dilemma, Anderson said. 

Commerce Secretary Robert Mos- 
bacher painted a rosy outlook in observ- 
ing that “the trade deficit for 1990 is 
estimated to be the lowest since 1983.” 


sian Gulf war and sales of commercial 
aircraft pushed orders for durable goods 
up 4.4 percent in December, although 
the demand for the big ticket manufac- 
tured goods dropped 1 .6 percent for the 
year, the first decline since the 6.4 per- 
cent drop during the recession of 1982. 

Excluding the defense capital goods 
and aircraft, durable goods orders slip- 
ped 3.4 percent in December, mainly 
in autos and parts, the Commerce 
Department said. 

The demand for the factory goods fell 
in six of the last 12 months, including 
a 10.7-percent plunge in November, the 
department reported. The declines in 
orders triggered numerous layoffs of 
factory workers as reflected in earlier 
Labor Department data showing a loss 
of 600,000 manufacturing jobs since 
December 1989. 

• Consumer confidence in the econ- 
omy fell again in January to the lowest 
level in 10 years, according to the Con- 
ference Board, a New York-based pri- 
vate research group. 

The confidence index tumbled to 54 
in January, the lowest level since 1980, 
after dropping to 61.3 in December. 
The index was set at 100 in 1985. 

In its survey of 5,000 households, the 
board found more than one-third of the 
respondents consider business condi- 
tions to be “bad,” and voiced concerns 
about jobs. Just 19 percent expect their 
incomes to rise in the next months. Less 
than 6 percent plan to buy a car in next 
months and even fewer plan to buy a 
home, the survey found. 


He suggested that the Bush administra- 
tion is counting on export growth to 
turn around the recessionary economy 
in 1991. But in mid-1990, Mosbacher 
predicted the trade deficit would tum- 
ble below the $ 100-billion barrier, and 
there is little chance of that happening. 

In trade with major industrialized 
countries, the deficit with Japan re- 
mained the highest — $3.8 billion in 
November, down from $4.5 billion in 
October. For the first 1 1 months of the 
year the shortfall amounted to $37.6 
billion, with imports of $81.8 billion 
and exports of $44.2 billion. 

The deficit with Canada eased a bit 
in November to $1.1 billion and was 
$7.1 billion in the red for the first 11 
months. Imports from Mexico in the 
first 11 months amounted to $27.9 
billion, while U.S. exports totaled 
$26.1 billion for a deficit of $1.8 
billion. 


Public works 
investment 
seen lacking 

By James B. Parks 

T he federal government could combat 
the recession with investment in the 
nation’s infrastructure, creating jobs 
and raising living standards through the 
public works industry, a new study 
reports. 

The study by the Economic Policy In- 
stitute, unveiled during the U.S. Con- 
ference of Mayors’ meeting in Wash- 
ington, found that a major cause of the 
post- 1970 slowdown in productivity 
growth is the 25-year decline in spen- 
ding on public works such as roads, 
bridges, mass transit and airports. 

“Our nation is rotting at its core in 
a physical sense; its public infrastruc- 
ture is in great disrepair’ ’ due to neglect 
at the federal level, said Atlanta Mayor 
Maynard Jackson, chair of Rebuild 
America, a coalition whose aim is to 
restore the nation’s infrastructure. 

Federal disinvestment in public 
works began with Vietnam war spend- 
ing in the 1960s and continued under 
President Reagan’s “new federalism,” 
Jackson said. 

Reagan’s policies switched the finan- 
cial burden onto local governments that 
already are reeling under the burden of 
“homelessness, poverty, crime and 
drugs — problems neglected by the 
federal government,” he said. 

“Now is the time to wake up 
America to the cost of what will hap- 
pen if nothing is done,” Jackson said. 
‘ ‘If ever we needed a big hit to spur the 
economy, now is the time and this is the 
answer.” 

Funds available 

New Bedford, Mass., Mayor John 
Bullard, chairman of the mayors’ 
economic policy committee disputed the 
argument that money is not available for 
infrastructure investment. 

“In the 1980s, the defense budget 
was doubled,” Bullard said. “Regard- 
less of what’s going on now in the Per- 
sian Gulf, that budget can be halved by 
the year 2000’ ’ and the savings used for 
public investment, he said. 

The study, written by David Alan 
Aschauer, former senior economist at 
the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 
is titled, “Public Investment and Private 
Sector Growth: Economic Benefits of 
Reducing America’s ‘Third Deficit,’ ” 
referring to the public investment 
deficit. The other two are the federal 
budget and trade deficits. 

Aschauer found that if the United 
States had continued spending the same 
share of the gross national product on 
public works as it did in the 1950s and 
1960s, the nation would have had at 
least a 50 percent higher rate of 
productivity. 

Private investment in plants and 
equipment would have been at 3.7 per- 
cent of existing capital stock instead of 
the actual 3.1 percent during 
1970-1988, the study said. 

The Bush administration’s proposed 
spending on infrastructure investment 
is only 43 percent of the level in 1980, 
Aschauer said. “This will be a severe 
drag on our overall economic perfor- 
mance,” he warned. 


Imports tip trade deficit toward $100 billion 






Appeals court backs UFW 
on lettuce boycott lawsuit 


T he Arizona Court of Appeals in 
Phoenix overturned a five-year-old, 
$5. 4-million judgment against the Farm 
Workers that grew out of its decade- 
long boycott of Bruce Church lettuce. 

The case, brought by the California- 
based Bruce Church Inc., had charged 
the UFW with conducting secondary 
boycott activities against grocers in 
Arizona and with intentional in- 
terference with business relations. 
Following a month-long trial in 1985, 
a jury awarded Bruce Church $4.9 
million in compensatory and $500,000 
in punitive damages. 

The appellate court ruled that the trial 
judge improperly applied the Arizona 
Agricultural Employment Relations Act 
to secondary boycott activities that oc- 
curred in California, where they are 
legal. 

The appellate court found, too, that 
“none of the evidence Bruce Church in- 
troduced at the trial of the union’s 
boycott activities in Arizona either 
would support a directed verdict that the 
union had committed a secondary boy- 
cott in violation of Arizona law, or 
would justify instructing the jury 
regarding other unfair labor practices.” 
It remanded for a possible new trial 
the lettuce grower’s claim that the UFW 
intentionally interfered with its business 
relations. The court said the jury must 
be allowed to consider evidence of the 
“alleged legality of the secondary 
boycott activity conducted in Califor- 
nia,” which it had been instructed by 


the judge during the trial to disregard. 

The UFW has been the bargaining 
representative for Bruce Church 
employees since 1977 for workers in 
California and Arizona. After failing to 
bargain a new contract in 1979, the 
union struck Bruce Church and began 
a nationwide boycott of its “Red 
Coach” brand lettuce. Bruce Church is 
also on the AFL-CIO boycott list. 

Meanwhile, UFW’s nationwide boy- 
cott of table grapes and its related cam- 
paign against the toxic pesticides used 
on table grapes has continued to gain 
support. 

Last July, UFW President Cesar 
Chavez called for a boycott of the Vons 
Cos. supermarket chain, which contin- 
ues to sell nonunion table grapes. The 
union’s informational picketing at Vons 
has included a number of celebrities, 
including Esai Morales, Martin Sheen, 
Lou Diamond Phillips, Valerie Harper, 
Julie Carmen and Edward James 
Almos. 

Temporary court injunctions sought 
by the California Agricultural Labor 
Relations Board against the UFW ac- 
tivities were later overturned. Vons is 
now appealing a Superior Court deci- 
sion that overturned a Kern County, 
Calif. , court order banning UFW 
picketing at Vons stores. 

In December 1990, the union and the 
American Civil Liberties Union filed 
suit to overturn a temporary injunction 
Vons Stores Inc. and the state ALRB 
had obtained. 


CUT lawyers study transnationals 


A FL-CIO unions hosted a group of 10 
Brazilian union lawyers who studied 
how their American counterparts deal 
with companies operating in both na- 
tions, and will begin to develop joint 
strategies to benefit Brazilian and 
American employees of the same firms. 

The visit, for 10 days beginning Jan. 
14, was sponsored by the Food and 
Commercial Workers, AFSCME, the 
Electronic Workers, the Clothing and 
Textile Workers and the unaffiliated 
United Electrical Workers. 

“This is the first time that American 
and Brazilian unions have sat down 
together to develop strategies in work- 
ing with American transnationals, 
which increasingly are trying to pit 
workers in both nations against each 


other,” said Stanley Gacek, the 
UFCW’s assistant director for interna- 
tional affairs. 

The Brazilian lawyers represent 
unions affiliated with the CUT, Single 
Central of Workers, considered the 
most agressive and progressive labor 
federation in Brazil. 

“In today’s global economy, unions 
must work more closely together by 
crossing national borders and hurdling 
language and cultural barriers,” Gacek 
said. “The benefits of these 10 days of 
meetings will be seen in the develop- 
ment of cooperative bargaining and 
organizing strategies for the future.” 

The lawyers took part in briefings 
from government and congressional ex- 
perts. 



Dolores Huerta, vice president of the 
Farm Workers, will receive $825,000 
in a settlement approved by the San 
Francisco Police Commission, for in- 
juries inflicted on her by police during 
a rally Sept. 14, 1988. Huerta, 67, and 
other UFW members demonstrated out- 
side Westin’s St. Francis Hotel to pro- 
test then- Vice President George Bush’s 
stand on the union’s nationwide grape 
boycott. Huerta, who suffered six 
broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, 
underwent numerous blood transfu- 
sions. She and six others filed a 
$24-million civil rights suit against the 
police, who had jabbed the demon- 
strators with riot batons. Assistant City 
Attorney George Riley said the Jan. 28 
settlement of Huerta’s claims will not 
affect the suit of the other union mem- 
bers. 


With the help of some influential 
friends, the Hotel Employees and Rest- 
aurant Employees Local 25 won an 
election to represent workers at the 
Republican National Committee’s 
Capitol Hill Club. Local 25 President 
Ron Richardson, restricted to only one 
hour of campaigning the day of the elec- 
tion, got help from Robert Georgine, 
president of the AFL-CIO Building and 
Construction Trades Department and a 
member of the club, to schedule a lun- 
cheon meeting on election day. Attend- 
ing the meeting besides Richardson, 
Georgine and Local 25 Organizing 
Director Cathy Thomas, was D.C. 
Shadow Sen. Jesse L. Jackson, who 
personally greeted prospective union 
members. The workers, 75 percent of 
whom are minorities, voted 34-25 for 
representation by HERE. 


Steve Sprague has been appointed 
secretary -treasurer of the Musicians, 
filling out the term of Kelly L. Castle- 
berry II, who died on Dec. 18. Sprague, 
who has been executive assistant to 
AFM President J. Martin Emerson 
since November 1987, will serve until 
the union’s biennial convention on June 
21 in Las Vegas, when all nine mem- 
bers of the AFM executive board will 
stand for election. A pianist-accord- 



T he Federal Mediation and Concilia- 
tion Service will distribute more than 
$1 million in 1991 grants to support ef- 
forts to establish and operate joint labor- 
management cooperation. Deadline for 
applications for the awards under the 
agency’s annual labor-management 
grants program will be May 1 1 . The 
guidelines for the applications appeared 
in the Federal Register Dec. 10. For ad- 
ditional information call (202) 
653-5320, or write FMCS, 2100 K St., 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20427. 

Information about military service 
personnel in the Persian Gulf may be 
obtained by calling these numbers: 
800/626-1440 (Army); 800/253-9276 
(Air Force); 800/255-3808 (Navy); 


800/523-2694 (Marines); 800/283-8724 
(Coast Guard), and 202/737-8300 (Red 
Cross). The Navy, Marine and Coast 
Guard numbers are dedicated to im- 
mediate family. The Army, Air Force 
and Red Cross numbers are for general 
use. 

PUBLICATIONS 

States Should Keep Their “Buy 
America” Laws Intact is a pamphlet 
that explains the effect of the federal 
government’s decision to urge state and 
local governments to give up their Buy 
America laws. The pamphlet was pro- 
duced by the AFL-CIO ’s Department 
of Economic Research. Copies are $20 
for 50 and $30 for 100. To order, call 
the AFL-CIO Publications and 
Materials Office, 202/637-5041. 

Short Hours, Short Shift is a 
33-page study by the Economic Policy 
Institute that explains the trend towards 
part-time work and its effect on the 
economy. Copies are $8 from Publica- 
tions Dept., EPI, 1730 Rhode Island 
Avenue, N.W., Suite 200, Washington, 
D.C. 20036. 


Starting Over: A Survival Guide 
for Laid-Off Workers is a pamphlet 
available in English or Spanish for use 
with workers in both pre- and post- 
layoff situations. Contact the Center for 
Working Life at 600 Grand Avenue, 
Suite 305, Oakland, Calif. 94610 or call 
415/893-7343. 

AWARDS 

Nominations are open for the Labor 
Award of the President’s Committee for 
Employment of People with 
Disabilities. The award honors an in- 
ternational union or a union local for 
significant contribution to national, 
state, or community programs which 
enhance employment of people with 
disabilities. To nominate, prepare a 
brief statement (maximum: 3 pages 
typed single spaced) describing the ac- 
tivities of the candidate. Mail nomina- 
tions to the Labor Committee, Presi- 
dent’s Committee on Employment of 
People with Disabilities, 1111 20th 
Street, N.W., Suite 636, Washington, 
D.C. 20036. Entries must be post- 
marked by Feb. 15, 1991. 


ionist, Sprague joined AFM Local 138 
in Brockton, Mass., at age 17 and was 
first elected to local office in 1973. 

Robert Healey, president of the 
Chicago AFL-CIO, has been named to 
the Federal Reserve Bank board in 
Chicago. Healey will be one of three 
non-bankers on the board. He is the 
sixth labor leader named to a Federal 
Reserve Bank or Branch board. Others 
are: John Hodges, Ohio AFL-CIO 
President, in Cleveland; Donald J. Ken- 
nedy, Electrical Workers Local 269 
business manager, in Philadelphia; Pat 
Tomillo Jr., executive vice president of 
the United Teachers of Dade, in Miami; 
Victor Bussie, Louisiana AFL-CIO 
president, in New Orleans, and William 
Wynn, president of the Food and Com- 
mercial Workers, in Baltimore. 
Building and Construction Trades 
President Robert A. Georgine earlier 
completed a six-year term in Richmond. 

Daniel J. Schulder is the new 
legislative director of the National 
Council of Senior Citizens. Schulder, 
55, had been director of public policy 
for the National Council on the Aging 
of Washington. He is a former staff 
member of the Steelworkers’ Depart- 
ment for Older and Retired Workers 
and an organizer for the Food and Com- 
mercial Workers. 

DEATHS 

Timothy J. Twomey, former vice 
president of the Service Employees and 
the San Francisco AFL-CIO, died Jan. 
19 after a two-month struggle against 
cancer. He was 60. 

“The labor movement and the work- 
ing people of San Francisco have lost 
a tireless advocate and a great friend, ’ ’ 
said SEIU President John J. Sweeney. 

Twomey was elected president of 
SEIU Local 250 in 1960, and secretary- 
treasurer in 1964. Under his leadership, 
the union had grown to represent near- 
ly 30,000 hospital and nursing home 
workers. He retired in 1988. 

New Jersey State Sen. Chris 
Jackman, a longtime Democratic 
leader in the state legislature and a vice 
president of the Paper workers, died 
Jan. 28 at University Hospital in 
Newark after a long battle with cancer. 
He was 74. 

Jackman, a member of the Hudson 
County AFL-CIO executive board, was 
elected to the assembly in 1967 and re- 
elected seven times before moving to 
the upper house. He was majority 
leader in 1977 and speaker from 1978 
to 1982. 

Union MasterCard 
cuts annual rate 
to 14.75 percent 

T he annual percentage rate (APR) for 
the Union Privilege MasterCard has 
been cut to 14.75 percent from 15 per- 
cent, the second rate reduction in the 
past year. 

In contrast, the national average APR 
charged for credit cards remains un- 
changed at nearly 19 percent. Unlike 
other credit cards, the Union Privilege 
MasterCard APR is tied to general in- 
terest rates. 

“Most credit card-issuing banks poc- 
ket the savings when the cost of their 
funds drop,” said David Silberman, 
Union Privilege president. “With the 
Union Privilege MasterCard, the sav- 
ings are passed along to union card- 
holders.” 

The 14.75 percent APR is one of the 
lowest rates available for any national 
credit card, Silberman said. The Union 
Privilege MasterCard is now offered by 
72 AFL-CIO affiliated unions. 





Congress gets AFL-CIO health care hearings record 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Members of Congress were presented with hearing transcripts, a videotape 
of television reportage, and a reprint of AFL-CIO News coverage. 


Continued from Page 1 

as the “health insurance Congress.” 

Kirkland pointed out that “medical 
costs which soar upward from 18 to 30 
percent a year are putting basic health 
care beyond the reach of a steadily in- 
creasing number of Americans. As 
many as one in three Americans has 
either inadequate health insurance or 
none at all.” 

Labor is a key health care player, said 
Riegle, who emphasized the great need 
for sweeping reform. He said that in his 
state of Michigan alone “there are 
400,000 children with not a penny of 
health insurance — and that’s not 
right.” 

There are at least 37 million Ameri- 
cans across the country without health 
insurance, and at least 50 million more 
who are underinsured. 

“The case for reform is overwhelm- 
ing,” Waxman said. “It’s a non- 
system; what is there is deteriorating. 
This system is not going to get better 
on its own. 

“We must act because the crisis is 
here for too many Americans and it 
won’t go away until leadership is given 
to solve the problem.” 

Kirkland and the lawmakers also 
noted the increasing support for reform 
of the health care system, especially 
from the business community. 

“Corporations are waking up to the 
need for reform,” Kirkland said, and 
Riegle agreed. “Businesses are knock- 
ing down our doors asking us to do 
something about it,” he said. 

Also delivered to Capitol Hill was a 
videotape that featured witnesses from 


the hearings, putting a human face on 
the tragedy of the nation’s health care 
system, along with a 12-page reprint of 
AFL-CIO News coverage of the hear- 
ings and the complete transcript of the 
hearings. 

The ills of the nation’s health care 
system are reflected in the transcript: 

• A nurse’s aide in Rhode Island 
cannot afford health care premiums and 
family essentials, despite working three 
or four overtime shifts a week. 

• A factory worker in California 
testified that his insurance ran out while 


he was recuperating from an on-the-job 
injury — forcing him to absorb 
numerous uncovered costs. 

• A young mother of three and fac- 
tory worker in Texas said, “For me and 
my family, health care is a privilege we 
can’t afford.” 

• A Kentucky mother of a 17 -year- 
old son who faces death without a liver 
transplant says insurance covered much 
of the expense from his disorder, but 
not the life-saving transplant because 
such surgery is considered “experimen- 
tal.” 


‘ ‘This is the year for 
action. Labor, business, 
hospitals and physicians 
and consumers are 
mobilized as never 
before, and it is time 
for Congress to act. ” 

—Sen. Edward M. Kennedy 


“If they said to me, ‘give us your 
house, your car and everything else you 
own and Johnny can have a new liver,’ 
I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I don’t have 
enough money in my home and posses- 
sions to begin to cover all the expenses 
for the procedure.” 

• A Michigan woman who works in 
a nursing home suffers from high blood 
pressure but cannot afford the pre- 
miums for health insurance covered by 
her employer. But even with that, she 
would not have coverage for prescrip- 
tion drugs, an ongoing need for her 
illness. 

Kirkland told the lawmakers the labor 
federation looks forward to working 
with them to develop and enact legisla- 
tion to ensure that basic health care is 
available to all Americans. 

Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell of Maine and House Demo- 
cratic Leader Richard Gephardt of 
Missouri told a congressional hearing 
in January that health care legislation 
is among the highest priorities of the 
current session. 



Labor sets goals 
for 102nd Congress 

The AFL-CIO legislative agenda in- 
cludes an early effort to win full review 
of any U.S. -Mexico trade agreement; 
other goals are the striker replacement 
bill and health care reform. 


Desert Storm affects 
rail strike action 

O Rail unions representing 235,000 
workers are counting down to the Feb. 
15 strike deadline, but most agree they 
will delay action while Operation 
Desert Storm continues. 


INSIDE 

1 Airline failures 

tied to deregulation 

The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades 
Department lays the blame for the U.S. 
airline industry’s current struggle for 
survival on the failed policy of 
deregulation. 



Daily News unions 
review ESOP option 

Striking unions at the New York Daily 
News are exploring an employee stock 
ownership bid for the paper, while 
negotiations continue to yield little 
progress. 



Union membership 
gives safety edge 

Unions play a key role in making 
workplaces safer and in forcing the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration to do its job, two Boston 
University studies show. 



Economic outlook 
remains bleak 

The GNP puts in its weakest annual per- 
formance since the 1982 recession, with 
manufacturing, construction and con- 
sumer demand all down sharply in the 
fourth quarter. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001 -1 1 85) is publish'd every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per' 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


2 / 4/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 








Federal legislation to ban permanent 
replacement of strikers would 
restore balance in the collective 
bargaining process. See Pages 6-7. 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 4 


FEBRUARY 18, 1991 


On home front: Unions reach out to troops, families 


By Candice Johnson 

W ith America at war, unions have 
stepped up in a variety of ways to 
assist the troops and their families. 

The AFL-CIO and the American Red 
Cross are teaming up in “Operation 
Stateside,” a campaign to coordinate 
financial contributions, volunteer pro- 
grams and blood donor activities by 
union members during the Persian Gulf 
crisis. 

In announcing the campaign, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland said the 
labor movement will support the Red 
Cross efforts to help military families 


By James B. Parks 

T he New York Daily News and its 
striking unions agreed on former 
Labor Secretary W.J. Usery Jr. as a 
mediator in the four-month-old dispute, 
while the AFL-CIO intensified pressure 
on the News by announcing an ex- 
panded corporate campaign against the 
tabloid’s parent Tribune Co. 

Representatives of the nine striking 
unions and News management were ex- 
pected to meet Feb. 15 with Usery, 
whose mediation was instrumental in 
resolving the 1989 strike by the Mine 
Workers against Pittston Coal Group. 
Usery, a former Machinists official, 
was director of the Federal Mediation 
and Conciliation Service before being 
named secretary of labor by President 
Ford. 

The first meeting was to include two 
representatives from each striking 
union, union adviser Theodore Kheel, 


stay in touch, monitor the conditions of 
American POWs, assist refugees and 
provide aid to families who have lost 
their primary financial support. 

State and local AFL-CIOs are en- 
couraging union members and affiliates 
to contribute their time and talents to the 
effort. Community Services represen- 
tatives, in conjunction with the Red 
Cross and United Way, are coor- 
dinating many volunteer activities and 
expanded blood donor drives, said 
AFL-CIO Vice President Vincent R. 
Sombrotto, who heads the federation’s 
Community Services Committee. 


and three Daily News officials (pub- 
lisher James Hoge, Robert Ballow of 
the Nashville law firm of King and 
Ballow, and Edward Gold, the com- 
pany’s director of labor relations), said 
George McDonald, president of the 
Allied Printing Trades Council, which 
represents the striking unions. 

This would be the first time all the 
parties to the strike have met in the 
same room. “I insisted that we meet 
collectively,” McDonald said. “Other- 
wise there was no way we could begin 
to heal the wounds. This has been a bit- 
ter 10 months.” 

The News management has consis- 
tently refused to meet with the unions 
as a group. McDonald said the “only 
thing he could see” that caused the 
company to change its mind and nego- 
tiate was the continuing pressure by the 
unions on the News’ circulation and 
advertising. 


Union members who wish to con- 
tribute to the effort can send their con- 
tributions, payable to Gulf Crisis Fund, 
to Operation Stateside, American Red 
Cross, 17th and D Streets, N.W., 
Washington, D.C., 20006. 

Maritime unions continue to call all 
members, including retirees, to crew 
merchant ships carrying supplies to the 
Persian Gulf. Twenty more ships were 
activated in January, adding to the 47 
already in service. 

The Longshoremen, meanwhile, an- 
nounced that the union is sending 
dockworkers from throughout its ter- 


McDonald said he was optimistic 
about Usery ’s role. “You’ve got to 
keep trying. Maybe Usery has the key” 
to unlock the strike, he said. 

The two sides met separately with 
Usery in Washington earlier this month. 
McDonald and the leaders of three other 
striking unions met with him on Feb. 
4. Hoge and Tribune Co. president 
Charles T. Brumback met with him on 
Feb. 6. 

About 2,300 Daily News workers 
went out on strike Oct. 25 after work- 
ing nearly seven months without a 
contract. 

The Daily News has demanded up to 
$70 million in givebacks, including the 
elimination of guraranteed staffing 
levels. It also has demanded a 
“management rights clause” that would 
allow the company to set hours, wages 
and work conditions — and has flatly 
Continued on Page 2 


ritory to North Carolina to speed the 
flow of military cargo through Wilm- 
ington and Sunny Point. And, in a let- 
ter to Defense Secretary Richard 
Cheney, ILA President John Bowers 
said union members would be available 
to assist unloading efforts at Saudi Ara- 
bian ports. 

In addition, more than 1,000 
Teamsters’ flight attendants from 
Northwest Airlines have volunteered to 
serve on jets carrying U.S. troops, sup- 
plies and mail to Saudi Arabia. 

The Teamsters also are the moving 
Continued on Page 12 

Breakthrough 
pact forged by 
Steelworkers 

By James B. Parks 

T he Steelworkers hammered out a ten- 
tative contract with USX Corp. that 
protects workers if the company is sold. 

“We have real breakthroughs in the 
corporate protection area that the com- 
pany said we would never get,” said 
Andrew “Lefty” Palm, the USWA’s 
lead negotiator. 

In a major breakthrough, the union 
won guaranteed lifetime health and pen- 
sion benefits for senior workers — 
even if the plants they work in are sold. 

Final language for the tentative ac- 
cord will be addressed first by local 
presidents representing USX workers. 
The agreement then goes to the USWA 
executive board for approval before be- 
ing submitted to the membership for 
mail-ballot ratification. The process is 
expected to be completed next month, 
the union said. 

The contract covers 17,300 workers 
at USX facilities in Pennsylvania, Illi- 
nois, Indiana, Alabama and Minne- 
sota. 

The three-year pact meets, and in 
some areas exceeds, contracts reached 
with other major steel producers. 

The union, concerned that USX 
would restructure its U.S. Steel divi- 
sion, won language protecting workers 
and retirees in joint ventures, spinoffs 
and asset sales. 

USX directors announced, just hours 
before the old contract expired Jan. 3 1 , 
that they planned to issue new common 
stock for the steel division, a move that 
opened the way for USX to pull out of 
the steel business and concentrate on its 
more profitable energy operations. 

The contract gives the union the right 
to review any proposed buyout of the 
steel division and the right to make a 
competing offer, said Bernard Kleiman, 
the union’s chief legal counsel. 

Continued on Page 8 



Johann Rosenberger 

Nearly 2,000 unionists rally in front of Tribune Co. head- porate campaign, targeting other Tribune media pro- 
quarters in Chicago as the AFL-CIO expanded its cor- perties, in support of the Daily News strikers. 

Usery mediating Daily News dispute 










Johann Rosenberger 


Robert Healey, president of the Chicago AFL-CIO, addresses some 2,000 
trade unionists in front of the Tribune Co. headquarters. 


Unions expand 
News campaign 
to Tribune Co. 

Continued from Page 1 

refused to bargain on those issues. 

Hoge announced Jan. 16 that the 
paper would close or be sold unless the 
strike was settled. The unions and 
management had met separately with 
federal mediators without success. 

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO has broad- 
ened its campaign in support of the Dai- 
ly News strikers. 

“We will undertake a series of cir- 
culation and advertiser-related activities 
at the national level similar to the ones 
we are using so successfully in New 
York,” said James J. Norton, president 
of the Graphic Communications Union, 
speaking for the AFL-CIO at a Chicago 
press conference. 

In New York, support for the strikers 
has led to a drop in the Daily News cir- 
culation from a pre-strike level of 1 . 1 
million to 300,000. More than 75 per- 
cent of New York outlets have refused 
to sell the paper, Norton said, and only 
20 of the newspaper’s original 750 
display advertisers remain. 

The Daily News lost $69.3 million in 
the last quarter of 1990, contributing to 
a 99-percent drop in the Tribune Co. ’s 
operating profit, company officials said 
earlier this month. The News lost 
$114.5 million in 1990, compared with 
a loss of only $2.2 million in 1989. 

Since the Tribune Co. properties 
reach millions of union homes, Norton 
said, “we intend to assure that these 
households and the public are aware of 
the Tribune Co.’s anti-union, anti- 
community and anti-worker campaign 
at the Daily News.” 

At the press conference, McDonald 
cited a Feb. 6 National Labor Relations 
Board complaint that the Daily News 
locked out workers Oct. 25 as a pretext 


to permanently replacing them. The 
complaint also said the strike was caus- 
ed and prolonged by management’s un- 
fair labor practices. 

“This shows that the Tribune Co. is 
an outlaw company as we have been 
saying all along,” McDonald said. 

“Management decided to break the 
law,” said Robert Healey, president of 
the Chicago AFL-CIO. “In every ob- 
jective forum where our case has been 
heard, it has been found guilty.” 

The unions involved in the strike 
stand ready to settle, McDonald said. 
“We don’t intend to be professional 
pickets,” he said. “These are our jobs; 
we want them back.” 

“We know how to reach a settlement. 
The company is not seeking a legitimate 
settlement or to bargain in this 
dispute,” Norton said. 

The expanded campaign is a response 
to what some union leaders called the 
Tribune Co.’s war against organized 
labor. “The Tribune has declared 
economic war,” Healey said. 

“Charlie Brumback and Stanton 
Cook (the Tribune Co. chairman) will 
get their checks and their golden 
parachutes. But they have declared war 
on labor . . . there are some innocent vic- 
tims. The difference is we care and they 


don’t,” said Charles Dale, president of 
the Newspaper Guild. 

The Daily News strike affects work- 
ers in every area, said George Poulin, 
vice president of the Machinists. “This 
fight is their fight. What happened in 
New York could happen to them.” 

The striking workers received a ma- 
jor boost when more than 2,000 march- 
ers circled the Tribune Co.’s Chicago 
headquarters and heard speaker after 
speaker decry the company’s refusal to 
negotiate. 

Rich Walsh, president of the Illinois 
AFL-CIO, said unionists across the 
country have drawn the line with the 
Tribune Co. and that line says “No 
More Scabs.” 

Author Studs Terkel agreed: “This 
is a line the Tribune never expected and 
the Tribune is going to hear our 
voices.” 

Striking driver Paddy McDonald told 
the crowd the Tribune Co. is “as un- 
American as you can get.” 

He struck a responsive chord when 
he said the company management, if it 
could, would change the famous quote 
on the Statue of Liberty to “Give me 
your tired, your poor, your huddled 
masses . . . and we will keep them that 
way.” 


Job agencies 
get warning 
on scab group 

S tate employment agencies in the 
Labor Department’s Atlanta region 
have been notified that Securex Co. 
should not use the federally funded job 
referral program to hire scabs for the 
New York Daily News. 

In response to a complaint by the 
AFL-CIO, officials found that the Ten- 
nessee Department of Employment Se- 
curity previously had made some 60 
referrals to Securex and that 22 were 
hired. 

Tennessee officials found all 22 were 
placed in jobs in the state and they had 
no evidence the referred workers were 
being used to break strikes, said Roberts 
T. Jones, U.S. assistant secretary of 
labor for employment and training, in 
a letter to Rudy Oswald, director of the 
AFL-CIO Department of Economic Re- 
search. 

The Atlanta regional office, which 
oversees the Tennessee agencies, has 
contacted all the states in the region to 
alert them to closely scrutinize any 
Securex job orders. 

If Securex places another order, 
Jones said, the Tennessee agency will 
“clearly explain to them that. . .in ac- 
cordance with federal regulations,” the 
department will not refer workers on 
“any order relative to their use as 
strike-breakers or in any capacity 
related to the New York Daily News or 
other strike situation.” 

Securex is a London, Ky., firm hired 
by the New York Daily News to pro- 
vide replacement drivers and security 
guards during the strike against the 
paper. The company recruited the scabs 
through newspaper ads from around 
military bases in the South where local 
economies were hard hit by the deploy- 
ment of troops to the Persian Gulf. 


Unionists to rally on anniversary of Greyhound strike 


By Candice Johnson 

T rade unionists will mark the one-year 
anniversary of the strike at 
Greyhound Lines Inc. at rallies in six 
cities on the first weekend in March. 

The rallies will be held in Atlanta, 
Milwaukee, Dallas, Denver, Syracuse, 
N.Y., and Portland, Ore., with union 
members pledging that “we will not 
forget” and demonstrating their 
solidarity with Amalgamated Transit 
Union strikers who want a fair settle- 
ment in the dispute. 

More than 9,000 ATU members set 
up picket lines at Greyhound depots and 
ticket offices on March 2, 1990, pro- 
testing the bus line’s demands for 


unlimited contracting out, benefit cuts 
for newly hired workers and a salary 
package that would cut drivers’ pay by 
as much as $7,000 a year. 

Since the strike began, members of 
AFL-CIO affiliates — mobilized 
through the federation’s Strategic Ap- 
proaches Committee — have walked 
picket lines, leafleted bus terminals, 
organized petition drives and urged 
passengers not to ride Greyhound. 

Unionists at the March events also 
will be stressing the need for legislation 
banning permanent replacement of 
strikers. 

Last May, after proposing to cut 
4,500 jobs and further slash wages, 


Greyhound ended many routes and 
schedules, seeking to operate remain- 
ing routes with scabs it hired. 
Numerous accidents caused by strike- 
breakers have occurred, including the 
tragic death of driver Robert Water- 
house, who was killed by a scab driv- 
ing out of the Redding, Calif., terminal. 

ATU members had offered an uncon- 
ditional return to work on May 22, but 
were told by company officials that 
fewer than 50 jobs were available. 

The bus line then filed for federal 
bankruptcy protection in June, saddled 
by enormous debt created by its 1987 
purchase by chairman Fred Currey, and 
the highly leveraged takeover of 


Trail ways Lines Inc. a year later. 

Unfair labor practice charges issued 
by the National Labor Relations Board 
general counsel were heard by an 
NLRB administrative law judge in 
Milwaukee last month, but a recom- 
mendation has not been issued. 

The general counsel’s complaint 
charged that Greyhound violated federal 
law in bargaining by declaring an im- 
passe and imposing its so-called final 
offer. The bus line also illegally fired 
ATU members, the complaint stated. 

The judge’s recommendation to the 
full board can be appealed through the 
federal appeals court, an action that 
could take several years to resolve. 


Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 

AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 

Vol. 36, No. 4 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1991 





The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





mmm 


Labor cites Mexico trade pact peril 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, flanked by federation 
economist Mark Anderson and Legislative Director Robert M. McGlotten, 
testifies on U.S. -Mexico free trade proposal. 



By Mike Hall 

A free trade agreement between the 
United States and Mexico would 
send tens of thousands of American jobs 
south of the border and exploit millions 
of Mexican workers already mired in 
poverty, AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told the Senate 
Finance Committee Feb. 6. 

The agreement would be “an 
economic and social disaster” for 
workers and communities on both sides 
of the border, he said. 

Calling the administration’s plans 
“ill-conceived and ill-advised,” 
Donahue urged the committee members 
to reject fast-track authority for a U.S. - 
Mexico Free Trade Agreement. 

Fast-track negotiations mean the ad- 
ministration can negotiate any deal 
whatsoever, draft the specific legisla- 
tion and Congress would be allowed 
only a simple yes or no vote, with no 
amendments. This process would deny 
Congress a chance to address issues of 
serious concern to American workers 
or correct any inequities in the trade 
deal. 

However, existing fast-track authori- 
ty runs out June 1 . The administration 
must ask for an extension by March 1 
and has indicated that it will. Then 
either house has until June 1 to disap- 
prove the extension. Without explicit 
disapproval by either house, the exten- 
sion will be automatically continued and 
the administration would have two 
years to complete the pact. 

“A free trade agreement would have 
serious and far-reaching consequences 
for the two countries and, in particular, 
for workers in both countries,” Dona- 
hue said. “Such an initiative requires 
full and open debate to identify its ef- 
fect on economic growth, wages, in- 
come distribution and quality of life in 
both countries. The administration, in 
seeking fast-track authority wishes to 
stifle that debate.” 

Sen. Donald Riegle (D-Mich.) 
agreed. “Manufacturing jobs are going 
to slide away,” he said, noting that 
average hourly wage in the United 
States is $10.57, compared to about 57 
cents in Mexico. 

Donahue testified that tens of 
thousands of American workers in com- 
panies such as Westinghouse, AT&T, 
Electrolux, Farah, GM, Ford and 
Chrysler already have seen their jobs 


A coalition of 60 labor, environmen- 
tal and religious groups is seeking 
to promote social responsibility among 
U.S. corporations operating so-called 
maquiladora plants in Mexico. 

The Coalition for Justice in the Ma- 
quiladoras, in news conferences held in 
Washington, New York and El Paso, 
Texas, charged the maquiladoras with 
worker exploitation, inadequate work- 
place health and safety and environmen- 
tal damage. 

The coalition has proposed a Ma- 
quiladora Standards of Conduct, which 
would establish ethical practices for 
corporations and, thus, end the chronic 
problems created by the maquiladora 
industry. 

“We want to send a message,” said 
Sister Susan Mika of the coalition. 


disappear across the border because of 
the lowered tariffs established by the so- 
called maquiladora program. 

“Beyond actual experience, common 
sense tells us that a free trade agreement 
with Mexico, a country where wages 
are less than one-tenth of those in the 
United States, is bound to impact 
severely on U.S. employment and in- 
come,” he said. 

“Why should firms invest in the 
United States if they can move a hun- 
dred yards across the Rio Grande River 
and dramatically reduce their labor 
costs?” Donahue asked. “At minimum, 
such an agreement would have a signifi- 
cant downward effect on U.S. wage 
levels, as domestic companies sought to 
cut costs in order to compete with 60 
cent-an-hour labor.” 

Maquiladora menace 

Those wages are even low by Mex- 
ican standards. Donahue noted that the 
maquiladora program on the U.S.- 
Mexico border has resulted in new pro- 
duction facilities but no improvement in 
quality of life for the workers who staff 
those plants. 

In Juarez, thousands “live with no 
running water, electricity or sewers. 
Workers in many plants are forced to 
live in dormitories, or in shacks made 
of packing materials from the factories. 
Their drinking water is contained in 
large 50-gallon drums that used to con- 
tain toxic materials. Schools, parks and 
hospitals remain unbuilt,” he said. 

Not only does Mexico offer a vast 


“Moral behavior knows no borders. 
What would be wrong in the United 
States is wrong in Mexico, too. We 
look forward to delivering these (stan- 
dards) to the corporate boardrooms of 
the Fortune 500 companies and asking 
shareholders to address these concerns 
at annual meetings.” 

The coalition also released prelim- 
inary studies showing that major U.S. 
corporations are responsible for 
widespread illegal dumping of toxic 
chemicals in sewers and waterways in 
Mexico. 

“An important goal of the coalition 
is to pressure U.S. legislators to incor- 
porate the standards of conduct in any 
trade negotiations with the Mexican 
government,” Sister Mika said. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 


pool of low-wage labor, its en- 
vironmental regulations and enforce- 
ment do not match tough U.S. stan- 
dards. The Wall Street Journal reported 
that the growth of the maquiladora pro- 
gram, “is helping turn much of the 
(Mexico/U.S.) border area into a sink 
hole of abysmal living conditions and 
environmental degradation.” 

Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) said many 
chemical companies in his state are in- 
vesting in new and costiy gear to com- 
ply with last year’s Clean Air Act. 

“If you’re an owner of a manufac- 
turing plant, why not build your plant 
in Mexico? The cost of locating that 
plant in Louisiana would be higher,” 
he said. 

Donahue compared a U.S. -Mexico 
free trade agreement with drawing a cir- 
cle around the city of Houston, and “in- 
side that circle U.S. minimum wage or 
child labor laws wouldn’t apply, oc- 
cupational health and safety regulations 
need not be observed, workers’ com- 
pensation and unemployment insurance 
need not be paid and environmental pro- 
tection laws could be ignored.” 

The administration has insisted that 
a trade pact would open a vast Mexican 
market of 85 million consumers for 
American products. 

‘ ‘Given die extreme poverty of Mex- 
ico, there are only about 10 million who 
are in the position to buy much of 
anything at all,” Donahue said. “The 
other 75 million are merely trying to 
survive, and provide themselves and 
their families with food and shelter.” 


Thomas R. Donahue, speaking at the 
press conference in Washington, said 
the federation has joined the coalition 
for two reasons: U.S. workers and 
Mexican workers. 

“These companies want to turn the 
terrible poverty of Mexico to their ad- 
vantage, and they like the fact that there 
is little restraint on their rapacity when 
they go south of the border,” Donahue 
said. 

John O’Conner of the National Tox- 
ics Campaign, who said his group will 
have final test results on maquiladora 
materials in 60 days, noted that 
preliminary data indicate “the highest 
level of toxic contamination that we 
have ever found. . . .They are turning 
the border into a two thousand mile- 
long Love Canal.” 




Capitol Digest 


T he deregulation of the airline in- 
dustry is a failure by any yardstick 
used to measure it, airline unions told 
the House Aviation Subcommittee. 

The Air Line Pilots, Machinists and 
Flight Attendants branded as absolutely 
false charges by the industry and 
Transportation Secretary William Skin- 
ner that labor costs were the key reason 
behind the industry’s economic 
troubles. 

ALPA President Randy Babbitt noted 
that pilots and other workers at many 
airlines had agreed to wage and other 
concessions, but that such worker 
sacrifices had not stopped the rush of 
mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies 
in the industry. 

The unions warned the committee 
that foreign ownership of U.S. airlines 
and access to the American air market, 
proposed by the administration, would 
harm more than help the airlines. Most 
foreign carriers are either government- 
owned or subsidized, and “with deter- 
mination and deep pockets could even- 
tually replace U.S. carriers through a 
prolonged period of predatory pricing, ’ ’ 
said David Borer, AFA director of col- 
lective bargaining. 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 
Permanent replacements — House 
and Senate support for anti- 
strikebreaker legislation has grown. As 
of Feb. 8, 191 House members and 27 
Senators have agreed to cosponsor the 
bills (H.R. 5 and S. 55), which would 
ban the use of permanent replacement 
workers during an economic strike. 
Hearings on the legislation are expected 
to get under way this spring (See Pages 
6 and 7). 

Timber — Legislation to ban timber 
harvesting on huge tracts of public land 
in the Pacific Northwest could cost as 
many as 110,000 jobs, said Carpenters 
President Sigurd Lucassen. The bill, 
H.R. 842, sponsored by Rep. Jim Jontz 
(D-Ind.), fails to consider the thousands 
of acres already set aside for the spot- 
ted owl and old growth forests, said 
Mike Draper of the union’s Western 
Council of Industrial Workers. He also 
cited the “chilling effect” it would have 
on area already in the middle of a full- 
blown recession. 

Committees — Rep. William D. 
Ford (D-Mich.) is the new chairman of 
the House Education and Labor Com- 
mittee. Ford has served in Congress 
since 1964 and previously served on the 
health and safety and labor/management 
subcommittees. Rep. Pat Williams (D- 
Mont.) takes over the labor/manage- 
ment subcommittee, which has jurisdic- 
tion over the anti-strikebreaker legisla- 
tion. Rep. Joe Gaydos (D-Pa.) remains 
chairman of the health and safety sub- 
committee, as does Rep. Austin Mur- 
phy (D-Pa.) at the labor standards sub- 
committee. In the Senate, Edward M. 
Kennedy (D-Mass.) remains chairman 
of the Senate Labor and Human Re- 
sources Committee and Sen. Howard 
Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) remains chair- 
man of the labor subcommittee. 


Coalition seeks Mr play by maquiladora firms 







Bush budget plan squeezes workers, families 


By Mike Hall 

P resident Bush’s proposed budget 
continues the federal fiscal trend of 
squeezing and eliminating programs for 
the nation’s health, housing and educa- 
tion needs, the AFL-CIO charged. 

The $1.45 trillion budget predicts a 
deficit of about $280 billion for the 
fiscal year, but does not take into ac- 
count the cost of the war in the Persian 
Gulf, the price tag of the savings and 
loan bailout or any anti-recession pro- 
grams that may be needed if the reces- 
sion lasts longer than administration 
projections. 

“There is no recognition of the suf- 
fering that the recession is imposing on 
workers and their families,” the AFL- 
CIO said in a statement on the budget 
proposal. 

The Bush budget received a luke- 
warm reception on Capitol Hill. But 
few experts predict this budget debate 
will be as rancorous and drawn out as 
last year’s. The budget deficit agree- 
ment from last fall changed the rules on 
the budget process, setting spending 
caps for domestic, defense and foreign 
spending without allowing a shift in 
spending from one category to another. 

Most of the budget battle will focus 
on spending priorities, the large cuts in 
certain social and economic programs 
and the possibility of another fight over 
a capital gains tax cut. 

Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Calif.), chair- 


man of the House Budget Committee, 
predicted “a big debate between 
Democrats and Republicans over what 
those priorities should be. The ad- 
ministration has emphasized the wrong 
priorities. They basically repeat a list 
of the same things that go back to 
Reagan.” 

The president’s budget proposes to 
eliminate some 238 federal programs 
and reduce funding for another 109 pro- 
grams. In addition, many education and 
child care programs would be allocated 
funds which do not, or just barely, keep 
pace with inflation. 

For example the budget adds an ex- 
tra $100 million for Head Start, but $86 
million of that is needed to keep pace 
with inflation. While the administration 
bragged about its $6.2 billion request 
for remedial education programs, that 
figure actually falls some $68 million 
short of matching inflation. 

No extended UI benefits 

The AFL-CIO noted as well that the 
budget proposal makes no provision for 
extended unemployment insurance for 
people who have exhausted their 
benefits. 

“These workers and their families 
need extended UI benefits to help them 
through the personal crisis of long-term 
unemployment,” said William J. 
Cunningham, an AFL-CIO legislative 
representative, in testimony before the 


House Human Resources Subcommittee. 

Some 2.3 million unemployed 
workers exhausted their unemployment 
benefits (26 weeks) in 1990, almost one 
third of the workers who were forced 
to take advantage of the program, 
Cunningham noted. 

He said the current formula, which 
can trigger an extra 13-weeks of 
benefits, is “very slow and inadequate 
triggering on during a recession and ex- 
cessively fast” in shutting off during the 
recovery from a recession. 

The president’s proposed budget also 
calls for a $25 billion cut in Medicare 
over five years. The program, which 
serves some 35 million elderly and 
disabled Americans, was targeted for 
some $60 billion in cuts during last 
year’s budget debate. But the final 
agreement lowered the cuts by about 
$17 billion. 

The AFL-CIO criticized the proposed 
cuts of Medicare reimbursements to 
health care providers and hospitals, 
noting that current funding covers on- 
ly 45 percent of seniors total health care 
expenses. 

“These cuts inevitably would be 
passed on to the nation’s elderly and 
other health consumers,” the federation 
said. 

Among other problems for workers 
and unions, the proposed budget would: 

• Extend the Medicare payroll tax 
to several million state and government 


employees, even though Congress has 
rejected that proposal several times. 

• Cut the capital gains tax rate, 
which would mostly benefit people 
making more than $200,000 per year. 

• Eliminate federal funding for any 
new public housing construction. 

• Eliminate Trade Adjustment 
Assistance, which provides benefits for 
workers who lose their jobs due to un- 
fair foreign competition. 

• Eliminate the non-profit postal 
subsidy. 

• Reduce and restrict the operating 
assistance for mass transit. 

New rules limit options 

While Democrats and Republicans 
will fight over budget priorities, they do 
agree on one thing: last year’s deficit 
reduction agreement allows less room 
to maneuver. 

Any new programs, and increases in 
existing ones, are now on a “pay-as- 
you-go” basis, which means either new 
revenue must be found or the money 
must be taken from another program in 
the same category. During the budget 
debate, for example, Congress cannot 
shift defense money to domestic 
programs. 

“So there isn’t an awful lot of room 
for doing anything dramatic,” Panetta 
said, “You can shift a few chairs 
around and that’s probably what you’ll 
see on the domestic side.” 


States, cities 
target workers 
for budget cuts 



New York state employees march outside the Capitol to protest a proposed 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

P ublic employees, preparing to nego- 
tiate new contracts this spring and 
summer, are facing budget-pinching 
government proposals that include 
furloughs, wage freezes, layoffs and 
reduced pay. 

Union workers seeking new collec- 
tive bargaining agreements in New 
York, for example, have been greeted 
by the largest proposed spending cuts 
in the state’s history. Democratic Gov. 
Mario Cuomo ’s proposal includes 
layoffs of up to 18,000 state employees 
by the year 1992 and unpaid furloughs 
for five days during 1991. 

New York union workers aimed 
angry barbs at Cuomo Feb. 5 in an 
Albany rally to seek help from the state 
legislature to soften the blow. 

Joe McDermott, president of the 
Civil Service Employee Associa- 
tion/ AFSCME, said the rally is just the 
first step in a unified union effort to pre- 
vent layoffs. 

During the opening of the legis- 
lature’s joint budget hearings Feb. 11, 
Rand Condell, president of the 
60,000-member Public Employees 
Federation/ AFSCME, said workers are 
unfairly bearing the burden of a 
statewide financial mess. 

State and city officials blame the 
federal government for their fiscal 
chaos. They point out that revenue pro- 
vided by the federal government for 
cities, for example, has decreased from 
17.7 percent of city budgets in 1980 to 
6.4 percent in 1990. The National Con- 
ference of Mayors found that 34 of 50 
major cities it surveyed have reduced 
staff over the past decade. 

In an effort to prevent layoffs for 
3,500 New York City aides and teach- 
ers, the United Federation of 
Teachers/ AFT approved a plan to loan 
the city $40 million from their own 
paychecks. The funds would be paid 


back during the years of 1995 and 1996, 
said Paul Berczeller, a UFT spokes- 
person. 

The UFT is the first group of city 
workers to accept a wage deferral since 
the fiscal crisis of the late 1970s. 

Mayor David Dinkins said talks with 
unions representing other city workers 
will continue but cautioned, “I can’t 
promise that there won’t be layoffs of 
other city workers.” 

Dinkins added that Cuomo ’s pro- 
posals “would cripple our ability to 
provide even the most basic of serv- 
ices.” 

The state, which faces a $6 billion 
deficit for the next fiscal year, is deny- 
ing New York City about $400 million 
in state aid. 

Facing similar problems, Michigan’s 
newly elected governor, Republican 
John Engler, has proposed sweeping 
changes, including the elimination of 
7,000 jobs, as well as across-the-board 
cuts to most programs. 

More than 1,500 state workers and 
advocates for the homeless, arts, single 
parents, low-income families and men- 
tal health patients gathered in the Lan- 
sing Civic Center Jan. 30 to protest 
Engler ’s proposal. 


Frank Garrison, president of the 
Michigan AFL-CIO, said Engler wants 
to tamper with the basic conceptions of 
what government is supposed to do, and 
accused the administration of inflating 
the budget crisis to serve its political 
ends. 

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Robert Casey 
(D) shelved a plan to defer one week’s 
worth of salary for union-protected 
employees because it would violate the 
collective bargaining agreements. 

However, Casey has notified 650 
management employees that their jobs 
are being terminated. In addition, about 
10,303 state management employees 
must take a 10 percent cut out of their 
paychecks for a period of 10 weeks. 

Democratic Gov. Bruce Sundlun of 
Rhode Island plans to furlough state 
workers one day every two-week pay 
period. The furlough plan will run 
March through June 30, slashing 
workers’ overall earnings. 

“Unions can do little to stop the state 
from starting the furlough program but 
can file grievances once it begins,” said 
George Nee, executive director of the 
Rhode Island AFL-CIO. He added the 
furlough plan in Rhode Island is com- 
plex because it affects about 20 unions. 


Sherry Holbrook 

cut of 18,000 jobs. 

Sundlun has yet to conclude meetings 
with union leaders on another compo- 
nent of the plan which calls for laying 
off about 600 government workers. 

Rhode Island’s neighboring state, 
Massachusetts, is facing similar prob- 
lems. Departing from one part of his 
campaign platform, Republican Gov. 
William Weld said he will furlough 
state employees for 10 days and 
eliminate 6,000 jobs. 

California and Florida state employ- 
ees are covered by contracts expiring 
or reopening on June 30. However, 
unions will be dealing with new state 
administrations in both states. 

California’s Gov. Pete Wilson (R) 
has not proposed layoffs but he has 
stated that there will be wage freezes. 

On the other hand, Gov. Lawton 
Chiles (D) of Florida has proposed the 
elimination of some 6,000 jobs. 

AFSCME Vice President Blonde Jor- 
dan said the union will have the oppor- 
tunity to review and comment on all 
proposed eliminations before the gover- 
nor signs off on them. The union’s con- 
cern, however, also extends to the use 
of temporary employees and consul- 
tants, as well as the increase in manage- 
ment positions over the years, she said. 


-r 




Unions assail asbestos regulation 

New proposal still leaves workers unprotected , labor says 


By Arlee C. Green 

T housands of workers have been dealt 
death sentences from little-regulated 
on-the-job exposures to asbestos over 
the past two decades, and the latest pro- 
posal by the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration still would put 
workers at risk, unions charged. 

The AFL-CIO and a dozen affiliates 
told an OSHA hearing panel of their 
deep concern that the agency’s proposal 
again focuses on permissible exposures 
levels (PEL) and action levels to trig- 
ger protections for workers exposed to 
a substance that is deadly at all 
concentrations. 

This focus, unions said, does not pro- 
tect workers from asbestosis, lung 
cancer and mesothelioma. 

Peg Seminario, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Health and Safety, 
recalled that OSHA has acted only in 
response to a petition or a court order 
in past attempts to regulate asbestos 
exposures. The latest change was in 
1986, when OSHA set a limit of 

200,000 fibers of asbestos per cubic 
meter of air, despite evidence showing 
a lower limit was feasible for the ma- 
jority of workers. 

AFL-CIO Building and Construction 
Trades Department Safety Director 
James Lapping pointed out the BCTD’s 
challenge to the 1986 revision resulted 
in a federal court order that OSHA con- 
sider setting a stronger standard. 

Since that ruling in 1988, Lapping 
said, “OSHA’s institutional foot- 
dragging” has cost workers’ lives. 
Those officials “who have caused these 
delays . . . are responsible for the 
premature deaths, the cancers and the 
other agonizing diseases and the func- 
tional impairments which predictably 
will occur,” he said. 

Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount 
Sinai School of Medicine predicted that, 
by the year 2000, some 300,000 to 

500,000 premature deaths will result 
from on-the-job exposures to asbestos 
prior to 1980. 

Jack Keane, vice president of the 
30,000-member Asbestos Workers, 
said that more than half his union’s 
members “have died from, or are dy- 
ing of, cancer from asbestos exposure. ” 
Charging that construction workers 
are dying from asbestos exposure in far 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he AFL-CIO criticized the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Administra- 
tion ’s proposed rule revision for buta- 
diene, testifying that the agency is 
merely attempting to codify existing 
worker exposure levels to the car- 
cinogen under current industry practice. 

OSHA is seeking to reduce permissi- 
ble exposures to 2 parts of butadiene per 
million parts of air (ppm) over a time- 
weighted average 8-hour workday 
(TWA) and to set the short-term ex- 
posure limit (STEL) at 10 ppm. The 
current permissible exposure limit 
(PEL) is 1 ,000 ppm, far in excess of the 
exposure levels being measured by 
industry. 

“The AFL-CIO believes industry can 
go beyond the 2 ppm TWA and the 10 
ppm STEL and control butadiene ex- 
posures to lower levels,” said Diane 
Factor, a federation industrial hygienist 
in testimony before an OSHA hearing 
panel. 

To do this, however, OSHA “must 
conduct an analysis that attempts to 
show feasibility below 2 ppm and not 
stop at the industry acceptable levels,” 
she said. 


greater numbers than the general popu- 
lation, Keane said, “This evidence 
gives OSHA no choice but to regulate 
asbestos as the dangerous, lethal sub- 
stance that it is, and to recognize that 
there is no acceptable level of exposure 
to asbestos.” 

To strengthen the standard, Semi- 
nario said, it is imperative that OSHA 
require all buildings be inspected for 
asbestos “if we are to stem the tide of 
the asbestos disease epidemic from 
overtaking yet another generation of 
asbestos-exposed workers.” The pres- 
ence of asbestos in a building must be 
documented by inspection and the in- 
formation conveyed to workers. 

AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee underscored the importance of 
requiring building inspections and 


“This evidence gives 
OSHA no choice but to 
regulate asbestos as the 
dangerous, lethal sub- 
stance that it is, and to 
recognize that there is no 
acceptable level of ex- 
posure to asbestos. ” 

—Jack Keane, vice president 
Asbestos Workers 


worker notification, calling its omission 
from OSHA’s proposal “a fatal flaw.” 
Currently workers don’t know when 
they are being exposed to asbestos, he 
said. “They are living — and dying — 
in ignorance.” 

Service Employees Safety Director 
Bill Borwegen cited an Environmental 
Protection Agency estimate that at least 

730,000 public and commercial build- 
ings nationwide contain friable 
asbestos, which can flake off and 
become airborne. 

“There is no legitimate reason how 
we, as a society, can continue to justify 
not giving workers the right to know 
about the presence of the most deadly 
of occupational carcinogens,” Bor- 
wegen said. 

Worker protections, Borwegen said, 


Butadiene, a gas commonly used in 
making synthetic rubber, is not only a 
carcinogen, but a developmental toxin 
and a possible reproductive hazard, ac- 
cording to the National Institute for Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 

“It appears OSHA is simply attemp- 
ting to codify what are in fact existing 
exposure levels of 2 ppm, and give in- 
dustry a regulation they can live with, 
without requiring them to lower ex- 
posures to safer levels,” Factor said. 

She pointed out that the Clean Air Act 
of 1990 covers butadiene and will re- 
quire industry to reduce its toxic emis- 
sions through the installation and use of 
best available control technology. 

OSHA is required to set standards 
that are “technology forcing,” en- 
couraging engineering to cut toxic ex- 
posures to the lowest possible level, 
Factor said. Yet, in its proposed revi- 
sion, OSHA says current data indicate 
it is infeasible for employers to achieve 
compliance at 1 ppm “since available 
technology that is already in place could 
not achieve the PEL of 1 ppm.” 
Factor underscored NIOSH’s 
criticism of a feasibility analysis the 
JACA Corp. performed for OSHA, 


must be based on “work tasks that 
disturb asbestos, not on an arbitrary 
permissible exposure limit that OSHA 
admits is not sufficiently protective of 
workers.” 

Seminario said that while the AFL- 
CIO supports the proposal to cut the 
PEL to 100,000 fibers, it believes con- 
trol measures for asbestos should be 
triggered by the asbestos work itself and 
not a PEL or action level. 

She said OSHA has taken a step in 
that direction through establishment of 
regulated areas for all removal, demoli- 
tion, maintenance and renovation work 
under the construction standard, and re- 
quirement for negative pressure 
enclosures except for small-scale, short- 
duration jobs. 

But the agency should go further and 
require control measures such as 
respirators, housekeeping, showers and 
environmental monitoring whenever 
this kind of asbestos work is done, she 
said. 

Dr. Franklin Mirer, the UAW’s 
director of safety and health, said the 
greatest danger, in terms of his 
members, is presented by “so-called in- 
cidental contact” with insulation con- 
taining asbestos during maintenance and 
repair activities. He charged that the 
proposed revision does not deal with 
this problem in an “efficient or effec- 
tive manner and must be revised.” 

Most union representatives called for 
stronger training requirements for 
workers involved in building main- 
tenance, repair or construction. 

Among those testifying were Lynn 
MacDonald, special assistant to the 
president of the Sheet Metal Workers; 
Frank Burkhardt, the Painters’ director 
of safety and health; Scott Schneider of 
the Occupational Health Foundation; 
Joe A. Adam, chair of the BCTD safety 
and health committee and safety direc- 
tor for the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters; 
John Bamhard, the Roofers’ safety and 
health director; A. Bennett Hill Jr., 
Operating Engineers safety and health 
director; Edward Gorman, executive 
director of Carpenters National Safety 
and Health Fund; Bill Bergfeld of the 
Laborers’-AGC Training Trust in Pom- 
fret, Conn. , and Jim Frederick of the 
SMW National Trust Fund training pro- 
gram. 


calling the analysis “seriously flawed.” 
By relying on the analysis, she said, 
OSHA has “systematically underesti- 
mated available (engineering) controls 
and overestimated exposure level vari- 
ation and the control technologies 
already being implemented by in- 
dustry.” 

At the proposed exposure limit of 2 
ppm, Factor said, OSHA estimates the 
risk of cancer is 5 per 1 ,000 employees 
for 45 years’ exposure. Although the 
risk is lower for 1 ppm, it is still above 
the acceptable risk level of 1 per 1 ,000 
workers. 

The AFL-CIO, the Building and Con- 
struction Trades Department, Rubber 
Workers, Chemical Workers and the 
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers had 
petitioned OSHA for an emergency 
standard in January 1984. OSHA 
denied the petition in March 1984. 

Less than a year later, it was reported 
that a two-year study of the toxic effects 
of butadiene on mice had to be canceled 
because three-fourths of the exposed 
mice had died of tumors only one year 
into the study. The mice were exposed 
at 625 ppm — well below the current 
exposure limit of 1,000 ppm. 



Lynn M. Martin 


Lynn Martin 
is confirmed 
for Labor post 

L ynn M. Martin, a George Bush 
loyalist who served in the House for 
10 years, was unanimously confirmed 
by the Senate as secretary of labor. 

The Republican from Illinois is ex- 
pected to be sworn in Feb. 22 to suc- 
ceed Elizabeth Dole, who resigned last 
fall to head the American Red Cross. 

“We look forward to working with 
the new secretary of labor,” the AFL- 
CIO said. Martin is expected to meet 
with the Executive Council during its 
meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla., Feb. 
18-22. 

During her decade on Capitol Hill, 
Martin compiled a COPE voting record 
on key worker issues of 29 percent 
“right” — 43 for and 109 against. 

Although voicing concern about Mar- 
tin’s voting record while representing 
her congressional district, the AFL-CIO 
did not oppose her confirmation. 

Bush nominated Martin, who is 51, 
after she was decisively defeated in the 
November election in an attempt to 
unseat Illinois incumbent Democratic 
Sen. Paul Simon. 

Rail lines agree 
on union plan to 
extend deadline 

A fter a week of discussions, the na- 
tion’s major rail carriers finally 
agreed to a union proposal to extend the 
current cooling off period for 60 days 
beyond the Feb. 15 deadline. 

The agreement would avoid the threat 
of a shutdown of the railroads during 
“this critical stage of the Persian Gulf 
crisis,” said Richard I. Kilroy, chair- 
man of the Cooperating Railway Labor 
Organizations. 

“Rail labor is hopeful that good faith 
bargaining will take place during the 
60-day extension. The choice is up to 
the railroads,” Kilroy said. 

The rail coalition will reassess its 
position as the April 17 deadline ap- 
proaches, based on the circumstances 
that exist at that time, he said. 

Under the Railway Labor Act, self 
help can include a strike by the unions 
or imposition of new wages and work 
rules by the carriers. 

The rail unions, which represent 
235,000 workers, include TCU and its 
Carmen division, Train Dispatchers, 
Locomotive Engineers, Maintenance of 
Way Employees, Railroad Signalmen, 
Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, 
Firemen and Oilers, Sheet Metal 
Workers, and the United Transportation 
Union. 


Butadiene proposal seen appeasing industry 





Labor gears up for 
campaign to ban 
permanent replacement of 
strikers and to restore 
balance to the collective 
bargaining process. 


“The notion that 
somehow you can 
recognize a fundamental 
difference between the 
decision by an employer 
to fire a striker and the 
decision by an employer 
to permanently replace ’ 
a striker just defies logic. 
It's pure double-talk to 
say that although a 
worker can't be 
discharged for striking, 
the worker can be 
permanently replaced 
This distinction may have 
some meaning to lawyers, 
but all the ordinary 
worker knows is that he 
or she is not going back 
to work with the struck 
employer in the 
foreseeable future 

— Thomas R. Donahue 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

A 1 Price said he could see it coming. Land was being 
cleared. Barbed wire fences were installed. Windows 
were boarded up. And contract negotiations between 
Steelworkers Local 5668 and Ravenswood Aluminum 
Corp. (RAC) were going nowhere. 

‘ ‘I knew when I saw the guards what was happening, ’ ’ 
recalls Price. “But what can you do? There were 15 
tractor-trailers filled with replacement workers and the 
midnight shift was being told to leave . . . there was no 
work for them.” 

Price, a 21-year veteran with the Ravenswood, W.Va., 
aluminum company, described the Nov. 1, 1990, lockout 
as an insult. The union had tried to negotiate, even offer- 
ing to extend the deadline and continue working under 
the old contract, but management pulled all of the pro- 
posals off the table and left. 

Price was one of 1 ,700 Steelworkers locked out by RAC 
that day, and one of a growing number of union members 
who have been “permanently” replaced by management 
fiat. In many cases, as with Ravenswood and the conflicts 
at Greyhound and the New York Daily News, manage- 
ment plotted bargaining strategies around permanent 
replacement workers. 

Tilting the table 

This new management strategy tilts the bargaining table 
heavily in management’s favor, according to Price. “You 
can’t negotiate if the company can hire permanent replace- 
ments,” he said. 

The issue of fairness in collective bargaining underlies 
the AFL-CIO campaign to enact legislation to ban the use 
of permanent replacement workers in economic strikes. 
Such legislation has been introduced in the House and 
Senate, and the federation has placed passage of these bills 
high on its legislative agenda. 

Pushing the legislative effort will be a three-member 
steering committee appointed by AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland: Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, who 
will chair the committee, Industrial Union Department 
President Howard Samuel and Legislative Director Robert 
M. McGlotten. Samuel and the IUD did much of the 
spadework in the 101st Congress, when earlier bills were 
introduced. 

Grassroots union campaign 

The steering committee will involve various depart- 
ments in a grassroots campaign and a vigorous lobbying 
effort. Activities will include informational mailings to 
labor organizations, union members and allied community 
groups in selected congressional districts where support 
for the legislation is most needed. 

Union members will be encouraged, through mailings 







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A hired gun from Vance Security photographs pickets a 


and participation with Legislative Action Committees, to 
press their congressional representatives to support the 
banning of permanent replacement of strikers. 

Support already is building in the House, where Rep. 
William Clay (D-Mo.) has introduced legislation co- 
sponsored by 191 representatives. “The practice of using 
permanent replacement workers must end now and^ 
forever,” Clay declared. 

Clay’s bill, H.R. 5, would amend the Railway Labor 
Act and the National Labor Relations Act to prohibit the^ 
hiring of permanent replacements during economic strikes 
and bar discrimination against striking workers once the 
labor dispute has ended. It also would make it illegal to 
offer preferential benefits to strikers who cross picket 
lines. 

The Senate bill, S. 55, was introduced by Sen. Howard 
M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio). Hearings should begin in early 
spring, with the House bill likely to be taken up first. 

The call for change to restore the balance in collective 
bargaining already has borne fruit in some state legis- 
latures and local assemblies. The California legislature 
passed a bill calling for Congress to amend the NLRA 
and immediately reinstate all workers discharged for par- 
ticipating in union activities. The Boston City Council also 
has enacted an ordinance to ban permanent replacement 
workers if the public safety is threatened. 

St. Louis Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl has signed a 
city law to require employers seeking to replace striking 
workers to advertise that fact and to have replacement 
workers sign affidavits attesting to knowledge of that? 




fs at Ravenswood Aluminum Corp., where 1,700 Steelworkers were locked out and "permanently" replaced. 


Labor's case for 
H.R. 5 and S. 55 

H.R. 5 and S. 55, now pending in Congress, 
would prohibit the use of “permanent replace- 
ment” workers in a labor dispute and would 
bar employers from offering preferential 
benefits to strikebreakers who cross the picket 
line to return to work. 

In the past 10 years, employers increasingly 
have sought to evade their collective bargaining 
obligations by exploiting a loophole in our na- 
tion’s labor laws that permits employer 
discrimination against strikers. 

Under the judicial Mackay doctrine, while it 
is unlawful for employers to discharge 
employees for engaging in a lawful economic 
strike, it is lawful for the employer to “per- 
manently replace” these employees. 

Because the distinction between “discharge” 
and “permanent replacement” is meaningless 
from the standpoint of the strikers who have 
lost their jobs, the Mackay doctrine makes a 
mockery of the law’s promise to workers that 
they have a right to engage in a lawful 
economic strike free from employer retaliation. 

Nonetheless, in the recent decision of TWA 
vs. Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, 
the Supreme Court further eroded workers’ 
rights by ruling that employers can offer 
preferential treatment to “junior” strikers who 
cross the picket line and return to work. 

Under current conditions, the Mackay doc- 
trine threatens the institution of collective 
bargaining itself. In recent years, employers 
such as Eastern and Continental Airlines, 
Greyhound and the New York Daily News have 
come to see collective bargaining not as a 
means of negotiating current wages and working 
conditions, but as a means of ridding 
themselves of their unionized workforces 
through the recruitment of a new workforce of 
‘ ‘permanent ’ ’ replacements . 

Congress never intended that our labor laws 
would give employers the ability to undermine 
our system of collective bargaining. 


status. The city rejected a stronger ordinance that would 
have banned replacement workers when additional police 
force was needed. 

Meanwhile, labor groups are lobbying state legislatures 
in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Oregon, Montana, Alabama and 
Minnesota for bills aimed at the practice of permanent 
replacements. 

^Federal law prohibits the firing of strikers, but permits 
“permanently replacing” them, under a 1938 Supreme 
Cpurt ruling in Mackay Radio and Telegraph vs. the Na- 
tional Labor Relations Board. But employers seldom used 
the ruling until the 1980s. 

In testimony before congressional committees last year, 
Donahue questioned the anomaly in the law that allows 
“permanent” replacement workers while banning the fir- 
ing of strikers. 

Fired or replaced 

“The notion that somehow you can recognize a fund- 
amental difference between the decision by an employer 
to fire a striker and the decision by an employer to ‘per- 
manently replace’ a striker just defies logic,” Donahue 
said. “It’s pure double-talk to say that although a worker 
can’t be discharged for striking, the worker can be ‘per- 
manently replaced.’ 

“This distinction may have some meaning to lawyers, 
but all the ordinary worker knows is that he or she is not 
going back to work with the struck employer in the 
foreseeable future,” Donahue said. 

J*ox the workers at Ravenswood, being replaced is the 


ultimate indignity. “I’m not planning on sitting by and 
let someone come by and take my job, ’ ’ Price said. ‘ ‘We 
have put our lives into that plant.” 

For his stand, Price is paying a heavy price. Since be- 
ing locked out, he has no health insurance and is now fac- 
ing at least $10,000 in medical expenses for his wife’s 
illness. 

“She has been in the hospital for 10 days and it’s costing 
almost $1,000 a day,” he said. “I’m 48 years old. My 
daughter has one year in college and we thought we could 
sit back. I will be paying this debt the rest of my life.” 

The National Labor Relations Board has issued a for- 
mal complaint against the company for using strikebreaker 
security forces (Vance Security, notorious for its activity 
during the Mine Workers’ strike against Pittston) to in- 
terfere with picketing activity, and the Steelworkers have 
sought to expand those charges because of RAC’s con- 
tinued refusal to bargain in good faith. 

Adding salt to its labor wound, RAC recently an- 
nounced a scholarship program for the children or grand- 
children of replacement workers. Longtime workers such 
as Price would not be eligible. 

Steelworkers President Lynn Williams, Local 5668 
President Dan Stidham and other union officials met with 
members of Congress Feb. 7 to discuss the situation at 
Ravenswood and to urge passage of striker replacement 
legislation. 

Such legislation, the labor leaders said, would take away 
the bludgeon that management increasingly is holding over 
the heads of its workers. The management tactic, used 


at Ravenswood, Greyhound, the Daily News and other 
worksites, seriously affects workers’ right to strike and 
distorts the collective bargaining process. 

The strike at the New York Daily News started Oct. 
25, 1990, long after the March 31 contract expiration, 
as 2,300 members of nine unions sought to foil manage- 
ment’s attempt to force a strike. They were aware of the 
company’s $24 million strike preparation plan, which in- 
cluded an alternative printing facility, ringed with security 
guards, and recruitment of “permanent replacements,” 
who were waiting in the wings. 

Old Tribune tactics 

The Daily News workers also had the advantage of 
watching what the newspaper’s parent company, the 
Tribune Co., had done in 1985 at the Chicago Tribune 
when it also sought to break its unions. The company still 
faces possible back-pay liabilities for unfair labor prac- 
tice charges in that dispute. 

The NLRB also has issued a complaint of unfair labor 
practices against the Daily News, charging the company 
illegally locked out its workers during a printing plant in- 
cident that precipitated a walkout and then, within hours, 
bused in replacement workers. 

If employers believe the permanent replacement tactic 
will weaken workers’ resolve for unions, they are dead 
wrong, Price said. “This lockout has brought people 
closer together. The union has been assisting us on house 
notes, car notes and anything we need. This outfit is not 
going to break our union,” he said. 



USX pact includes lifetime pension, health guarantees 


Continued from Page 1 

“It’s the only labor agreement I’ve 
ever heard of that has this kind of right, 
and it’s obviously something that we’re 
going to be moving forward with on a 
pattern basis” with other major steel 
companies, Kleiman said. 

The contract also strengthens existing 
language covering successor owner- 
ship. “A buyer has to either accept our 
agreement or negotiate with us about 
another agreement,” Kleiman said. 

Other highlights of the contract in- 
clude immediate restoration of past 
wage sacrifices, which average about 
$1 an hour, along with an immediate 
raise of 50 cents an hour — plus 

N.J. health 
reform plan 
advances 

L egislation to revamp the way New 
Jersey pays for indigent health care 
is slowly making its way through the 
state’s general assembly. 

The state AFL-CIO supports many of 
the reforms in the bill, including a pro- 
posal for an 1 1 percent payroll tax per 
worker to fund indigent care, said New 
Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles 
Marciante. 

An omnibus measure incorporating 
many reforms had passed through the 
Health and Human Services, Labor and 
Insurance committees as of Feb. 11 and 
was on its way to the Appropriations 
Committee, Marciante said. 

Marciante co-chaired the Governor’s 
Health Care Reform Commission that 
last fall released a series of recommen- 
dations for changing the way New 
Jersey funds health care. Chief among 
these recommendations was to abolish 
the Uncompensated Care Trust Fund 
and replace it with the payroll tax. 

Although the Senate passed a 
measure in December to extend the 
UCTF three months after the Dec. 31, 
1990, expiration date, it died after the 
assembly failed to consider it. 

Marciante said the state federation 
supports the payroll tax instead of the 
trust fund. In 1990, the UCTF added 
a 19 percent surtax to the bills of those 
patients covered by insurance, with the 
resulting funds going to pay for the care 
of those uninsured and underinsured. 

That surtax was scheduled to rise to 
24.8 percent in 1991. 

The New Jersey AFL-CIO, along 
with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New 
Jersey and four unions, filed suit Nov. 
20 to eliminate the trust fund. 

That suit was put on hold in late 
December. It may be reinstituted pend- 
ing legislation. 

In the meantime, the absence of any 
funding mechanism means that any bills 
for care incurred after Dec. 31, 1990, 
have not been paid, Marciante said. 
They will not be paid until there is a 
plan in place, he said. 


S ix UAW locals reached a settlement 
that ended an 1 1 -month-old strike by 
more than 700 workers against 
Teledyne Industries’ plants in five 
cities, the National Labor Relations 
Board announced. 

The accord requires Teledyne to 
resume bargaining with the local 
unions, fire all the replacement workers 
it had hired and recall UAW members 
as jobs become available. The settle- 
ment also resolved all pending unfair 


another $1 an hour over the next two 
years. The base rate now is about $11 
an hour before incentive pay. 

The contract also includes a $750 
bonus if it is ratified and a $2,500 cost- 
of-living bonus spread over three years. 
The members have the option of ac- 
cepting the COLA bonus in the new 
steel division stock. 

The union won a profit-sharing plan 
and a guaranteed $l,500-per-month 
minimum pension payment for 30-and- 
out pensions. Other retirement benefits 
include increases in pension payments 
to present retirees and surviving 
spouses. 

USX agreed to join other companies 


T he Broadcast Employees and Techni- 
cians ratified a new master contract 
for 12 units at the National Broadcasting 
Co. that provides 2,300 workers with 
a retroactive pay increase and a buy-out 
provision. 

The agreement, which runs through 
March 31, 1994, replaces a three-year 
accord that expired last March 31. In 
1987, NABET struck the network, 
which is owned by General Electric 
Co., for 17 weeks. 

The new contract raises wages retro- 
actively to Jan. 5, 1991, by 3 percent. 
Future increases will be 3 percent next 
Aug. 14 and 4 percent on Aug. 19, 
1993, with a 5 -percent lump-sum bonus 
on Aug. 15, 1992, based on the prior 
year’s wages. 

Under the master agreement, NBC 
agreed to offer workers buyouts before 
it lays off any regular employees. If in- 
sufficient numbers of members accept 
buyouts, then NBC may only lay off up 
to 4 percent of the NABET members 
at each location — New York, 


labor practice charges filed by each 
side, the NLRB said. 

The UAW locals’ contracts with 
Teledyne expired June 24, 1989. After 
months of bargaining, Teledyne con- 
tinued to insist on harsh cutbacks and 
announced it would unilaterally cut 
health benefits for the nearly 4,400 
retirees. 

On Feb. 15, 1990, the workers struck 
at plants in Milwaukee, Mobile, Ala., 
Toledo, Ohio, Neosha, Mo., and Mus- 


in subsidizing USWA’s career develop- 
ment program, which trains and retrains 
Steelworkers. The company also will 
pay penalties for overtime work in ex- 
cess of 56 hours per week, with the 
money going to the career development 
program. 

The union and USX also agreed to 
settle the backlog of grievances by hir- 
ing independent arbitrators to screen 
and expedite the cases. 

The union and company will jointly 
study the needed capital investment and 
possible employee stock ownership plan 
at USX’s South Works in Chicago. 

The union also regained jurisdiction 
of clerical jobs and an increase of 15 


Washington, Chicago and Los 
Angeles — for a two-year period. That 
protection ends on Aug. 15, 1992. 

The NABET members had twice 
turned down NBC offers before the 
company imposed its final offer last 
Aug. 15. In balloting on the new master 
agreement, eight of the 12 local units 
voted approval, with the vote from all 
units being 853-342 in favor. 

NBC and the union met again on local 
issues for the four units that had rejected 
the package — operations directors, 
couriers, and mail messengers/dupli- 
cating section in Chicago and air con- 
ditioning technicians in New York. 

The three Chicago units ratified a 
modified proposal and on Feb. 8, the 
NABET-NBC/GE Negotiating Com- 
mittee approved the agreement, 
authorizing NABET President James P. 
Nolan to put it into effect the following 
day. 

Talks are continuing to reach an ac- 
cord for the roughly 20 members in the 
New York unit, NABET said. 


kegon, Mich. The company used scabs 
at several sites. 

As part of the settlement agreement, 
Teledyne will provide special early 
retirement for 121 workers who have 
at least 10 years’ service and are age 
50 and up, the union said. 

Teledyne dropped its plan to slash 
retiree health benefits but die UAW said 
a lawsuit filed on the retiree health 
benefit issue remains in effect and was 
not part of the settlement. 


cents per hour in the clerical service 
bonus. 

Finally, the contract contains a 
“Desert Storm” clause that protects for 
up to a year the wages and family health 
benefits of any USWA member called 
up for military service in the Persian 
Gulf. 

The contract was negotiated follow- 
ing marathon sessions that included two 
24-hour extensions of the strike 
deadline. 

Meanwhile, the union reported gain- 
ing a “tentative understanding” for a 
three-year contract covering 2,600 
members at the USS-Kobe Steel -Co. 
plant in Lorain, Ohio. 

SIU, MEBA2 
sign accord 
on cable ships 

T he Seafarers and District 2 of the 
Marine Engineers signed a five-year 
accord with American Telephone and 
Telegraph Co. to assure staffing of U.S. 
crews on AT&T cable ships. 

The agreement covers manning 
levels, pay, benefits and working con- 
ditions on four cable-laying ships in the 
AT&T fleet. Prior contracts with 
AT&T subsidiary Transoceanic Cable 
Co. covered two vessels, Long Lines 
and Charles L. Brown. The new agree- 
ment extends to the recently launched 
Global Link and the Global Sentinel, 
which is due to be launched this spring. 

During negotiations last December, 
the SIU and MEBA District 2 raised 
concerns that AT&T was steering 
toward the possibility of putting the new 
cable ships under foreign-flag registry 
on the argument of cost-savings. 

In reaching the settlement, the com- 
pany said it could maintain a com- 
petitive edge in the world market and 
continue to staff crews represented by 
U.S. maritime unions as it had for the 
past 30 years. 

SIU President Michael Sacco and 
MEBA District 2 President Raymond 
T. McKay praised the company for 
agreeing to the settlement that will bring 
a net increase in jobs with the addition 
of the cable-laying vessels. 

Flight Attendants 
set election date 

Charlotte, N.C. 

T he Flight Attendants board of direc- 
tors set national officer elections for 
June 12 and adopted a constitutional 
change establishing run-off procedures 
to be used when no one candidate 
receives a majority of votes cast on the 
first ballot. 

AFA President Susan Bianchi-Sand 
and other national officers will serve 
until the June elections. The 1990 board 
meeting had adjourned without electing 
new officers in November after 
Bianchi-Sand finished short of a 
majority. 

Officers now are elected by the 
board, but the AFA has been review- 
ing the possibility of direct membership 
election. The board established the 
AFA Direct Election Committee, which 
will issue recommendations at the Oc- 
tober board meeting. Direct election by 
the membership was endorsed by the 
AFA’s executive board last November. 

The board of directors — the AFA’s 
highest governing body — comprises 
nearly 50 local council presidents 
representing every AFA domicile, or 
home base, at 18 airlines. 


UAW pact is end of line for Teledyne scabs 



David Walters/ACTWU 

Unionists walk an informational picket line outside the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) 
Sun-Sentinel, a sister paper of the New York Daily News. Leading the 
march are Clothing and Textile Workers President Jack Sheinkman, left, 
and Edgar Romney, executive vice president of the Ladies' Garment 
Workers. Daily News workers have been on strike since Oct. 25. 



NABET ratifies NBC contract; 
gains retroactive pay raises 




New immigration law 
protects jobs, wages 



Steve Miller/Miller Photography 

Members of the Ladies' Garment Workers and Frontlash leaflet the Toy 
Manufacturers of America annual toy fair in New York City. The unionists 
were discouraging toy buyers from purchasing toys made in China because 
of that country's abuses of human rights and child labor. 

Unions want OPIC aid halted 
over Korean rights offenses 


By James B. Parks 

T he 1990 Immigration Act will help 
unions protect members’ jobs, wages 
and working conditions by tightening 
the rules on bringing in temporary 
foreign workers and by setting caps on 
the numbers of certain workers allowed 
to enter the country. 

Participants in a Jan. 28 AFL-CIO 
conference on immigration were told 
the bill, the most comprehensive revi- 
sion of the legal immigration system 
since 1965, strengthens the “labor cer- 
tification” procedures employers must 
use to bring in some types of temporary 
alien workers. 

Those procedures will continue the 
requirement that employers seek U.S. 
workers first and offer wages and work- 
ing conditions to the alien workers that 
assure they will not be exploited and 
that their employment won’t take away 
current jobs. 

The new law adds the stipulation that 
an employer who requests a labor cer- 
tification will have to notify the bargain- 
ing representative upon making the 
application. 

One of the most abused temporary 
visa categories as far as labor is con- 
cerned has been the H-1B visa for per- 
sons of “distinguished merit and abili- 
ty.” The Immigration and Naturaliza- 
tion Service, in practice, has issued the 
visa to professionals and other people 
who do not fit the category. 

The' new law narrows this category 
and sets specific limits on the number 
of persons who can be admitted with 
this kind of visa. 

If an employer of H-1B aliens does 
not pay the required wages, meet the re- 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

N ew Jersey Gov. James Florio has 
ordered the New Jersey Turnpike 
Authority to terminate its contract with 
Shell Oil Co. , a longtime boycott target 
of the AFL-CIO because of its treat- 
ment of black miners in South Africa. 

UAW President Owen Bieber, co- 
chair of the AFL-CIO Boycott Shell 
Committee, joined the governor for the 
announcement. The committee, co- 
chaired by Bieber and Mine Workers 
President Richard Trumka, coordinated 
a yearlong lobbying effort to convince 
New Jersey to terminate the Shell 
contract. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council’s 
1986 call for the boycott cited Royal 
Dutch Shell’s firing of 86 black South 
African members of the National Union 
of Mineworkers at the Reitspruit mine. 
The statement noted the boycott call of 
the International Confederation of Free 
Trade Unions and said the action was 
against Shell, not the individual mer- 
chants selling Shell products. 

“Shell has made great profits by tak- 
ing advantage of the cheap wages of 
apartheid,” Trumka said. 


Orlando, Fla. 

M ickey Mouse, Donald Duck and 
other characters and performers 
portrayed by members of Actors’ Equi- 
ty won a three-year agreement with 
Walt Disney World Co. 

The contract covering the 400 per- 
formers — who include dancers, 
singers, comedians, gymnasts and 
others — increases salaries by 4 percent 


quired working conditions, or hire the 
aliens for certain specific occupation, 
the union can challenge that action. 

A challenge may occur if the 
employer attempts to bring in aliens as 
scabs or does not give proper notice of 
the intention to bring in aliens. 

If found guilty of a violation, the 
employer could be barred for at least 
a year from bringing in aliens and also 
could face a fine. 

The new law substantially strengthens 
the 1986 Immigration Reform and Con- 
trol Act, which prohibits employers 
from discriminating against authorized 
workers based on their national origin 
or lack of citizenship. 

One of the most important changes in 
that law increases the monetary 
penalties for discrimination, bringing 
them up to the same level as fines for 
employer sanctions. 

The law also now bans employers 
from intimidating, threatening, coerc- 
ing or retaliating against a person who 
files a complaint or helps in a case 
under the anti-discrimination law. 

The 1990 law eliminates the require- 
ment that an alien file a form indicating 
plans to apply for citizenship before the 
alien could file a complaint. 

Under the bill, employers cannot ask 
a new hire to provide more or different 
documents than the law requires to 
prove authority to work. They also can- 
not refuse to accept documents that ap- 
pear to be genuine. 

The bill extends for a year the period 
of time during which a temporary resi- 
dent can apply for permanent status. 

Most of the provisions in the bill take 
effect on Oct. 1. 


Florio, declaring that “New Jersey 
can’t do business with such a com- 
pany,” noted that many international 
organizations have heeded the union 
call to boycott Shell. 

In a January letter to the chairman of 
the Turnpike Authority, Florio said 
New Jersey law requires that the state’s 
pension and annuity funds be withdrawn 
from banks or other financial institu- 
tions that provide loans to South Africa, 
and that the state not invest in stocks or 
securities of those companies who do 
business in or with South Africa. 

“In light of this state policy and my 
personal beliefs, I am inclined to oppose 
any action which would permit an ex- 
tension of the current contract,” Florio 
said. 

The Turnpike Authority signed an ex- 
clusive five-year contract with Shell Oil 
Company in 1987. The contract con- 
tained an option to renew for an addi- 
tional five years if the option was exer- 
cised prior to April 1 of this year. 
Florio ’s action means that Shell’s ex- 
clusive right to operate all 13 service 
areas along the turnpike would expire 
April 1, 1992. 


in each contract year and adds incre- 
mental bonuses for lead performers. 

The agreement also improves job 
safety, requires that schedules be set 
two weeks in advance and calls for 
management to provide appropriate 
costumes and footwear. 

The Disney performers voted to join 
Equity in a National Labor Relations 
Board election in November 1989. 


By John R. Oravec 

S outh Korea’s mass jailing of trade 
unionists and its escalating worker 
and human rights abuses are grounds 
enough for the Overseas Private Invest- 
ment Corp. to terminate assistance pro- 
grams for firms operating under the 
oppressive regime of President Roh, the 
AFL-CIO said. 

To continue Korea’s eligibility for 
U.S. assistance does more than extend 
certain benefits, the federation told 
OPIC chief Fred Seder. “It puts the 
blessing of the U.S. government on 
policies and practices that violate 
human rights.” 

OPIC, a quasi-government agency 
established by Congress in 1969, in- 
sures and finances private U.S. invest- 
ment in developing countries and pro- 
motes foreign trade programs. 

Not only has the Roh regime failed 
to make progress in internationally 
recognized standards on worker rights, 
but it has threatened to crack down 
further on Korean unions, the federa- 
tion pointed out. 

Korea’s labor minister recently issued 
a public warning that the government 
will adopt sterner measures in 1991, in- 
cluding labor law revisions to give the 
government more power against unions 
in labor disputes, AFL-CIO Economic 
Research Director Rudy Oswald said. 

The federation brief reinforces a peti- 
tion the UAW filed last fall that cited 
the unjust jailing of 50 union leaders 
before the imprisonment of more than 
500 protesting workers last June. 

“To our knowledge, no other coun- 
try in the world has jailed more 
unionists than Korea,” the UAW peti- 
tion said. “The continuing government 
offensive against unions has increased 
this number in recent months. These ar- 
rests are, in most instances, the result 
of government repression of the right 
to freedom of association and to 
organize and bargain collectively.” 
The repression cited by the UAW 
refuted OPIC’s 1988 claims that the 
Korean government “is making slow 
but steady progress” on worker rights 
issues. 

The UAW pointed out that a 1990 
State Department report described the 


legal framework for labor-management 
relations in Korea “as the same as it 
was under the dictatorship of General 
Chun.” 

The State Department report noted 
that government intervention in labor 
disputes escalated sharply in 1990. 
“The most dramatic example,” the 
UAW said, “was the land, air and 
water assault on striking Hyundai 
Heavy Industries workers and their sup- 
porters from other Hyundai operations 
in the area. In the wake of the military 
operation, more than 700 workers were 
arrested.” 

The UAW petition said that the 
government crackdown on Korean 
unions has impeded its ability to repre- 
sent the economic interests of members 
as well as to improve working 
conditions. 

“The staggering growth of workplace 
deaths cannot be separated from the 
repression of Korean unions,” the peti- 
tion declared. 

Chile reinstated 

Meanwhile, the White House an- 
nounced that Chile, Paraguay and the 
Central African Republic were 
reinstated as beneficiaries in the 
Generalized System of Preferences 
(GSP) for duty-free access to U.S. 
markets on certain goods. 

The AFL-CIO endorsed the return of 
Chile to the GSP program, but opposed 
the return of Paraguay and the Central 
African Republic because of continued 
repression of trade union rights. 

Chile lost the GSP privileges in 1987 
for rights abuses under the Pinochet dic- 
tatorship. With the return to democracy 
and improved labor policies under 
President Patricio Ay 1 win, the federa- 
tion called for removal of sanctions. 

The White House also awarded GSP 
privileges to Namibia, which became an 
independent country last March. 

GSP sanctions continue against 
Burma, Liberia, Nicaragua and 
Romania because of worker rights 
abuses. Labor policies are under review 
for eight other GSP beneficiaries — 
Bangladesh, Benin, the Dominican 
Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal, the 
Sudan and Syria. 


New Jersey heeds boycott, 
to ban Shell on Turnpike 


Equity gains contract for Disney performers 








Union pay 
well ahead 
of nonunion 

Wages plus benefits 
yield clear advantage 

By John R. Oravec 

U nion membership was worth $119 
more a week in the average 
worker’s paycheck last year. That was 
just regular wages, not the additional 
value of employer-paid benefits that 
have been running nearly double those 
of nonunion workers. 

Median weekly earnings in 1990 for 
full-time unionized wage and salary 
workers were $509, compared with 
$390 for nonunion workers, according 
to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics. 

On an annual basis, the union advan- 
tage in median earnings works out to 
more than $6,100, figures from the BLS 
household survey show. 

The BLS earnings data do not include 
employer-paid benefits, which in the 
third quarter of 1989 averaged $6.95 an 
hour for union members — nearly 90 
percent more than the $3.80 rate for 
nonunion workers, AFL-CIO eco- 
nomist John Zalusky pointed out. 

“Union membership is one of the 
best investments a worker could 
make,” Zalusky said. “The monetary 
return on a union card is 18 times the 
average cost of union dues.” 

Union members fared better in just 
about every job category, except in pro- 
fessional specialties. The median pay 
for nonunion workers was boosted 
significantly by the executive, man- 
agerial and administrative categories. 
Only in finance, insurance and real 
estate did nonunion workers have an 
edge over union employees. 

Here are some examples of the ad- 


vantage of a union contract that BLS 
found in its 1990 study: 

• Male union members averaged 
$85 a week more than their nonunion 
counterparts. 

• Union women earned $122 more 
than nonunion females. 

• Among white workers, those with 
union cards earned $119 more than 
those without. 

• Among minorities, the union edge 
for blacks was $138 a week, while 
Hispanic union workers earned $137 
more a week. 

Here is the rundown on the union dif- 
ferential in average weekly pay in basic 
industries: manufacturing, plus $60; 
construction, plus $246; mining, plus 
$34; transportation and public utilities, 
plus $91; wholesale and retail trade, 
plus $99; government, plus $93, and 
finance, insurance and real estate, 
minus $20. 

Among precision production workers 
and certain skilled crafts, the union ad- 
vantage was $164 a week. For union 
machine operators, assemblers and in- 
spectors, it was $249 more a week. For 
union laborers and helpers, the edge 
was $154 a week. 

The median weekly pay for union 
workers increased $12 over the year 
while rising $18 for nonunion employ- 


ees, with the biggest raises coming in 
the managerial and professional ranks. 

The BLS report also said that 16.7 
million American workers were mem- 
bers of unions in 1990, down 1.3 per- 
cent from the 16.9 million in 1989. 
Union membership has hovered around 
17 million since the mid-1980s. 

In a separate report, BLS said major 
collective bargaining settlements in 
1990 covering some 2 million workers 
provide wage increases averaging 4 
percent in the first contract year and 3.2 
percent annually over the contract term. 
The BLS wage rate study comprises 
bargaining units of 1,000 workers or 
more, and does not include lump-sum 
bonuses, cost-of-living adjustments and 
employer-paid benefits. 

Zalusky estimated that the union- 
negotiated benefits in the 1990 set- 
tlements could add at least another 1 
percent more to the annual value of the 
average contract. 

The BLS said lump-sum bonuses 
were negotiated for 819,000 workers in 
last year’s settlements. The provisions 
were dropped from contracts covering 

214,000 workers. 

Unions negotiated contracts with 
COLAs for 778,000 workers last year. 
COLA clauses were dropped from con- 
tracts covering 37,500 workers. 


Unions provide 
trade benefit in 
global market 

L abor’s critics who blame the nagging 
U.S. foreign trade deficit on unions 
are off base, economics professor 
Thomas Karier asserts in a report issued 
by the Economic Policy Institute. 

Karier writes that there is no evidence 
that labor unions have made U.S. com- 
panies less competitive and more 
vulnerable to foreign imports. 

If anything, higher wages and high 
rates of unionization are usually accom- 
panied by high levels of capital invest- 
ment, Karier points out in his study. 
These are characteristics of countries 
that have increasing productivity 
growth and economic competitiveness. 

The study, titled Trade Deficits and 
Labor Unions: Myths and Realities, 
observes that Japan, West Germany and 
Canada accounted for 63 percent of the 
$120 billion merchandise trade deficit 
that the United States ran up in 1988. 
All three had higher rates of unioniza- 
tion than the 18 percent mark in the 
United States. 

Japan, with 32 percent of its work- 
force organized and the average 
manufacturing hourly pay scale just 
pennies below the U.S. rate of $13.90, 
rang up a $52 billion surplus in trade 
with the United States. 

West Germany, with 42 percent of its 
workers in unions and the manufactur- 
ing wage average nearly $5 more an 
hour than in American factories, posted 
a $12 billion surplus in U.S. trade. 

Canada, with 36 percent of the work- 
force organized and the factory pay 
comparable to the U.S. rate, had an ex- 
port edge of nearly $12 billion. 

Karier notes the U.S. position in in- 
ternational economics has declined at 
the same time that union representation 
has dropped to a 40-year low and is the 
lowest of any industrialized nation. 


Jobless rate at 6.2 percent as more workers drop out 


By John R. Oravec 

M ore than 7.7 million workers were 
unemployed in January as layoffs 
and shrinking job openings bumped the 
jobless rate to 6.2 percent. But even for 
the employed wage earners, the average 
workweek dropped by a half-hour to 
34.1 hours as the economy continued 
to slide, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
reported. 

The recession cut deeper into better- 
paying construction and factory jobs as 
the unemployment rate climbed to its 
highest level in more than three-and-a- 
half years. 

Based on the BLS household survey, 
total civilian employment fell by 

650,000 last month, while 540,000 
workers dropped out of the labor force 
as the prospects of finding a new job 
dimmed further. 

Since June, unemployment has shot 
up by 1 .2 million as the jobless rate rose 
from 5.3 percent, including 0. 1 percent 
from December. But AFL-CIO chief 
economist Rudy Oswald warned that 
the January data are substantially 
weaker than the slight over-the-month 
percentage change implies. 

By counting the 1.5 million dis- 


couraged workers who have dropped 
out of the labor force, as well as 5.5 
million involuntary part-time workers 
on top of the 7.7 million officially 
jobless, Oswald noted that 14.7 million 
are affected by partial or total 
unemployment. 

Based on state unemployment in- 
surance reports and BLS data, 8.6 
million workers were counted as jobless 
before seasonal adjustment. Yet, only 
some 4 million were eligible to collect 
unemployment compensation, leaving 
4.6 million out of work and without 
benefits. 

Payroll employment dropped by 

230.000 in January after a decline of 

150.000 in December, the BLS survey 
of non-farm establishments showed. 

Construction workers lost 155,000 
jobs last month — some of the losses 
stemming from weather conditions. 
With the severe building slowdown in 
1990, the industry has lost 450,000 jobs 
since last May. 

Manufacturing employment dropped 
by 70,000 in January, continuing the 
downturn that started early in 1989, and 
has resulted in the loss of about 1 
million factory jobs. 


BLS said there were large losses in 
construction-related industries — 
lumber and wood products, furniture 
and fixtures, as well as stone, clay and 
glass products. Also severely affected 
were auto-related jobs — assembly 
lines, parts and fabricated metals. 

In the services sector, job losses came 
in wholesale trade, finance, insurance 
and real estate, as well as in local, state 
and federal governments. Small gains 
were posted in transportation, retail 
trade and health care. 

Several large states reported sharp in- 
creases in unemployment last month. 
Heading the list was Massachusetts, 
where the rate jumped from 7.3 percent 
in December to 8.6 percent in January. 
New York’s rate climbed a full percen- 
tage point to 6.5 percent, while Califor- 
nia listed more than 1 million workers 
on its jobless rolls as the rate rose 0.2 
percent to 7 percent. 

Nearly 100,000 auto workers re- 
mained on temporary layoff in January 
as automakers shutdown production 
lines because of slumping car sales. But 
with the combination of jobless com- 
pensation and negotiated supplemental 
unemployment benefits, laid off UAW 


members are drawing up to 95 percent 
of their regular pay. 

Meanwhile, General Motors Corp. 
announced early in February it would 
slash 15,000 white-collar jobs by 1993, 
starting with a cuts of 6,000 salaried 
workers this year. And Hughes Air- 
craft, a unit of General Motors, an- 
nounced plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs 
over the next two years. It said most of 
the reductions would be at the com- 
pany’s missile system division in Tuc- 
son, Ariz., where some 5,500 workers 
are employed. 

Pan Am Corp. announced that it will 
cut 4,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its 
workforce, including 1,400 workers 
who are scheduled to move to United 
Airlines as part of the $290 million deal 
to sell the carrier’s London routes. Pan 
Am officials said 900 of the 1,400 
workers would be transferred to United, 
but the other 500 jobs would be elimi- 
nated. 

USAir also announced a new wave of 
job cuts, idling 3,585 employees as it 
shut down four of its 12 flight bases, 
a maintenance facility and a reservation 
office. The airline said all job sectors 
would be affected by the cuts. 



Meany Center reaches out to West Coast 


T he George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies, in conjunction with the 
AFL-CIO Department of Education, is 
taking many of its labor courses to the 
West Coast. 

A new western semester, to be of- 
fered during June at the Clark Kerr 
Campus of the University of California 
at Berkeley, will give West Coast labor 
leaders and staff members an opportun- 
ity to study labor courses in their back 
yard. 

Five institutes from the center’s core 
curriculum will be offered. They are: 
Organizing Techniques (in English and 


Spanish); Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation; Organization in the Con- 
struction Industry; The Craft of Nego- 
tiations, and Newswriting and Editing 
for Union Publications. 

Robert Pleasure, director of the 
Meany Center, said the western 
semester provides access to union 
leaders who might not have a chance to 
travel to Washington. 

In addition, the Department of 
Education will offer workshops in 
Teaching Techniques for Labor Educa- 
tion, Advanced Teaching Techniques, 
Labor in the Schools and One-on-One 


Coordinator Training, also in English 
and Spanish. 

Education Director Dorothy Shields 
said previous enrollment clearly showed 
the popularity of the curriculum and 
“considering the exorbitant cost of 
travel and other expenses, we 
developed the Western Semester.” 

Staff from the AFL-CIO Education 
Department and the Meany Center will 
teach the courses. 

Some 250 people are expected to 
study in the western semester program, 
according to Dave Alexander, senior 
staff associate at the Center. 


Enrollment will be limited to elected 


or appointed staff and officers of AFL- 
CIO affiliated unions. First priority will 
be given to those applicants west of the 
Mississippi River. 

Besides the University of California 
at Berkeley, other institutions that have 
provided assistance in establishing the 
program are UCLA, the University of 
Oregon, the University of Colorado and 
San Francisco Community College. 

More information about enrolling in 
the western semester may be obtained 
by calling registration at the Meany 
Center at 301/431-6400. 



Spreading news 
of Workers 
Memorial Day 


Kits now are available for 
the third annual obser- 
vance of Workers 
Memorial Day, April 28, 
1991. For more informa- 
tion, contact the AFL-CIO 
Department of Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health 
(202/637-5366). 


1st annual Saul Miller Award 
to honor strikebreaker report 


T he Saul Miller Award, recognizing 
the best print labor reporting on a 
single issue, was announced by the 
AFL-CIO and the International Labor 
Communications Association. 

The 1991 award is designated for 
reporting on the use of permanent 
replacement workers by employers bent 
on upsetting the balance of collective 
bargaining. 

The first contest will recognize the 
labor press’ effort to inform members 
about this issue and strengthen grass- 
roots efforts to win congressional re- 
form. The AFL-CIO has declared that 
the passage of the bill banning the use 
of permanent striker replacements is 
among its top legislative priorities. 

Entries will be accepted from na- 
tional, international, local and union 
regional publications. Publications must 
be, or become, members of ILCA at the 
time their entries are submitted. All 
work published between Jan. 1 and 
Dec. 31, 1991, will be considered. 

Because it is part of the ILCA Jour- 
nalistic Awards Contest, the official 
contest call will go out early next year. 
All printed material, news stories, col- 
umns, series, original photographs, car- 
toons and artwork may be entered in the 
competition. 

The contest, a brainchild of Steel- 


workers Assistant Legislative Director 
Ken Kovack, is being coordinated by 
ILCA President Pat Ziska and Susan 
Dunlop, assistant to AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland and former 
secretary -treasurer of ILCA. 

Miller’s career with the federation 
spanned 27 years, beginning as a 
reporter for the AFL News Reporter. 
Fie served as director of publications 
and retired as director of the Depart- 
ment of Information in 1982. Miller 
died in 1987. 

Meanwhile, the ILCA announced its 
sixth biennial Film and Broadcast Com- 
petition for member-organization works 
first shown in calendar years 1989 or 
1990. 

The purpose of the contest is to in- 
crease interest and use of film, tape and 
audio resources now available in the 
labor movement, according to ILCA. 
Deadline for entries is May 1. 

Categories include television pro- 
grams produced at least six times a 
year, promotional spots and commer- 
cials, home videos, radio programs and 
promotional spots, slide shows and all 
other film or video productions. 

For contest rules and entry form, 
write ILCA, 815 16th Street, N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20006, or call (202) 
637-5068. 



George E. “Jeep” Gilliland was 
elected president of the New Mexico 
AFL-CIO by a unanimous vote of the 
state federation’s executive board. 
Gilliland, 48, will fill out the unexpired 
term of Neal Gonzalez, who retired 
Jan. 1. Gonzalez had headed the state 
central body for 24 years. Gilliland, a 
member of Sheet Metal Workers Local 
49 in Albuquerque, served as the local’s 
business representative from June 1980 
to July 1989, and as president of the 
Bernalillo County, N.M., AFL-CIO 
from January 1985 to December 1988. 
He is currently chairman of the New 
Mexico Homeless Coalition and a 
member of the Governor’s Task Force 
to Re-write the Construction Industries 
Act. 

Susan Carey of Grand Blanc, Mich., 
has been appointed by Gov. John 
Engler (R) to represent worker interests 
on the state Employment Security Com- 
mission. Carey is executive secretary to 
UAW Local 599 President David Yet- 
taw. She has worked for the local for 
38 years, serving 10 presidents. She 
also organized Office and Professional 
Employees Union Local 393, which 
now represents UAW office staffers, 
credit union and school assistance 
workers and Saginaw County court- 
house employees. 

DEATHS 

George E. Fairchild, secretary- 
treasurer emeritus of the Service 
Employees and a union activist since 
1931, died Jan. 29 of cancer at Subur- 
ban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. He was 
82. 


n 

ii 


l\ 

i 

i 



Nominations for 1991 inductees in 
the Labor Hall of Fame are being ac- 
cepted through March 28, said Chair- 
man W.J. Usery Jr. of the Friends of 
the Labor Department, which ad- 
ministers the project. Last year, the 
Labor Hall of Fame inducted the late 
UAW President Walter Reuther, in- 
dustrialist Henry J. Kaiser, Sen. Robert 
F. Wagner and union pioneer Eugene 
V. Debs. Usery, a former secretary of 
labor, said nominations should be sent 
to the Labor Hall of Fame, Box 2258, 
Washington, D.C., 20013. 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
and Secretary -Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue, wrote to Fairchild’s wife, 
Elaine, that “George was a good friend 
and staunch advocate of working men 
and women. To him, there were no jobs 
which natural law ordained as inherent- 
ly low-paid and devoid of benefits and 
security.” 

Fairchild joined SEIU while working 
as a school custodian in Chicago, event- 
ually becoming a local union organizer 
and officer. He was elected SEIU’s 
secretary-treasurer in 1955, a post he 
held until his retirement in 1976. He 
served on the executive board of the 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurers Con- 
ference. 

Paul T. Russillo, a labor economist 
with the AFL-CIO ’s American Institute 
for Free Labor Development, died of 
heart ailments on Feb. 5 at Suburban 
Hospital in Bethesda, Md. 

Russillo joined AIFLD in 1966 and 
was program director for Costa Rica 
and Colombia, where he lived from 
1973 to 1979, and of Peru, where he 
resided in 1983 and 1984. He had 
served also as the acting director for 
Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. 

He served as the director of labor 
studies at the George Meany Center and 
was a lecturer and consultant there 
when he retired in 1989. He also had 
been director of the Education Institute 
in Front Royal, Va. 

Thomas X. Dunn, a longtime labor 
lawyer, died Jan. 30 of cancer while on 
vacation in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 79. 

Dunn, who retired in 1980, was 
general counsel to the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department and the Electrical Workers. 
He was a senior partner in Sherman, 
Dunn, Cohen, Leifer and Yellig. 

Dunn served for 10 years after his 
retirement as a member of the U.S. 
Wage Appeals Board. He also served 
as co-chairman of the federal labor stan- 
dards committee of the American Bar 
Association. 


VIDEOS 

The Labor Institute of Public Affairs 
is offering two videos especially for 
Black History Month. 

A. Phillip Randolph is a five-minute 
video on the unveiling of the Randolph 
bust at Washington’s Union Station. 
Randolph, a giant of the labor and civil 
rights movements, died in 1979. The 
tape is available to unions for $7.50 
(VHS) and $25.00 (3/4-inch). 

Union Yes: Apartheid No is a 
10-minute video highlighting the visit 
of Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid 
leader, to the AFL-CIO, a UAW rally 
in Detroit and AFSCME’s convention 
in Miami. The tape is available to 
unions for $10.00 (VHS) and $25.00 
(3/4-inch). To order these videos, call 
800/242-UNION or write LIPA, 815 
16th Street, N.W. Suite 206, Washing- 
ton, D.C. 20006. 






Unions gear up to support troops, families 



USO photo 


Service men and women stationed in the Persian Gulf line up at mobile 
telephone stations and vans for free phone calls home, courtesy of "I'm 
Okay," a project of the Communications Workers and the USO. 


Continued from Page 1 

force behind “Desert Read,” a project 
to ship books to U.S. troops in the Per- 
sian Gulf, and several other projects. 

Through Desert Read, books are col- 
lected and boxed by volunteers at an 
Arlington, Va., warehouse. Then, 
under an arrangement with St. Johns- 
bury Trucking Inc. , they are trucked by 
IBT members to a Pennsylvania mili- 
tary base, the first leg of the overseas 
journey. 

The first load of 20,000 books was 
delivered to the base by IBT Local 557 
member Ron Cain. Desert Read organ- 
izers hope to deliver as many as a 
million books to troops serving 
overseas. Paperback books can be sent 
to the Desert Read Project at 1201 Fern 
St., Arlington, Va., 22202. 

Boosting spirits 

Reading material of a different kind 
is a pet project of the Teachers, who are 
coordinating a letter-writing campaign 
in classrooms and workplaces across 
the country to boost the spirits of serv- 
ice members. 

As part of this “Operation Pen Pal,” 
AFT Local 3010 member Shirley 
Richter donated more than 200 cassette 
recorders that were shipped overseas by 
the AFT, so service men and women 
can record messages for home. 

Union members wishing to join 
Operation Pen Pal can mail letters to: 
Any Service Member, Operation Desert 
Storm, APO New York, N.Y. 
09848-0006. No packages will be ac- 
cepted under this program, the AFT 
said. 

For troops stationed on ships, write 
to: Any Service Member, Operation 
Desert Storm, FPO New York, N.Y. 
09866-0006. 

Meanwhile, service members 
overseas can keep in touch with their 
families back home through a project 
called “I’m Okay,” which received a 
$50,000 donation from the Com- 
munications Workers. 

CWA, in conjunction with the United 


Service Organizations (USO), is help- 
ing to supply mobile vans and cellular 
phones for troops on ships and bases in 
the Persian Gulf area. The union is en- 
couraging local unions and members to 
contribute to the effort. 

Other programs developed by unions 
and labor community services commit- 
tees include: 

• Members of the Pittsburgh 
Building and Construction Trades 
Council are making free emergency 
home repairs for families of soldiers 
serving in the Persian Gulf. Business 
representative Richard Stanizzo said the 
program will continue throughout 
Operation Desert Storm, with repairs 
made on appliances, plumbing, roofs, 
wiring and for other needs. 

• In New York, OPEIU Local 153 
Ts trying to ease the financial crunch 
facing many families from which a 
reservist has been called to duty in the 
Persian Gulf with a one-time grant of 
$500. 

• In Albuquerque, N.M., members 
of the Teachers, Sheet Metal Workers, 
Communications Workers and 
AFSCME answered the phone bank 
during a local telethon that raised 
$36,000 for the Desert Storm Family 
Fund, to be administered by the United 
Way. 

• Local unions locked out last year 
by International Paper Co. in Mobile, 
Ala. — the Paperworkers, Electrical 
Workers and Office and Professional 
Employees — held a special blood 
drive to replace one canceled at the 
local Air Force base when soldiers were 
mobilized for Desert Storm. 

• Many local unions — including 
CWA, the Fire Fighters, Plumbers and 
Pipefitters, and Food and Commercial 
Workers — have volunteered to help 
the USO and other organizations in sup- 
port groups, counseling and other pro- 
jects for Desert Storm families. 

• IBT Local 822 members in 
Hampton Roads, Va., collected good 
wishes from holiday shoppers on a huge 
Christmas card that was sent overseas. 


Signers paid $1 per signature, with pro- 
ceeds donated to the Navy Family Ser- 
vices fund. 

• CWA is working with “Operation 
Something from Home,” encouraging 
local unions to make donations for care 
packages and supplies sent to troops 
overseas. 

• Members of Clothing and Textile 
Workers Local 90 joined in “Operation 
Southern Comfort,” a project to collect 
and deliver candy, cookies, books and 
other items overseas. 

• Members of Chemical Workers 


Local 15 in Clarksville, Ind., in 
cooperation with the Colgate-Palmolive 
Co., collected donations for 120 cases 
of soap, plus 65,000 tubes of toothpaste 
and toothbrushes, that will be sent 
overseas. 

For more information about ways to 
join in Operation Stateside and other 
programs aiding soldiers and their 
families, union members can contact 
their local union or central body com- 
munity services committee, or com- 
munity services representative with the 
Red Cross or United Way. 




Top mediator joins 
Daily News talks 

The Daily News strikers agree on a 
super mediator and announced an ex- 
panded consumer campaign against the 
newspaper’s Chicago-based parent 
Tribune Co. 

Labor leads fight 
against trade pact 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
Donahue tells a Senate committee that 
a free trade agreement with Mexico will 
cost U.S. jobs and exploit already poor 
Mexican workers. 



0 


Public employees 
face tough talks 

Public employee unions preparing to 
bargain new contracts face tough 
negotiations as governments try to 
balance their budgets with layoffs, wage 
freezes and furloughs. 

OSHA asbestos rules 
not strong enough 

The AFL-CIO and 12 affiliates assail 
proposed OSHA asbestos regulations 
because they don’t adequately protect 
workers against many asbestos-related 
diseases. 




N.J. pushes Shell 
off state turnpike 

New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio backs the 
AFL-CIO ’s boycott of Shell Oil by bar- 
ring the oil giant from doing business 
on the state turnpike because of its 
policies in South Africa. 

Union membership 
yields more pay 

Union members on the average make 
$119 a week more than nonunion 
members in wages. Employer-paid 
benefits for union members is about 
double that of other workers. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


2/18/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






Council adopts health care reform program 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 
Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO Executive Council, 
reiterating labor’s decades-long drive 
for universal access to quality health 
care, called on Congress to enact legis- 
lation to establish a national system that 
covers workers and non-workers and 
incorporates Medicare and Medicaid. 

The council statement recommended 
the establishment of a cost-containment 
program to include a cap on health ex- 
penditures, a capital budget and a 
federal authority to negotiate uniform 


reimbursement rates for all payers. 

The federation also called for the 
creation of a national commission of 
consumers, labor, management, gov- 
ernment and providers to administer the 
program. 

While the AFL-CIO statement set out 
specific goals to achieve universal ac- 
cess, cost containment and adminis- 
trative overhaul, it left open the kind of 
legislative package that could achieve 
those goals. 

“We are not committed to any rigid 
single plan,” AFL-CIO President Lane 


Kirkland said at a news conference 
following the unanimous council vote. 
“We are in a negotiating posture and 
we intend to approach it in a practical 
way, working with the leadership in the 
House and the Senate.” 

The council action was the result of 
a year of intense work by the 
16-member AFL-CIO Health Care 
Committee, chaired by John J. 
Sweeney, president of the Service 
Employees. 

Democratic leaders visiting the coun- 
cil during its mid-winter meeting — 


Senate Majority Leader George Mit- 
chell (D-Maine), House Speaker 
Thomas Foley (D-Wash.), House 
Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D- 
Mo.) and House Education and Labor 
Committee Chairman William Ford (D- 
Mich.) — all voiced concerns about the 
nation’s crisis in health care. 

Mitchell, saying that health care is 
one of the Senate’s highest priorities, 
decried the “many thousands of human 
tragedies when families don’t have 
health care. ’ ’ He urged an approach that 
Continued on Page 12 



Labor Secretary Lynn Martin responds to concerns of Ex- 
ecutive Council members on job safety and health 
hazards at the mid-winter meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla. 


Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 

From left, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue, Martin, President Lane Kirkland and Vice 
President Susan Bianchi-Sand. See Story on Page 5. 


Striker replacement bill urgency stressed 


By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour, Fla . 

D eclaring that the integrity of the col- 
lective bargaining system is at stake, 
the AFL-CIO called on Congress to 
pass legislation that would ban the use 
of “permanent replacement” workers 
to break strikes. 

“A judicially created loophole in the 
law provides that although it is illegal 
for an employer to discharge workers 
for engaging in a legal strike, it is lawful 
to ‘permanently replace’ them,” the 
Executive Council said in a statement. 

“To workers, the distinction is mean- 
ingless,” the statement said. “Whether 
fired or ‘permanently replaced,’ they 
have lost their jobs; and that subverts 


the legal protections of their trade union 
rights.” 

The judge-made loophole in the law, 
the council said, has had a “seductive” 
effect on many employers. 

“For them, the opportunity to hire 
permanent replacements is an incentive 
to provoke strikes, to recruit a more 
pliant, non-union workforce, and to re- 
nounce any further employment rela- 
tionship with their union workers,” the 
statement said. 

Citing the attempts by management 
to force strikes at Eastern Airlines, 
Greyhound, the New York Daily News 
and other companies, AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland said labor is unified 
in its drive to gain legislation this year 


that would prohibit the practice of ‘ ‘per- 
manent replacements.” 

“This is a very burning issue to 
unions, a deeply felt issue throughout 
the trade union movement,” Kirkland 
told a news conference. “We see a 
great urgency to this legislation.” 
Kirkland stressed that by removing 
the threat of “permanent replace- 
ments,” legislation would restore a 
climate in which collective bargaining 
would work as it was intended under 
federal law, thereby reducing the 
number of strikes. 

“Believe me, unions are always 
reluctant to strike,” he said. “A strike 
is not a trip to Disneyland. It involves 
Continued on Page 3 


All-out fight 
vowed to halt 
Mexico pact 

By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour, Fla. 

L abor pledged to join with its environ- 
mental and consumer allies to fight 
the proposed U.S. -Mexico free trade 
agreement on every front — in the halls 
of Congress, in corporate board rooms 
and in the court of public opinion. 

“What they propose is a fundamen- 
tal restructuring of the economics of the 
North American continent,” AFL-CIO 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue told the Executive Council. 
“The U.S. trade representative wants 
to do it in six months, keeping everyone 
in the dark, and then giving Congress 
no chance to debate or to alter the 
agreement.” 

Donahue warned that unless the 
federation and its allies can get the pro- 
posal off the “fast track,” the ad- 
ministration can ram through an agree- 
ment that will expand the maquiladoras, 
“which is an absolute disaster for 

workers in the United States and Mex- 
• _ » * 

ICO. 

In its statement opposing the pro- 
posed agreement, the Executive Coun- 
cil pointed to the maquiladoras as a 
model of what would happen throug- 
hout Mexico under a free trade agree- 
ment. In the maquiladoras, U.S. -owned 
plants operate inside Mexico along the 
border and produce goods exported 
back to the United States. 

Hundreds of thousands of American 
jobs have been lost to the maquiladoras, 
which offer Mexican workers bare sub- 
sistence wages and generate air pollu- 
tion and toxic waste that are among the 
worst in the world, the statement said. 

“The maquiladoras have flourished 
because U.S. companies have seen an 
opportunity to pay Mexican workers a 
fraction of the wages that U.S. workers 
receive, and to evade the standards for 
Continued on Page 3 






High court examines hospital unit rule 


By James B. Parks 

U nions prepared for a more hospit- 
able climate for organizing health 
care workers as the Supreme Court 
finally began hearing oral arguments on 
a National Labor Relations Board rule 
creating eight appropriate bargaining 
units in acute care hospitals. 

The AFL-CIO, in a joint brief pre- 
pared along with the AFL-CIO Building 
and Construction Trades Department 
and the American Nurses Association, 
argued that the NLRB had the author- 
ity to create the eight units rather than 
having to consider bargaining unit peti- 
tions on a case-by-case basis. 

The AFL-CIO said the union election 
system set up by the National Labor 
Relations Act could not work if each 
petition for bargaining rights had to be 
decided individually. 

If bargaining units varied from 
employer to employer within a given 
market, the federation argued, 
employees would not be able to 

Air traffic union 
gets FAA to ease 
rule on diabetics 

T he National Air Traffic Controllers 
Association won medical recon- 
sideration for insulin-dependent diabetic 
controllers who have been medically 
disqualified by the Federal Aviation 
Administration. 

In settling a grievance against the 
agency, the union got the FAA to agree 
to obtain the counsel of a panel of five 
eminent endocrinologists, who will ad- 
vise on the “appropriateness, efficacy 
and safety” of a policy requiring in- 
dividual determination of the medical 
qualifications of insulin-using employ- 
ees to perform the duties of an air traf- 
fic controller. 

The union’s grievance had charged 
the FAA’s blanket disqualification of 
insulin-dependent diabetics violated the 
Rehabilitation Act, which bars discrim- 
ination on the basis of a physical handi- 
cap that is not “disqualifying for the 
position.” 

NATCA President R. Steve Bell said, 
“This is an enormous victory for the 
diabetic controllers, NATCA and those 
individuals who have found themselves 
the victims of arbitrary and capricious 
discrimination because of a physical 
disability.” 

Bell said the union wants the FAA to 
deal with the controllers on a case-by- 
case basis. “The settlement maintains 
the safety of the air traffic control 
system and re-inforces the controller’s 
safety net. That is fairness and 
balance.” 


eliminate wage competition through 
collective bargaining. 

U.S. Deputy Solicitor General David 
L. Shapiro, arguing for the govern- 
ment, agreed. “One of the great 
strengths of the administrative process 
is that agencies are able, through the 
promulgation of rules, to narrow and 
define the scope of the issues for ad- 
judication. The regulation challenged in 
this case is an example of the working 
of this process at its best.” 

“The hospitals have tied up this pro- 
cess long enough,” said Paul Booth, 
AFSCME’s field services director. And 
Jerry Shea, director of the Service 
Employees’ health care division, said 
“the NLRB’s case is as strong a case 
as they can have and we look for a 
positive outcome from this court.” 
The American Hospital Association 
appealed a U.S. 7th Circuit Court of 
Appeals ruling that upheld the NLRB 
rule. Concerned that union representa- 
tion of segments of its members’ 


Nashville, Tenn. 

D elegates to the Independent Workers 
of North America merger conven- 
tion here voted by a 9-1 margin to af- 
filiate with the Paperworkers. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, 
meeting last week in Bal Harbour, Fla. , 
approved the affiliation agreement that 
brings the 7,000 IWNA members into 
the 240,000-member UPIU. 

The IWNA had its roots in the 
Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers 
union, which became a division of the 
Boilermakers in 1984. But a number of 
the former Cement Workers locals 
formed the IWNA in 1986. 


work force could prove contagious, the 
AHA is pressing for broader bargain- 
ing units that include dissimilar job 
classifications. Mixing and rearranging 
units with disparate job descriptions is 
a well-known scheme of managements 
bent on “union avoidance.” 

The NLRB rule followed two prev- 
ious court decisions, known as St. Fran- 
cis I and St. Francis II, and provided 
eight categories for union units — 
registered nurses, physicians, all other 
professionals, technical employees, 
skilled maintenance workers, office and 
clerical employees, all other non-pro- 
fessionals and guards. 

If the court upholds the rule, the 
number of bargaining units in practice 
normally would be less than eight. A 
union would be able to seek represen- 
tation rights for a combined unit, except 
for the guards. 

But the decision on the number of 
bargaining units would be made by the 
workers and the unions. 


In welcoming the new members, 
Paperworkers President Wayne E. 
Glenn said, “This affiliation is a re- 
minder that in unity there is strength. 
We are impressed by the dedication of 
this group of trade unionists who have 
struggled so much over the years.” 
Retiring IWNA President Richard 
Northrip called on the IWNA members 
to “support your new officers and staff. 
Our organization has come farther than 
we ever thought we could.” 

With the April 1 effective date of af- 
filiation, six IWNA officers will join the 
UPIU staff as international represen- 
tatives and organizers. 


Postal Service 
contract snag 
in arbitration 

A rbitration to determine the pro- 
visions of new national contracts 
covering 568,000 members of the 
Postal Workers and Letter Carriers at 
the U.S. Postal Service begins March 
5 when the five-member panel meets for 
the first time. 

The key issues for the unions remain 
wages, job security and working con- 
ditions, while postal management, in 
the name of “flexibility,” is seeking to 
create a new classification of permanent 
part-time workers who would be paid 
less than full-time career employees and 
receive little or no benefits. 

Under the terms of the arbitration 
agreement reached by the two sides, the 
panel is to report its binding award on 
a new national contract within 45 days 
after arbitration begins, subject to ex- 
tension by the impartial arbitrator, 
Richard Mittenthal. 

Mittenthal was selected by the two 
sides as the impartial member of the 
five-person panel. Mittenthal, 64, is a 
member and former president of the 
National Academy of Arbitrators and 
has served as national-level impartial 
arbitrator under Postal Service contracts 
with the two unions since 1979. 

Other members of the panel are: 
NALC General Counsel Bruce Simon; 
New York City arbitrator Theodore 
Kheel for the APWU (Kheel most 
recently has served as an adviser to the 
unions involved in the New York Daily 
News strike); Joseph Mahon, assistant 
postmaster general for the USPS, and 
Peter Nash, a private attorney. 

The previous national postal agree- 
ment ended last Nov. 20, when the two 
sides bargained up to the contract’s ex- 
piration. The APWU and the NALC 
formed the Joint Bargaining Commit- 
tee to coordinate their negotiations, but 
both are bargaining separate contracts 
with the USPS. 

Mail Handlers accord 

Meanwhile, the Mail Handlers Union, 
a division of the Laborers, reached a 
tentative three-year settlement for its 
53,000 members. Mail Handlers Presi- 
dent Glenn Berrien said the proposed 
accord would protect members’ jobs 
and cost-of-living adjustments, while 
guaranteeing its members continue to 
pay less for health insurance than other 
federal workers. The accord contains 
lump-sum payments in place of regular 
pay raises. 

NALC President Vincent R. Som- 
brotto and APWU President Moe Biller 
criticized the Mail Handlers’ tentative 
package and said it could “undercut” 
the arbitration process for their unions. 



Gary Schoichet 


New York area union conference promoting outreach efforts to deaf and 
hearing-impaired members is addressed by Tom Gradnauer of Communica- 
tions Workers Local 1033, who is deaf. Representatives of 30 AFL-CIO- 
affiliated locals participated in the sessions. 

7,000 former cement union members 
vote to affiliate with Paperworkers 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 5 



MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1991 


KB 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W.. Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





mmm 


All-out fight pledged on trade pact 






Continued from Page 1 

occupational safety, workers’ compen- 
sation, and environmental protection 
that are required here,” the AFL-CIO 
said. 

Donahue said the federation has 
asked the administration to provide an 
economic impact statement on a free 
trade agreement with Mexico, but has 
been given little satisfaction. A study 
conducted for the Senate Finance Com- 
mittee by the International Trade Com- 
mission was rife with misinformation, 
he said. 

“The study said that unskilled U.S. 
workers are likely to ‘suffer a slight 
decline in real income.’” 

But the AFL-CIO was told those 
“unskilled workers” make up 57 per- 
cent of the working population, “and 
I would suggest that ‘slight decline’ is 
a very rosy scenario.” 

Playing for time 

The current fast-track authority ex- 
pires Feb. 28, but the administration has 
indicated that it will request an exten- 
sion for one or two years, Donahue 
said, including an extension to complete 
the stalled negotiations on the General 
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 
(GATT). 

Donahue called for AFL-CIO affil- 
iates to join in a massive program of 
communication to arouse public senti- 
ment against the fast-track process, and 
to force a full debate on the proposal 
in Congress. 

Donahue reported on the Coalition 
for Justice in the Maquiladoras, which 
includes 42 environmental, consumer, 
labor and community action organiza- 
tions that is “trying to educate the 
public about the conditions in the 
maquiladora plants, and to correct those 
conditions.” 


“The coalition has submitted stock- 
holders resolutions to 10 major corpora- 
tions operating in the maquiladoras, and 
is calling on these companies to adopt 
standards of conduct,” Donahue told 
the council. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Owen 
Bieber of the UAW, noting that two of 
those 10 corporations are Big Three 
automakers General Motors and Ford, 
called for an attempt to form partner- 
ships with corporations who would be 
adversely affected by low-cost competi- 
tion south of the border. 

“The Japanese would be the big win- 
ners of this free trade proposal,” Bieber 
said. “Chrysler, which didn’t produce 
a single car last week, wouldn’t be able 
to find the capital to set up shop down 
there. It would be the Japanese who 
would move in and build plants to com- 
pete with American automakers.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
urged Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin 
to impress upon the Bush administra- 
tion labor’s “deep apprehension and 
concern of the breakneck pursuit of this 
free trade agreement. There are very 
serious issues to be resolved before we 
attempt to create a common market be- 
tween the United States and Mexico.” 

The lobbying campaign ultimately 
will end in the halls of Congress, where 
Senate Majority Leader George Mit- 
chell (D-Maine) told the council that 
there is not a strong sentiment to oppose 
the administration’s plans. 

However, House Majority Leader 
Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. 
William Ford (D-Mich.), chairman of 
the House Education and Labor Com- 
mittee, indicated they would try to 
derail the fast-track process, and House 
Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) 
urged the labor leaders to lobby 
members of the House Ways and Means 


Committee and the Senate Finance 
Committee, which have jurisdiction on 
the issue. 

Donahue interrupted his work with 
the Executive Council to travel to 
Washington, where he testified against 
the proposal before the Ways and 
Means Committee on Feb. 21. Compar- 
ing the “fast-track” U.S. -Mexico pro- 
posal with the European Community 
common market plan, which began in 
1958 and will be concluded next year, 
Donahue noted: 

“The Europeans are working to 
establish a Social Charter to protect 
workers in the 1992 single market. The 
charter would include rights to collec- 
tive bargaining, vocational training, 
health and safety protection and 
minimum wage. 

Protections lacking 

“The administration and the Mexican 
government resist any such protections 
in the U.S. -Mexico arrangements,” 
Donahue continued. “Also, it has been 
reported that the Mexicans have taken 
environmental issues off the table.” 

Donahue also pointed out that the 
European Community has a huge assist- 
ance program that will spend at least 
$68 billion over the next four years to 
narrow the gap between the richest and 
the poorest regions, while no such fund 
is available in any proposed U.S.- 
Mexico common market. 

In a North America free trade zone, 
Donahue noted, “Mexicans would 
make up 85 million of the 360 million 
people in the area — almost 25 per- 
cent — but the Mexican GNP per capita 
is less than 10 percent of the average.” 

A free trade agreement with Mexico, 
Donahue said, “is a device for the rich 
to get richer and the poor to get 
poorer.” 


Action urged to ban strikebreakers 


Continued from Page 1 

sacrifice for workers. It is a last resort 
when the effort to achieve agreement 
fails, and it is designed under those cir- 
cumstances to bring the other side back 
to the bargaining table.” 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue, who chairs a steering 
committee for the legislation that in- 
cludes Industrial Union Department 
President Howard D. Samuel and Leg- 
islative Director Robert M. McGlotten, 
said the federation is seeking to restore 
the balance in negotiations. 

Donahue, who appeared with repre- 
sentatives of striking Daily News work- 
ers at a news briefing on the issue, cited 
a litany of disputes egged on through 
the use of “permanent replacements” 
— from Magic Chef and International 
Paper to Greyhound and the Daily 
News. 

“Strikes are being prolonged by this 
practice,” Donahue said. “The threat 
of ‘permanent replacements,’ whether 
expressed or implied, has a stultifying 
effect on negotiations.” 

Donahue said the recent trend toward 
increased use of these replacement 
workers shows that “employers see in 
it an opportunity to change the system, 
to defeat the choices made by workers 
to choose their collective bargaining 


representatives and to replace their 
employees with lower-paid workers.” 

Democratic leaders visiting the Ex- 
ecutive Council expressed support for 
the legislation, with House Majority 
Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) 
stating that he would become the 192nd 
co-sponsor of the House bill. Rep. 
William Ford (D-Mich.), chairman of 
the House Education and Labor Com- 
mittee, later brought word that another 
member had agreed to co-sponsor the 
legislation, bringing to 193 the number 
of House co-sponsors. 

Volunteer sponsors 

“Four of those co-sponsors are Re- 
publicans,” Ford pointed out. “And all 
of the members who agreed to co- 
sponsor the legislation came to us, 
showing that your efforts are having an 
impact. There has been no arm-twisting 
involved.” 

House Speaker Thomas Foley (D- 
Wash.) pledged to push the Striker 
Replacement Bill, predicting unequiv- 
ocally that the legislation would pass the 
House and be sent to the Senate. “If 
there is a veto, then we could have a 
problem,” he said. 

Senate Majority Leader George Mit- 
chell (D-Maine) also promised to work 
for the legislation. But he warned that 


labor would have to add its many voices 
to the lobby to convince many senators 
of the need for the legislation. 

Working against the bill’s supporters 
in the Senate, Kirkland noted, are 
Senate rules that allow a filibuster. “If 
the opposition elects to use that device, 
we will need 60 votes to end debate,” 
he said. “That is a bit more difficult to 
achieve, but we intend to do our level 
best.” 

To facilitate the education process on 
the legislation, the AFL-CIO is mount- 
ing an extensive mass mailing to 
300,000 trade unionists in 21 states, 
McGlotten said. Members will be urged 
to write or phone their congressional 
representatives seeking support for the 
bills. 

Kirkland will testify during hearings 
on the House bill March 6. McGlotten 
said the bill will be marked up in com- 
mittee March 14, with action by the 
committee expected in late April. The 
legislation should be considered by the 
full House in June. The Senate has 
scheduled a hearing on the legislation 
April 9. 

“A democracy that fully respects 
freedom of association, the right to 
form unions, and the right of working 
people to withhold their labor should 
enact those bills,” Kirkland said. 



A n AFL-CIO-backed construction 
safety bill has been introduced in the 
House by Rep. Joseph Gaydos (D-Pa.). 
The bill, H.R. 1063, would establish a 
wide range of on-site safety regulations 
in an industry where some 2,500 work- 
ers are killed on the job each year and 
tens of thousands more are seriously in- 
jured and disabled. 

The bill calls for the property owner 
or a designee to be responsible for 
health and safety, including reporting 
and record-keeping duties, and requires 
a safety and health plan. Each employer 
would be required to have a “compe- 
tent” person responsible for inspecting 
sites, training workers and eliminating 
hazardous conditions. 

H.R. 1063 calls for the establishment 
of an Office of Construction Safety, 
Health and Education within OSHA to 
focus on the safety problems in the in- 
dustry. The legislation has 28 co- 
sponsors and a similar Senate bill is ex- 
pected to be introduced in April. 

In other Capitol Hill action: 
CRIMINAL PENALTIES - Leg 
islation calling for a 10-year prison 
sentence for willful OSHA violations 
that result in a worker’s death was in- 
troduced in the Senate. The bill, S. 445, 
would also impose up to five years in 
prison for violations that cause serious 
injury. 

FUEL EFFICIENCY - The UAW 
told a Senate subcommittee that, while 
it supports several provisions of a new 
motor vehicle fuel efficiency bill. The 
increases called for in S. 279 would re- 
quire significant changes in the kinds of 
automobiles and light trucks the manu- 
facturers produce, which could lead to 
plant closings and job loss for workers 
in those plants and in related industries. 

FEDERAL WORKERS - The 
AFGE urged House and Senate com- 
mittees to amend the 1989 Ethics 
Reform Act, which forbids all federal 
employees from accepting writing or 
speaking fees even if their topic is 
unrelated to their work. The act, aimed 
at members of Congress and other high- 
ranking officials, violates the First 
Amendment rights of most government 
employees, the AFGE charged. The 
prohibition is so broad that a govern- 
ment worker could not accept payment 
for an article or speech on gourmet 
cooking, golf or gardening. There are 
currently five bills in the House and 
Senate aimed at correcting the overkill 
in the original ban. 

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 
— Unemployed workers from the East 
Coast called on the government to 
release some of the $8 billion in a 
special fund for extended unemploy- 
ment benefits. Despite growing long- 
term unemployment, only two states 
have hit jobless levels that “trigger” 
such benefits. Witnesses told the House 
human resources subcommitee that the 
current trigger is unrealistic. Rep. 
Thomas Downey (D-N.J.) said he ex- 
pects to introduce legislation reforming 
the unemployment insurance shortly. 







Home mortgage plan joins Union Privilege benefits 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

U nion members buying a home now 
can do it more easily while saving 
money through the Union Privilege 
Benefit Programs. 

The Union Privilege mortgage/home 
buyers program was to go into opera- 
tion March 1, UPBP President David 
Silberman told the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council. He also announced changes in 
the Union Privilege MasterCard pro- 
gram. 

The mortgage/home buyers program 
offers many special services and fea- 
tures for union members and their 
families, Silberman said. A number of 
affordability enhancement features are 
in the works, including 5 percent down 
payments as well as the availability of 
no-point loans and a first-time home 
buyer program. 

The first-time buyers’ program is be- 
ing developed to allow persons who 
have been union members for at least 
three years, with a household income 
of no greater than 115 percent of the 
median (as determined by HUD), to put 
down only 3 percent of the purchase 
price. And the additional 2 percent 


would come in the form of a bank loan. 

“This program will allow our sub- 
scribing members and their families to 
qualify as buyers more easily,” Silber- 
man said. “Many of those previously 
unable to buy their own home have been 
priced out of the market because they 
don’t have the necessary down pay- 
ment.” 

Another key feature of the program, 
Silberman said, is that the servicing of 
mortgages will never be sold. PHH US 
Mortgage Co. will continue to receive 
monthly payments and service escrow 
accounts, even though the mortgages 
might be sold and resold on the secon- 
dary market. The AFL-CIO Housing 
Investment Trust also is slated to par- 
ticipate. 

Other aspects of the home buyers’ 
program are: 

• Mortgage counselors to help 
members on an individual basis. 

• Telephone applications. 

• Notification of refinancing oppor- 
tunities. 

• Closings at the time chosen by the 
member. 

Final investigations are under way on 


strike insurance for mortgage holders, 
as well as the establishment of an 
interest-free loan fund to cover mort- 
gage payments during layoffs or dis- 
ability. Only union members are eligi- 
ble for those programs. 

UPBP officials also said work was 
under way on reduced-rate homeowners’ 
insurance and mortgage life insurance. 

Except as noted, all aspects of the 
program are available to members of 
subscribing unions, their parents and 
children. A toll-free telephone number 
will be available to members of par- 
ticipating unions, UPBP officials said. 

The new features of the Union 
MasterCard Program include the par- 
ticipation of the Amalgamated Bank of 
New York, owned by the Clothing and 
Textile Workers, in a secured credit 
card program to begin this spring. 

Silberman said the secured card and 
the companion “credit-builder” card 
would broaden the availability of a 
union MasterCard. 

The credit-builder card is designed 
for members with a limited credit his- 
tory. It features a higher interest rate 
(prime plus 8.4 percent) and a $20 


annual fee for two years. After that, 
there is an automatic graduation to a 
regular union MasterCard with no 
annual fee and a lower interest rate. 

Silberman said Union Privilege pro- 
jected that 7 percent of members unable 
to direcdy qualify for the union Master- 
Card would be able to take advantage 
of the program. 

The secured card will assist members 
who can’t qualify because of prior 
credit problems, he said. With a 
secured card, the member makes a 
minimum deposit of $250 and receives 
a credit line equal to that deposit. 

Additional features include a $20 
annual fee, 18.9 percent interest rate, 
a grace period, interest on deposits and 
an automatic graduation after two years 
to a regular union MasterCard. 

Other changes in the MasterCard pro- 
gram include the union bug on all cards, 
corporate or corporate-guaranteed cards 
and custom-designed or union-identi- 
fied cards for a greater number of par- 
ticipating members. 

Members should check with their 
unions to see whether they are sub- 
scribers to the program. 


Council presses rail carriers 
to end bargaining stalemate 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) addresses the Maritime 
Trades Department executive board. At right is MTD President Michael 
Sacco. Executive Secretary-Treasurer Jean Ingrao and Air Force Gen. H.T. 
Johnson, commander of the U.S. Transportation Command. 

Maritime Trades urge overhaul 
of U.S. shipbuilding, cargo policies 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO commended railroad 
unions for their “dedication to the 
national interest” during the Persian 
Gulf War, citing their success in get- 
ting major rail carriers to agree to a 
60-day extension of the cooling-off 
period. 

The Executive Council also reaf- 
firmed its “solidarity with rail labor in 
its struggle for justice and fairness” in 
the current round of bargaining, which 
has been fruitless for three years. 

Pointing out that the negotiations 
“have seen little in the way of good 
faith on the part of the rail carriers,” 
the federation urged both sides “to 
strive toward a mutually acceptable 
agreement through good faith collective 
bargaining.” 

Since negotiations began in 1988, rail 
workers have gone without a wage in- 
crease, while the carriers have posted 
“unprecedented profits,” the council 
said. And yet, rail management con- 
tinues to insist on numerous concessions 
and is demanding its employees pick up 
all or part of the expected increase in 
health care costs. 

Both labor and management had re- 
jected the recommendations of a Presi- 
dential Emergency Board, thereby free- 
ing the unions to strike on or after Feb. 
14, as provided by the Railway Labor 
Act, the council noted. 

Rail unions, the council stressed, did 
not want the dispute to affect in any way 
the ability of U.S. forces to carry out 
their combat mission at this critical 
stage of the Persian Gulf War. They 
persuaded the rail carriers to extend the 
cooling-off period to April 17. 

The unions’ agreement not to strike, 
however, does not modify their rejec- 
tion of the emergency board’s recom- 
mendations, and it is conditioned on a 
commitment from rail management that 
it will begin bargaining in good faith to 


resolve the dispute fairly and equitably, 
the council said. 

Transportation Communications 
Union President Richard I. Kilroy told 
congressional leaders that the rail 
stalemate may yet end up in the hands 
of Congress. 

Kilroy told the council that the three- 
year bargaining effort by the 11 rail 
unions to gain new contracts was among 
the issues discussed during the ex- 
ecutive council meeting of the Trans- 
portation Trades Department, which he 
heads and which marked its first year 
in operation. 

The department also focused on the 
impact of deregulation on the airline in- 
dustry, Kilroy said, and received a 
presentation from Roland Mross, dep- 
uty administrator of the Urban Mass 
Transit Administration, on the Bush ad- 
ministration’s proposed reauthorization 
of the highway /mass transit programs 
that expire Sept. 30. 

Funding was approved for research 
into the current status of the worker in- 
jury compensation systems that cover 
the general work force, rail employees 
and harbor and maritime workers. 

The TTD set as its legislative prior- 
ities the enactment of legislation on 
striker replacement, high way /mass 
transit reauthorization, health care 
reform, flight attendant work hours, 
health and safety regulations, hazardous 
materials, drug and alcohol testing, 
unemployment insurance, whistle- 
blower protections and regulatory 
reform of various modes of 
transportation. 

Walter Shea, chairman of the TTD’s 
Intermodal Surface Transportation Sub- 
committee, reported on the subcommit- 
tee’s efforts to identify both the prob- 
lems and opportunities related to 
intermodalism — the integration of 
various transportation modes into one 
operation. 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he Maritime Trades Department en- 
dorsed a number of issues outside of 
the maritime industry, ranging from 
supporting striker replacement legisla- 
tion to construction safety. It issued 
more than a dozen statements address- 
ing economic, social, legislative and 
health issues. 

However, the MTD executive board 
held fast to traditional concerns in ad- 
dressing domestic shipping policies, 
tariffs, cargo preferences and shipbuild- 
ing. 

The MTD is urging the Bush admin- 
istration to restart a domestic ship- 
building promotion to help stimulate 
commercial vessel construction as well 
as to provide additional shipping assets 
in times of national emergency. 

“Commercial shipyards are an en- 
dangered species in this country,” an 
MTD statement said. “Between 1978 
and 1990, approximately 52,000 ship- 
building and repair jobs were lost in the 
United States.” 

In related issues, the MTD asked the 


Bush administration to address pro- 
blems in the domestic shipping policy. 

“Year after year, the domestic ship- 
ping statutes come under attack, either 
directly with calls for outright repeal, 
or indirectly through waivers and ex- 
emptions that effectively whittle away 
their integrity,” the MTD said. 

Other statements pressed the admin- 
istration to reaffirm its commitment to 
the U.S. merchant fleet and its crews 
through cargo preference laws. 

Speakers at the MTD meeting in- 
cluded AFL-CIO Secretary -Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue, Communications 
Workers President Morton Bahr, UAW 
President Owen Bieber, Machinists 
President George Kourpias, Mine 
Workers President Richard Trumka and 
Transportation Communications Union 
Vice President Jack Otero. 

Also addressing the meeting were 
Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Vir- 
ginia and Rep. Richard Gephardt of 
Missouri, as well as Air Force Gen. 
H.T. Johnson, commander of the U.S. 
Transportation Command. 





warn council 


Martin pressed on need for OSHA reform 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


Susan Bianchi-Sand, president of the Flight Attendants, discusses with 
Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin the jurisdictional problem that has left AFA 
members without health and safety protection. 


By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour , Fla . 

N ew Secretary of Labor Lynn Mar- 
tin’s introduction to the labor move- 
ment, in a friendly but pointed meeting 
with the AFL-CIO Executive Council, 
was a primer in workplace safety and 
health. 

“Quite a number of members of the 
council very forcefully addressed a 
variety of occupational health and safety 
issues,’’ was the way AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland described the ses- 
sion to the news media. 

Martin, who would be sworn in for- 
mally as the 21st secretary of labor two 
days later, received a series of questions 
and comments addressing labor’s con- 
cerns about inadequate protections for 
workers on the job. She listened, took 
notes and promised to study the situa- 
tion. 

Although noncommittal, Martin said 
she brought a specific message from 
John Sununu, White House chief of 
staff. “The message is: ‘let’s talk.’ The 
door is open. Together we can make 
some changes needed in this country for 
workers.” 

Among the foremost changes needed, 
council member after member stressed, 
is enforcement and reform of the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Act. 
Paperworkers President Wayne Glenn 
noted that 1,148 OSHA inspection jobs 
had been eliminated during the Reagan 
administration and that Martin’s pred- 
ecessor, Elizabeth Dole, had restored 
only 150 of that number. 

‘Enforce the law 5 

“First of all, we need you to enforce 
the law,” Glenn said. “But secondly, 
we need your department to stop cav- 
ing in to employers. OSHA announces 
a fine and then their lawyers meet with 
OSHA lawyers and negotiate it way 
down. We believe that unions need a 
place at the table during those negota- 
tions.” 

Lenore Miller, president of the Re- 


By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO congratulated union 
retirees who helped elect COPE- 
endorsed candidates in Florida in 1990 
and made plans to expand that Florida 
Project to other key states in 1992. 

A group of the seniors who played 
key roles in the Florida Project were in- 
troduced to the Executive Council at its 
meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla., where 
Vice President George Kourpias, presi- 
dent of the Machinists and chairman of 
the Committee on Older and Retired 
Union Members, noted that the project 
“engaged more retirees in our political 
program than ever.” 

The project, which was designed to 
increase the participation of union 
retirees in AFL-CIO political programs, 
produced a higher retiree voter turnout 
than ever and bolstered significantly the 
COPE programs of the Florida central 
labor councils, Kourpias said. 

As a follow-up to better senior in- 
volvement in union activities, the AFL- 
CIO Community Services Department 
is conducting seminars to train retirees 
how to help other senior citizens who 


tail, Wholesale and Department Store 
Union, elaborated, noting that Cargill 
Poultry was cited for 149 willful viola- 
tions of safety standards, “in which 
women, mostly single and black, are 
standing so close together that they cut 
each other while deboning chicken,” 
and were fined only $250,000. “Now 
they’re trying like hell to get that 
reduced.” 

The point was taken up by Sigurd 
Lucassen, president of the Carpenters, 
who noted that these downgraded set- 
tlements are not fair to the workers 
whom the act was designed to protect. 

“In most cases, these inspections are 
not initiated by OSHA but by com- 
plaints that we bring to you,” Lucassen 
said. “There should be worker involve- 
ment because workers have first-hand 
knowledge of the safety problems.” 

Told by Lucassen that OSHA Direc- 
tor Gerard Scanned is on record favor- 
ing employee participation in the settle- 
ment reviews, Martin said she would 
confer with Scanned. But she voiced 
skepticism that she could change the 
process through an executive order, and 
indicated that the law might have to be 
changed. 

Change the law 

Changing the law is a major legisla- 
tive priority of the AFL-CIO, said Lynn 
Williams, chairman of the federation’s 
Committee on Safety and Occupational 
Health. He told Martin that this April 
28, which is both Workers Memorial 
Day and the 20th anniversary of the 
enactment of OSHA, labor would be 
focusing on the need for reform of the 
law. 

“We hope that the Department of 
Labor will take a close look at what we 
would like to have changed and up- 
dated,” Williams said. 

In his report to the council, Williams 
noted that Scanned was briefed during 
a meeting with the committee in Novem- 
ber on concerns about ergonomic haz- 
ards and the continuing problem of the 


have health, social or financial prob- 
lems, Kourpias reported. 

One seminar is planned this month in 
York, Pa. Others were completed last 
week in Bethlehem and Johnstown, Pa. , 
and last month in Jacksonville, Fla. The 
Jacksonville seminar was so successful 
that the department has assigned a com- 
munity services liaison to coordinate 
training in Florida. 

More seminars 

Future seminars are planned for 
Orlando and Miami. AFL-CIO state 
federations in Ohio, Indiana, Texas, 
Alabama, and Illinois also are planning 
similar seminars. The AFL-CIO is 
surveying activity in central labor coun- 
cils and the National Council of Senior 
Citizens clubs to avoid duplication. 

The political success in Florida 
demonstrated the impact that seniors 
can have, Kourpias noted. Using the 
slogan “Retirees Make It Happen In 
1990,” the program played a key role 
in the victory of the COPE-endorsed 
candidate for governor, Democrat 
Lawton Chiles. 


exclusion of unions from settlement 
negotiations. 

“We also discussed the possibility of 
administration support for legislative 
proposals on OSHA reform, which at 
this point, looks unlikely,” said 
Williams, who predicted that a com- 
prehensive OSHA reform bill will be 
introduced before April 28. 

Communications Workers President 
Morton Bahr pressed Martin on ergo- 
nomic safety, noting that many workers 
are permanently disabled performing 
repetitive tasks. He urged her to review 
the transcript of testimony before the 
House subcommittee on employment 
and housing, chaired by Rep. Thomas 
Lantos (D-Calif.) 

“I testified following four women, all 
in different industries — a catfish 
worker, a poultry worker, a rewrite 


COPE-backed candidates won two 
closely contested congressional races 
and held or increased majorities in both 
houses of the state legislature. 

Voters over age 60 cast one-third of 
the vote in the governor’s race, with 58 
percent voting for Chiles. Union mem- 
bers cast 7 percent of the vote, with 70 
percent voting for Chiles. 

The Florida project began last year 
after the Executive Council directed 
COPE to develop a pilot program to in- 
volve more seniors more closely in 
AFL-CIO political activities. 

After Florida was selected as the pilot 
site, meetings were held in each AFL- 
CIO central labor council in the state 
with senior representatives from each 
affiliate and international unions. The 
NCSC also participated in the meetings. 

Seniors were installed in each central 
labor council along with senior repre- 
sentatives of the A. Philip Randolph In- 
stitute and the Labor Council for Latin 
American Advancement. The seniors 
began working full time on the project 
Oct. 1. 

Almost 50,000 retirees received a let- 


editor and a checkout clerk — and all 
permanently disabled,” Bahr said. 

‘ ‘When asked how the repetitive motion 
disorder had affected her life, one 
woman said, ‘I cannot even hug my 
grandchildren.’ ” 

Flight Attendants President Susan 
Bianchi-Sand asked Martin to help 
resolve a jurisdictional dispute between 
the Labor Department and the Federal 
Aviation Administration, which effec- 
tively leaves her members without 
OSHA coverage. 

And AFSCME President Gerald Mc- 
Entee pointed out that his public 
employee members, deprived of na- 
tional OSHA protections, have had to 
contend with patchwork remedies at the 
state level. He called for public 
employees to be covered under com- 
prehensive OSHA reform legislation. 

be expanded 

ter from AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland asking them to volunteer for 
the program. Retirees staffed phone 
banks in the labor council offices and 
distributed printed material containing 
information, endorsements and can- 
didates’ positions on senior issues. 

The program also targeted mailings 
for absentee voting. 

Many unions participated 

With the help of all the affiliates that 
participated in the organizational meet- 
ing, COPE increased its computer list 
of seniors in Florida from 60,000 to 
87,000. This does not include a total of 
40,000 mailings to their own retirees by 
the Teamsters, UAW, AFSCME and 
Ladies’ Garment Workers. 

COPE Director John Perkins and 
staff member Steve Protulis, who 
directed the Florida Project, said the 
federation will continue to support the 
developing program to assure that 
seniors make their voices heard. 

The UAW, ILGWU and Machinists 
also contributed to the successful pilot, 
Protulis noted. 


Successful seniors’ political project will 





Rallies mark 
year of strike 
at Greyhound 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Solidarity Day coordinator John Perkins displays a and supporters from across the country to counter the 
memento of the 1981 demonstration in Washington, anti-union campaign of the newly elected administra- 
which drew hundreds of thousands of union members tion of Ronald Reagan. 

Solidarity Day ’91 set for Labor Day weekend 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO donated $25,000 to 
start a relief fund for the 9,000 
Amalgamated Transit Union members 
who on March 2 passed their first year 
on strike against Greyhound. That date 
was marked by solidarity rallies in six 
cities across the country — Syracuse, 
N.Y., Atlanta, Milwaukee, Dallas, 
Denver and Portland, Ore. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council ap- 
proved the fund and set up the rallies 
following the report of Steelworkers 
President Lynn Williams on the activ- 
ities of the strategic approaches sub- 
committee he chairs. 

Previous union contributions to the 
ATU had been solicited to help with ad- 
ministrative costs during the first year 
of the strike. 

Williams also reported that activities 
at the New York Daily News included 
an “expanding corporate strategy en- 
compassing other Chicago Tribune 
holdings and the board of directors” of 
the Tribune, which owns the Daily 
News. 

“Solidarity among the nine unions at 
the Daily News has been rock solid for 
the four months of the Daily News 
strike,” Williams said, noting that 
solidarity had brought management 
back to the bargaining table. Mediator 
W.J. Usery Jr. had met with all nine 
unions and management principals in 
talks William reported as “fruitless so 
far.” 

“That’s quite a change for manage- 
ment from its Oct. 25 presumption that 
it would bust out the unions” soon after 
a strike started, Williams said. He also 
noted the labor solidarity in the seven 
months following the March 1990 ex- 
piration of the Daily News contracts, as 
unions thwarted management’s attempt 
to force a strike. 

Daily News negotiations 

The nine striking Daily News unions 
selected the Graphic Communications 
members who are printing pressmen at 
the News as the first group to bargain. 
After several meetings, however, Usery 
announced that those talks would be 
postponed until Feb. 27. Daily News 
publisher James Hoge gave unions un- 
til today to grant concessions or he said 
he will decide whether to close the 
paper. 

Williams reported on continued com- 
munity services support for the Machin- 
ists following the suspension of opera- 
tions at Eastern Airlines, a major 
Strategic Approaches Committee pro- 
ject for the past two years. 

The strategic approaches method was 
created as a part of the AFL-CIO Com- 
mittee on the Evolution of Work in 
1986 to be a coordinating vehicle for 
federationwide support of unions who 
ask for AFL-CIO help in collective 
bargaining crises. 

It was immediately invited to become 
involved in the USX strike that year and 
has coordinated AFL-CIO efforts in 
strikes by the NFL Players Association, 
Broadcast Employees at NBC, Actors’ 
Equity and Musicians with recording 
companies, Communications Workers 
and Electrical Workers at AT&T and 
Mine Workers at Pittston, in addition 
to the Eastern, Greyhound and New 
York Daily News efforts. 

Checks to the new fund for ATU 
members should be made out to Fair- 
ness for Grayhound Strikers Inc. , 1 140 
Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 800, 
Washington, D.C. 20036. 


By Candice Johnson 
Bal Harbour, Fla . 

S olidarity Day 1991, set for the Satur- 
day of Labor Day weekend, will 
celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 
success of the first gathering, when 
hundreds of thousands of working men 
and women from across the country 
flocked to the nation’s capital, the Ex- 
ecutive Council said. 

Declaring “We Are One,” the trade 
unionists showed in 1981 that they were 
prepared to meet the attack on the labor 
movement launched by the Reagan ad- 
ministration and to work for economic 
and social justice, the council said. “It 
has not always been easy, but that 
promise was kept,” it added. 

Ten years later, union members again 
will be coming to Washington, on 
Saturday, Aug. 31, to demonstrate sup- 
port for three key goals: a ban on the 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

R eaffirming its commitment to worker 
dignity and autonomy, the AFL- 
CIO called on Congress to outlaw a 
growing number of management prac- 
tices such as eavesdropping on phone 
calls and genetic screening tests that in- 
vade workers’ privacy. 

“Employers in increasing numbers 
are seeking to probe — and then to 
regulate — the most private aspects of 
their employees’ lives away from 
work,” the Executive Council said. 

These tactics “undermine basic 
privacy and due process rights. Yet to 
date, there has been only limited legis- 
lative protection for these rights,” the 
council statement noted. 

“The AFL-CIO is committed to 
enhancing the dignity of working men 
and women and to preventing intrusions 
into workers’ privacy. We support 
legislation that would go further than 
present law to preserve . . . worker 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

I n the festering dispute in the Pacific 
Northwest over timber-related jobs 
and protection of the northern spotted 
owl, Congress should strike a balance 
by developing a policy that “will en- 
hance economic stability in the region, 
while maintaining the integrity of our 
precious natural resources,” the AFL- 
CIO said. 

“The issue is not whether the spot- 
ted owl should be preserved, but rather 
how to accomplish that goal while pre- 
serving the jobs and communities that 
depend on the continued harvesting of 
timber on public lands in the region,” 
the Executive Council said in a state- 
ment. 


permanent replacement of strikers, na- 
tional health care reform and full free- 
dom of association at home and abroad. 

“Much has happened since 1981,” 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said, noting that “freedom of associa- 
tion becomes a much more important 
issue since the massacre at Tiananmen, 
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 
collapse of communism throughout 
Europe.” 

The 1991 Solidarity Day will target 
permanent replacements because “per- 
mitting permanent replacement disrupts 
the American system of collective bar- 
gaining and threatens the ability of the 
trade union movement to negotiate fair 
and effective labor contracts,” the 
council said. 

The demonstration also will continue 
the trade union movement’s call for na- 
tional health care reform — built 


privacy and to outlaw management 
practices which intrude” on that 
privacy. 

The statement condemned employers 
who ask their employees about their 
union sympathies, political beliefs, 
financial status and other personal 
matters. 

The council also attacked random 
drug testing policies applied “without 
any requirement of reasonable suspicion 
of wrongdoing.” 

Many employers, in an effort to shift 
the blame for rising health care costs 
and to further their personal agendas, 
are trying to regulate workers’ off-duty 
conduct, such as telling employees 
whether they can smoke at home or 
what they can eat at their own dinner 
table, the council said. 

“Medical screening reveals the most 
intimate details of employee health, in- 
cluding those that have no relation to 
job performance,” the council said. 


The council pointed out that the trade 
union movement, for more than 50 
years, has advocated forestry methods 
that reflect a concern for environmen- 
tal quality and the preservation of the 
nation’s forests. 

In particular, the AFL-CIO consist- 
ently has favored the combination of 
setting aside “old growth” stands of 
public timberland into wilderness areas 
and parks, and forestry practices that 
will assure an enduring supply of timber 
available for harvest, the council said. 

Measures now before Congress 
“would disrupt this balance,” the coun- 
cil warned, by placing severe new 
limitations on timber harvesting in an 
effort to protect the habitat of the 


around the principles of access, qual- 
ity care and cost containment. 

COPE Director John Perkins, who 
coordinated the first Solidarity Day, 
will again organize the anniversary 
event, said Kirkland, who noted that he 
had encountered wholesale support for 
the idea in talking with council mem- 
bers about the 1991 event. 

Perkins said he was contacting af- 
filiated unions, asking them to designate 
coordinators who could help arrange 
transportation for the event. With more 
than six months to prepare, compared 
with the 17 weeks’ lead time for the 
1981 demonstration, and with the help 
of international unions that have af- 
filiated since 1981, Solidarity Day 1991 
should be a successful event, he said. 

Perkins also told the council that the 
Interior Department has been notified, 
and permits already received. 


Finally, employers have exploited a 
legal loophole to eavesdrop on em- 
ployee telephone conversations with 
customers. This “is yet another often- 
used technique that has no place in a 
free society,” the council stressed. 

The statement is the latest in a series 
of efforts by unions to stop these prac- 
tices. The Communications Workers in 
September filed a multimillion dollar 
class action suit against Northern Tele- 
com Inc. of Nashville claiming the com- 
pany spied on its employees. 

The suit said the company wiretap- 
ped telephones and installed hidden 
microphones to stymie union organ- 
ization. 

The CWA in October also released 
a study that showed electronically 
monitoring the output of workers at 
video display terminals significantly in- 
creases VDT-related health problems 
such as aching wrists, back and neck 
problems and fatigue. 

save timber jobs 

northern spotted owl, which is desig- 
nated as “threatened” under the En- 
dangered Species Act. 

Leading forest economists have pre- 
dicted that restrictions would im- 
mediately wipe out 100,000 jobs in the 
logging industry, the council said. In 
addition, communities in Oregon, 
Washington and Northern California 
would suffer further job losses in 
timber-related industries that could 
bring the region’s total loss to $3.8 
billion. 

Further, the council emphasized, the 
severe limitations on timbering could 
reduce the supply of wood, raise the 
cost of building materials and exacer- 
bate the shortage of affordable housing. 


Council: Keep Big Brother out of workplace 


Balanced federal policy sought to 







AFSCME Photo 


AFSCME Minnesota activists and organizers celebrate the election victory of 
their union on six state university campuses. 


Large-unit 
drives boost 
organizing 

Major wins feature 
Hispanics, women 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he start of the 1990s has been marked 
with “increasing sophistication and 
commitment of unions to undertake 
large organizing drives,” the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council was told during its 
winter meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla. 

“The development of strategies and 
programs which address the special 
problems of units involving more than 
500 workers” has resulted in some 
distinctive victories, reported Vice 
President John J. Sweeney, president of 
the Service Employees and chairman of 
the Committee on Organizing. 

SEIU Local 399’s Justice for Janitors 
campaign in Los Angeles is a prime ex- 
ample, Sweeney said. That campaign’s 
latest contracts, which came during the 
council meeting, bring to 5,200 the 
number of workers organized in the Los 
Angeles area alone. More than 90 per- 
cent of these Los Angeles workers are 
Hispanics. 

Most recently, Local 399 organized 
850 employees of Bradford Building 
Services, the largest non-union clean- 
ing contractor in Los Angeles. 

Labor’s ability to organize large 
groups of Hispanic workers has been 
aided by the development of such 
organizations as the Labor Immigration 
Assistance Program (LIAP) and the 
California Immigrant Workers Associa- 
tion (CIWA) in the Los Angeles area. 

“Latino workers come to the United 
States with differing views of labor 
depending upon their culture and ex- 
periences in their own country,” said 
AFL-CIO Regional Director David 
Sickler. “LIAP and CIWA are an in- 
tegral part of the gap the AFL-CIO has 
begun to bridge with the Latino com- 
munity in Los Angeles.” 

Another organizing breakthrough 
was reported to the council by 
AFSCME President Gerald W. Mc- 
Entee, whose union recently organized 
3,200 clerical employees on six cam- 
puses of the University of Minnesota. 
The election marks a nearly decade- 
long effort to unionize the university’s 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

U nion-only investments offer the best 
return for union pension funds, in 
advancing both finances and the labor 
movement, the AFL-CIO said in urg- 
ing union pension trustees to invest in 
union projects. 

In a report on the Pension Investment 
Committee he chairs, Bricklayers Presi- 
dent John T. Joyce told the Executive 
Council that union-only projects are 
outperforming non-union investments. 
Even in a slumping housing market, the 
AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust 
reported a 29 percent increase in assets 
last year, he said. 

“While the industry may be down, 
investments are providing an excellent 
return,” Joyce said. “Union trustees 
should be encouraged to participate in 
union-only housing and real estate in- 
vestments.” 

Joyce also reported that the commit- 
tee will do fact-finding on investment 
opportunities in Eastern Europe, where 
an economic boost could assist fledg- 
ling free trade unions. 


clerical employees — 93 percent of 
whom are women — in Minneapolis, 
St. Paul, Duluth, Waseca, Crookston 
and Morris. 

“This is certainly one of the happiest 
days of our union since the Harvard vic- 
tory,” McEntee said. Staff from the 
AFSCME Harvard clerical campaign, 
which organized 3,400 clerical workers 
at that university, assisted in the Uni- 
versity of Minnesota campaign. 

The organizing committee report 
noted that, “while the NLRB figures 
for AFL-CIO unions for the first half 
of 1990 reflect a slight downturn in the 
number of elections and employees 
organized, they remain higher than the 
years 1982 through 1988.” 

Unions avoid NLRB 

NLRB statistics, however, would not 
include either the AFSCME success in 
Minnesota or the SEIU victories in Los 
Angeles because Minnesota public em- 
ployees are not covered by the National 
Labor Relations Act and the SEIU 
chose to deal directly with the building 
service contractors rather than petition- 
ing through the NLRB. That method — 
outside the NLRB — was also used by 
the Food and Commercial Workers in 
recent drives among catfish workers in 
Mississippi. 

The report cited organizing victories 
by the Machinists, with 2,500 workers 
at American Racing Equipment in Cali- 
fornia, and by the UAW, with 1,300 
workers at Freightline Truck Manufac- 
turing Co. in North Carolina. 

Other organizing gains included: the 
Mine Workers at South East Coal Com- 
pany in Kentucky; the Rubber Workers 
at America Olean Tile Company in 


Joyce also announced model guide- 
lines on the use of proxy votes for 
trustees of Taft-Hartley pension plans. 
The guidelines spell out the duties of the 
proxy and specify key issues that the 
proxy should consider before voting. 
They are available to unionists by 
writing the AFL-CIO Employee Bene- 
fits Department, Room 306, 815 16th 
St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 

The Executive Council also addres- 
sed several other key corporate issues, 
including takeovers, foreign control of 
the aviation industry and abuse of Sec- 
tion 936 of the tax code. 

The council urged Congress to stop 
the leveraged buyout craze that “lines 
the pockets of speculators, investment 
bankers and lawyers at the expense of 
working people.” 

While condemning the “financial an- 
tics” of corporate raiders like Carl 
Icahn and Frank Lorenzo, “who left a 
trail of broken companies, disrupted 
communities and shattered lives,” the 
statement singled out Harold Simmons’ 
bid to take over Lockheed. 


Pennsylvania; Graphic Communica- 
tions at Areata Graphics in Massachu- 
setts; the Government Employees at 
Defense Industrial Plant Equipment 
Center; the Clothing and Textile Work- 
ers at the University of Massachusetts 
at Amherst; and SEIU at the Los 
Angeles Public School System. 

The workers most interested in 
organizing are those in the fastest grow- 
ing segments of the work force. By the 
year 2000, fully 40 percent of the labor 
force will be minorities or women and 
the female proportion will be close to 
50 percent. 

In the coming decade, these groups 
will account for 85 percent of all new 
entrants into the workforce. 

To reach these large numbers of the 
changing work force, AFL-CIO unions 
have drawn on a large array of specific 
tactics, the report said. 

“The major elements of these large 
unit strategies include extensive ad- 
vance preparation, a substantial staff 
commitment from the outset of the cam- 
paign, involvement of union members 
as volunteer organizers, careful devel- 
opment of themes, efforts to win com- 
munity support, and an emphasis on 
timing,” Sweeney reported. 

But small campaigns are just as im- 
portant to the growth of many unions, 
the report stated, noting that the federa- 
tion’s largest affiliate, the Teamsters, 
“has continued to have success by con- 
centrating on smaller units.” 

Workers are more aware of their 
rights today, he added, noting the “per- 
sistent willingness of non-union 
workers to overcome the inequities of 
the current labor laws to join together 
and gain a voice on the job.” 


The takeover would threaten some 
25,000 jobs of Machinists, Electrical 
Workers and Operating Engineers at 
Lockheed. Simmons’ previous three 
deals led to the loss of 10,000 jobs and 
a reduction in benefits and the use of 
pension funds to finance other take- 
overs, the council said. 

Another threat to U.S. jobs is the 
Bush administration’s plan to liberalize 
controls on foreign ownership of air- 
lines and its willingness to allow foreign 
airlines to carry passengers between 
U.S. cities, the council said. 

These policies could destroy the 
domestic airline industry’s ability to 
compete and cause some companies to 
be replaced by foreign carriers, the 
council said. 

The council also called on Congress 
to deny tax breaks under Section 936 
of the U.S. Tax Code to companies that 
have used the law to shut down U.S. 
plants and transfer jobs to Puerto Rico. 

Section 936 exempts companies from 
corporate income taxes on profits made 
in Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories. 


Institute trains 
new generation 
of organizers 

By Candice Johnson 
Bal Harbour, Fla . 

T he AFL-CIO Organizing Institute’s 
mission to recruit, train and place a 
new generation of union organizers is 
meeting with success, especially in ef- 
forts to find unionists, female and 
minority candidates to spread the union 
message. 

In a presentation to the Executive 
Council, Richard Bensinger, the in- 
stitute’s executive director, outlined the 
program’s development and accomplish- 
ments over its 17 months of operation, 
and highlighted some new initiatives. 

He noted that some 50 teaching fel- 
lows from the eight unions participating 
in the institute — AFSCME, Service 
Employees, Clothing and Textile Work- 
ers, Carpenters, Steelworkers, Team- 
sters, Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees, and Food and Commercial 
Workers — are passing on their skills 
and ideas in expanded classroom train- 
ing sessions, training a new generation 
of organizers. 

“We are attempting to make some 
fundamental changes in what is now an 
incredibly unfair arena” of a national 
labor law manipulated by ruthless em- 
ployers, Bensinger said. 

To accomplish its goals, Bensinger 
said, the Organizing Institute carefully 
recruits the best potential organizers, 
provides them with rigorous classroom 
and on-the-job training and tests them 
in rough-and-tumble organizing drives, 
where they help develop campaign 
strategies along with experienced organ- 
izers. 

One-quarter complete program 

Bensinger noted that only one-quarter 
of the individuals who qualify for the 
program actually complete it. “While 
we are grading these individuals, they 
are also grading us,” he said. “As 
many as 30 percent discover that the job 
is just not for them.” 

In 1990, 196 students began the in- 
stitute’s three-day classroom training 
session. Nearly 50 percent were 
women, 55 percent were trade unionists 
and 27 percent were black, Asian or 
Hispanic workers, the institute said, 
noting that its success in reaching 
qualified minority candidates will help 
affiliates reach workers most in need of 
union representation. 

Bensinger said his goal is to increase 
recruitment and the number of gradu- 
ates by 60%, achieving a level of 70 
graduates per year. In its first year, the 
Organizing Institute has successfully 
placed 44 of its graduates in full-time 
organizing jobs. 

Clothing and Textile Workers Presi- 
dent Jack Sheinkman told the council 
that his union had hired several grad- 
uates from the institute and “has gained 
immensely” from participating in the 
program. 

“The AFL-CIO is performing one of 
the most valuable services it can to its 
affiliates and I would urge other union 
officers to participate,” he said. “By 
assisting in this vital area, the federa- 
tion is giving us something we might 
not otherwise be able to achieve, given 
our resources.” 

Mark Splain, the institute’s assistant 
director, told the council that demand 
is growing for trained and talented 
organizers. 

“Our affiliates say their greatest need 
is for individuals who can plan and lead 
the organizing campaigns, and that’s 
where we’ve put our resources,” Splain 
said. 


Pension trustees urged to invest union-only 




Fang Lizhi, free at last, 
accepts Meany Award 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Fang Lizhi is congratulated for winning the 1990 George Meany Award. 


Council condemns 
Bush’s support 
of China tryanny 

By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour , Fla. 

L ike Lech Walesa of Poland and Dr. 

Andrei Sakharov of the Soviet Union 
before him, Dr. Fang Lizhi of China 
traveled an arduous road to freedom, 
finally meeting with the AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Council to accept the George 
Meany Human Rights Award. 

Fang, 54, an astrophysicist, inspired 
a generation of Chinese students with 
his writings on human rights, leading 
to the Tiananmen Square protests of the 
spring of 1989. At the time, he was con- 
fined to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, 
where he spent 385 days to foil efforts 
by the Chinese government to arrest 
him. 

The AFL-CIO twice before sought to 
meet with Fang and to present him with 
the 1990 Meany award, but was re- 
buffed by the Chinese government, 
which refused him permission to leave 
China. The council chose him to receive 
the prize last February. 

Fang, appearing before the council 
with his wife, Dr. Li Shuxian, said he 
was “deeply moved to accept this 
award. It is a special honor because it 
is the first time I have been honored by 
an organization of workers.” 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
noting that Fang is now conducting 
research in astrophysics at the Institute 
of Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., 
where Albert Einstein worked, praised 
Fang for his continued compaign 
against China’s repressive communist 
regime. 

Fang, often called the “Sakharov of 
China,” was twice expelled from the 
Communist Party for his published 
criticisms, the first time in 1957, and 
was imprisoned for a year during the 
so-called Cultural Revolution in the 
1960s. 

“Rehabilitated” in 1978, when he 
became China’s youngest full pro- 
fessor, Fang continued to speak out on 
the failure of communism in China, and 
again was expelled in 1987. 

Fang played no public role in the stu- 
dent campaign that led to Tiananmen 
Square, but China’s leaders saw him as 
a major inspiration behind the protests 
and demanded that the United States 
hand over Fang and his wife to 
authorities. 

Chinese police prevented him from 
attending a dinner hosted by President 
Bush during his visit to China in 
February 1989, an invitation that has 
not been extended since. 

The council criticized the Bush ad- 
ministration for pursuing a policy “that 
reinforces what our own State Depart- 
ment calls ‘an authoritarian one-party 


state ruled by the Chinese Communist 
Party.’ ” It noted that U.S. trade incen- 
tives for China produced a deficit with 
that country in 1990 of nearly $11 
billion, second only to the U.S. trade 
deficit with Japan. 

“The AFL-CIO believes that U.S. 
policy in China is wrong; it must be 
changed,” the council said. “Business- 
as-usual cooperation with the totali- 
tarian regime makes America de facto 
partners in the oppression of the 
Chinese people.” 

Specifically, the council called on 
Congress to withdraw China’s “Most 
Favored Nation” status; halt U.S. 
government activities to promote 
business in China; mandate that U.S. 
businesses operating in China adopt a 
code of conduct to permit Chinese 
workers to be represented by unions of 
their choosing, and to require U.S. im- 


porters to certify that no part of the pro- 
ducts they buy in China is made by 
forced labor. 

The federation also called for the 
release of Han Dongfang, the leader of 
the Beijing Workers Autonomous 
Federation, and his fellow worker ac- 
tivists arrested in 1989, as well as Wei 
Jingsheng, an electrician imprisoned 
since 1979 for demanding democratic 
reforms. 

In other action, the council approv- 
ed a report from the Committee on 
Asian/ American Labor Support Group 
on the continued work on a national 
organization to support the activities of 
Asian- American trade unionists. 

Committee Chairman Jay Mazur, 
president of the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers, presented a survey showing 
that there are some 200,000 Asian/ 
Pacific union members in the country. 


Lithuanian trade unionist awarded 1991 human rights award 


By Rex Hardesty 
Bal Harbour , Fla. 

L ithuanian trade unionist Kazimieras 
Uoka was awarded the 1991 George 
Meany Human Rights Award by the 
AFL-CIO Executive Council. 

Uoka, a bulldozer operator, founded 
the Lithuanian Workers Union in 1988 
and his drive for free trade unionism has 
carried him beyond his home republic 
to become the key force behind the new 
Confederation of Labor in Russia and 
the Independent Miners Union of the 
Ukraine. 

Uoka provided one of the dramatic 
moments of the 1989 AFL-CIO Con- 
vention when he appeared with Lech 
Walesa of Poland and became the first 
trade unionist from inside the Soviet 


Union to be allowed to respond to an 
AFL-CIO invitation. 

In a council statement, the AFL-CIO 
also denounced the crackdown on free 
democratic movements in the Baltic 
states and the Soviet republics. It called 
on the United States to suspend all 
economic aid to the central Soviet 
government and pledged to “cooperate 
with democratic worker organizations 
and free trade unions of the USSR and 
the Baltic states.” 

In addition to Walesa, other world 
figures who preceded Uoka as winners 
of the award include Andrei Sakharov 
of the Soviet Union, Ernesto Herrera 
of the Philippines, Fang Lizhi of China, 
and Kim Dae Jung of Korea. 

Since 1983, Uoka has worked non- 


stop for formation in Lithuania of a 
trade union movement free of the party- 
controlled Soviet “union” structure. 

Uoka also is a leader of Lithuania’s 
Social Democratic Party and was 
elected to the Supreme Soviet of the 
USSR in 1989 and to the Supreme 
Council of Lithuania in 1990. 

From his youth, Uoka has been in 
constant conflict with the KGB. For 
these activities he was prevented from 
attending schools of higher education as 
a normal student. But he secured a 
higher education in the evenings while 
working for 18 years as a bulldozer 
operator on numerous construction 
projects. 

He proved to be a prophet at the close 
of his remarks to the AFL-CIO conven- 


tion, when he recited the 22 Soviet 
areas in which he knew free trade 
unions were emerging in the wake of 
that year’s dramatic emergence of 
democracy in the Warsaw Pact nations. 

“We would gladly welcome you as 
guests,” he told delegates to the con- 
vention. “If they refuse to let you in 
elsewhere, I can assure you of a fruit- 
ful visit in Lithuania, providing there 
is no military crackdown.” 

On Christmas Eve 1990, just 13 
months later, Uoka sent a message to 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
asking him to call attention to the Soviet 
troop movement on the border — ad- 
vance notice of the crackdown that 
came soon after the Jan. 16 start of war 
in the Persian Gulf. 


Council urges participation in international labor solidarity 


By John R. Oravec 

I nternational labor solidarity is as 
essential to U.S. workers as it is to 
those of nations saddled with oppressive 
regimes where trade union rights are 
subverted and cheap labor is exploited, 
the Executive Council declared at its 
meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla. 

Addressing worker concerns in Latin 
America, Asia and the Middle East, 
council statements called on AFL-CIO 
affiliates to step up their participation 
in the functions of international trade 
secretariats (ITSs). 

U.S. trade unions are confronted with 
an increasingly interdependent world 
where multinational corporations move 
quickly to shift jobs across borders, the 
council said. In such a setting, it noted, 
the role of ITS organizations is vital to 
protect the interests of union members. 

An immediate concern of the council 
is the rapid expansion of so-called ex- 
port processing zones in Caribbean 
countries. “Multinational firms flock to 
these zones to take advantage of cheap 


labor, tax breaks and special trading 
privileges for duty-free access to the 
U.S. market under the Generalized 
Systems of Preferences and the Carib- 
bean Basin Initiative,” the council 
noted. 

“Despite U.S. laws conditioning 
these privileges on respect for interna- 
tionally recognized worker rights, 
workers in many of these zones are not 
allowed to form unions or bargain col- 
lectively. Workers face special diffi- 
culties in Haiti, El Salvador, Guate- 
mala, Colombia, the Dominican Repub- 
lic and Panama.” 

In a statement on Histadrut, the 
Israeli labor federation, the council 
said, “the AFL-CIO expresses its ad- 
miration for Israel’s courage and re- 
straint in the face of unprovoked Iraqi 
attacks on its civilian population . . . We 
reaffirm our bonds of solidarity with 
Histadrut.” 

In other action, the council: 

• Affirmed its support of the Con- 
federation of Turkish Trade Unions 


(Turk-Is), protesting a government ban 
on all strikes for two months and an 
order for striking miners to return to 
work. The crackdown by President 
Turgut Ozal came after Turk-Is con- 
ducted a one-day national demonstra- 
tion by 1.5 million workers that shut 
down all major industrial facilities in the 
country. 

The Bush administration must point 
out to Ozal that “the U.S. government 
considers Turkish compliance with 
democratic norms as important an ob- 
jective as the restoration of Kuwait’s 
sovereignty,” the council declared. 

• Called for the U.S. government to 
defer granting concessions on trade, in- 
vestment and other aid to Vietnam, say- 
ing that “government must end the 
crackdown on pro-democracy organiza- 
tions, release their leaders from prison 
and permit them to continue their demo- 
cratic activities,” the council said. 

• Renewed its call for the U.S. 
government to help end the civil war in 
El Salvador, which has raged for years 


between the right-wing extremists and 
the left-wing FMLN combatants. Vio- 
lence by both sides threatens peace 
negotiations as well as the March 10 
elections for El Salvador’s general 
assembly, in which trade unionists have 
a chance of helping defeat the right- 
wing majority. 

The council called on the Bush White 
House to continue withholding $42.5 
million in military aid and to reinforce 
United Nations efforts for peace nego- 
tiations. 

• Decried workers rights violations 
in Panama, noting that the government 
recently suspended collective bargain- 
ing rights in its export processing zones 
for three years. 

The prohibition was imposed after 
several Korean firms reportedly threat- 
ened to withhold investments if unions 
were allowed, the council said. When 
workers protested the labor code 
changes, the government fired nearly 
1,000 public employees and their 
leaders. 




AFL-CIO pledges campaign to free Cuban workers 



Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 

Joined by Cuban trade unionists, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland lays wreath 
at memorial of Jose Marti in Miami. 


By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour, Fla . 

A rmed with specific new evidence of 
Fidel Castro’s continued abuse of 
human and worker rights in Cuba, the 
AFL-CIO pledged to join in an inter- 
national campaign to end his brutal 
regime. 

Pointing out that “the collapse of the 
Soviet bloc has knocked the props from 
under the inefficient Cuban economy,” 
the Executive Council predicted that 
Castro’s “reckless, cruel and mur- 
derous tenure over the people of Cuba 
(is) coming to an end.” 

‘ ‘At this time of democratic possibili- 
ty ... the AFL-CIO looks forward to the 
day when the working people will take 
to the streets of Havana in celebrations 
that rival those we have witnessed in 
Prague, Budapest, Gdansk and Berlin,” 
the council said in a statement. 

Accepting the report of the federa- 
tion’s Labor Committee for a Free 
Cuba, which has spent the past six 
months documenting worker rights 
abuses in Cuba, the council pledged a 
series of concerted actions that “to- 
gether with the struggle of the Cuban 
people can lead to Castro’s fall from 
power, and the establishment of 
democracy.” 

The AFL-CIO designating Feb. 21 as 
“Free Cuba Day,” with various activi- 
ties that highlighted Castro’s tyranny 
while celebrating the resiliency of the 
Cuban people and demonstrating soli- 
darity with the many Cuban ex-patriates 
and freedom-fighters now living in the 
Miami area. 

After the council action, the federa- 
tion held a luncheon to honor two 
Cuban trade unionists — Mario Chanes 
de Armas and Ernesto Diaz 
Rodriquez — who have been im- 
prisoned since the 1960s. Later in the 


day, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
laid a wreath at the monument of Jose 
Marti, “Cuba’s George Washington,” 
and AFL-CIO Vice President John 
DeConcini, chairman of the Free Cuba 
committee, hosted a reception honoring 
Cuban community and labor activists. 

Kirkland, addressing the luncheon, 
said the AFL-CIO will pursue its cam- 
paign for a free Cuba through the in- 
ternational labor movement and through 
diplomatic channels. 

“We will organize and agitate for 
democratic elections, freedom of asso- 
ciation for workers and full amnesty for 
the 30,000 political prisoners now be- 
ing held in Cuba’s jails,” Kirkland said. 

DeConcini and the Cuba committee 
held three regional meetings last year 
to hear testimony on the conditions in 
Cuba. DeConcini, president of the 
Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers, also introduced members of 
the committee to the AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Council, which named Mike 
Ruano of the Ladies’ Garment Workers 
as the twelfth member of the committee. 

The committee has compiled a 30- 
page report on worker rights abuses in 
Cuba that will be presented to the In- 
ternational Labor Organization in 
Geneva later this year. Last year, it call- 
ed attention to the plight of Chanes and 
Diaz by attempting to deliver to the 
Cuban Interests Section in Washington 
letters from trade unionists around the 
country, protesting their political 
imprisonment. 

“The committee has arranged four 
radio interviews with Eastern European 
trade unionists to be broadcast into 
Cuba,” DeConcini reported. “Ulti- 
mately, the committee seeks to provide 
direct assistance to workers inside Cuba 
who wish to build democracy and free 
trade unions.” 


Kirkland told the luncheon gathering 
that “Cuba has become one of the 
world’s worst places to work — a place 
of abusive and degrading working con- 
ditions, forced labor thinly disguised as 
‘volunteerism,’ religious and ideo- 
logical discrimination at the workplace, 
and relentless pressures to produce 
more for the glory of the state. 

“In order to enforce its directives, the 
Castro regime has devised an Orwellian 
scheme of ‘merits’ and ‘demerits’ for 
individual workers — all neatly record- 
ed in personal dossiers that follow them 
through their lives,” Kirkland said. 

In its report to the council, the Cuba 
committee said its fact-finding revealed 
that Cuban trade unions function as in- 
struments of the Communist Party and 
the Castro regime, working with the 
government to set production quotas. 

“When quotas are not met, workers 
must labor extra hours without pay,” 


the committee reported. ‘The official 
trade unions then dispense permits for. 
housing and comsumer goods based 
upon a workers ‘integration into the 
Revolution,’ including willingness to 
perform ‘voluntary’ labor.” 

One witness told the committee that 
he was aware of three occasions in 
which workers bypassed the official 
trade union to seek redress of their 
grievances, establishing independent 
committees to represent them. 

“These informal groups were quickly 
dismantled by the official unions and 
state security police,” the panel said. 

The hope for Cuba, the council said, 
lies in the strength of its working peo- 
ple. “To this end, we will foster com- 
munication and contact between Cuban 
workers and trade unionists in the 
United States and elsewhere in order to 
share ideas and resources for the tran- 
sition to democracy.” 



Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 


COSATU's Jay Naidoo is greeted by Presidents Richard Trumka of the Mine 
Workers, right, and Owen Bieber of the UAW, who co-chair the AFL-CIO 
Shell Boycott Committee. 


South African 
sanctions called 
vital by unions 

Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he violence that has led to the deaths 
of many South African blacks over 
the past six months has been fomented 
by reactionary whites “attempting to 
destabilize the opposition to apartheid,” 
Jay Naidoo, general secretary of the 
Congress of South African Trade 
Unionists (COSATU), told the Execu- 
tive Council. 

“It has been portrayed as black-on- 
black violence,” Naidoo said, “but 
evidence shows that the government 
security forces have played a role. 
Powerful whites are arming the mobs 
and giving rise to vigilantes. People are 
having to defend themselves because 
there is no common police force.” 
Naidoo, criticizing the European 
Community’s decision to lift economic 
sanctions without consulting with black 
South African leaders, urged the United 
States to continue sanctions “until every 
political prisoner is freed, every exile 
welcomed home and every citizen has 
the vote.” 

Moments before Naidoo addressed 
the council, the AFL-CIO reiterated its 
long-standing support for keeping the 
sanctions in place. 

While praising the reforms that had 
occurred over the past year in South 
Africa — particularly the announce- 
ment of the dismantling of the Land, 
Group Areas, Development of Black 
Communities and Population Registra- 
tion Acts — the federation said sanc- 
tions should continue until the govern- 
ment treats all citizens equally. 


The AFL-CIO statement also called 
for a representative conference in South 
Africa to create an interim government 
and the election of a constituent as- 
sembly to draft a new constitution. 

The conference “needs to address the 
issue of an interim administration that 
would represent the broader interests of 
the South African population,” the 
statement said. 

The AFL-CIO said it also supports 
the call by South African trade unions 
for the election of a constituent assemb- 
ly, on a non-racial, one-person, one- 
vote system. 


The federation and its African-Amer- 
ican Labor Center pledged to continue 
backing the South African trade union 
movement. It is this movement that 
“fostered democracy in the dark days 
of apartheid and mass repression and 
led the struggle against an unequal and 
unjust South Africa,” the council said. 

Naidoo thanked the AFL-CIO for its 
continued support, noting that union-to- 
union programs run by AFSCME, the 
UAW, Service Employees, Mine 
Workers and other affiliates were essen- 
tial to the continued development of 
trade unions in South Africa. 


Labor endorses 
Black Patriots 
Memorial drive 

Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO, urging its affiliated 
unions to support the Black Revolu- 
tionary War Patriots Memorial, donated 
$5,000 to the project, which would be 
located at Constitution Gardens, mid- 
way between the Lincoln Memorial and 
the Washington Monument in Washing- 
ton. 

With the proposed memorial, “the 
more than 5,000 black soldiers and 
countless other black patriots who sup- 
ported the American Revolution will at 
last be honored for their struggle and 
sacrifice to win freedom for all Amer- 
icans,” the Executive Council said in 
a statement. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland is 
a member of the national advisory coun- 
cil to the Black Revolutionary War 
Patriots Foundation, a non-profit 
organization that is spearheading the 
effort. 

The foundation must raise $6 million 
by Oct. 27, or forfeit the site. These 
funds will be used to design and con- 
struct the memorial and to provide 
educational materials to schools and 
civic organizations. 

The foundation has designated the 
week of March 4 as Black Revolu- 
tionary War Patriots Week to help in- 
crease public awareness of the signif- 
icance of the memorial for all Amer- 
icans. 

Contributions are being taken through 
the Patriots Foundation, 1612 K Street, 
N.W. Suite 1104, Washington, D.C. 
20006. 




The worst is yet to come 

After recession, it takes years for unemployment to go down 


Jobless rate 




July '81 
to Dec. '82 

□ 

□ 

Q 


Nov. 79 
to July 80 


June 90 
to Jan. '91 


to May 75 


We 

are 

.here. 


Six 

months 


One 

year 


Year and 
a half 


Oct. 1973 -May 1975 

It took three years for unemployment 
to fall below 6 percent, and it never 
got back to the pre-recession rate 
of 4.3 percent 

Nov. 1979 -July 1980 

Unemployment declined for only nine 
months to 12 percent before turning up 
again in the 1981 recession. 

July 1981 - Dec. 1982 

It took four and one-half years for 
unemployment to fall below 6 percent. 


to ease recession woe 


Trade deficit 
again passes 
$100 billion 

By John R. Oravec 

T he U.S. foreign trade deficit in 1990 
exceeded $100 billion for the seventh 
year in succession even as the sagging 
economy reduced the demand for 
imports. 

Last year’s shortfall of $101 billion 
was the narrowest since 1983 as 
December’s trade deficit eased to $6.2 
billion, with imports of $39.7 billion 
and exports of $33.5 billion, the Com- 
merce Department reported. 

But in the seven-year span, the United 
States amassed a deficit of nearly $850 
billion — most of it stemming from an 
import flood of manufactured goods. 
The trade gap in manufactured goods 
amounted to $90. 1 billion in 1990, with 
imports of $388.8 billion and exports 
of $298.7 billion. 

On a balance of payments basis, the 
1990 trade deficit was $108.7 billion, 
the Commerce Department said in 
follow-up report. The fourth quarter 
shortfall eased to $28.9 billion from 
$29.8 billion in the third quarter. 

The balance of payments deficit does 
not include the export sales of military 
goods by the federal government and 
makes certain adjustments to the mer- 
chandise trade data. 

The Commerce Department said 
December imports declined by $3.4 
billion, including $1.1 -billion drop in 
oil products, from November for the 
lowest monthly level in several years. 

AFL-CIO economist Mark A. 
Anderson linked the fall-off to the 
deepening recession: “It’s a sad day 
when improvement in the U.S. trade 
imbalance can be brought about by 
higher unemployment and lower weekly 
earnings.” 

Joblessness up, wages down 

American families took a double 
economic blow in the fourth quarter of 
1990: the recession increased the in- 
cidence of unemployment and inflation 
slashed real earnings. 

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report 
showed that nearly 5.2 million families 
had an unemployed member during the 
quarter. That is an increase of 500,000 
from the year-earlier period. 

The proportion of families with an 
unemployed member rose to 7.9 per- 
cent in 1990 from 7.1 percent in the 
fourth quarter of 1989. During both 
periods, BLS said, seven of 10 of such 
families also had one or more employed 
members. 

Median weekly family earnings edged 
up by 2.8 percent to $657 in current 
dollars between the fourth quarters of 
1989 and 1990. But after adjustment for 
the 6.2 percent increase in retail prices 
logged by the all urban consumer price 
index (CPI-U), real earnings dropped 
3.4 percent. 

For families with two or more wage 
earners, median weekly pay rose 2.9 
percent to $850 in current dollars, but 
slipped 3.4 percent after adjustment for 
inflation. For families with unemployed 
members the median weekly earnings 
$428, but fell off to $315 where the hus- 
band of a married couple family was 
jobless, BLS said. 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

U.S. urged 

By John R. Oravec 

T he AFL-CIO Executive Council 
prodded the federal government for 
a speedy economic recovery program 
to aid America’s recession-strapped 
workers, just as it did in coming up with 
the needed resources for the war in the 
Persian Gulf and the bailout of the sav- 
ings and loan industry. 

The council, meeting in Bal Harbour, 
Fla., called on Congress and the Bush 
administration to take immediate steps 
to ease the pain of recession that is grip- 
ping millions of American workers and 
their families. 

Speedy congressional action is need- 
ed on job-creating programs such as the 
renewal of the nation’s infrastructure 
and on an overhaul of the ineffective 
unemployment insurance system that 
locks out millions of jobless workers 
from benefits, the council said in a 
statement. 

The council noted that the savings and 
loan and Persian Gulf expenditures 
were a proper government response, 
but stressed that “the crisis of unem- 
ployment and the need for long-term 
economic recovery is equally urgent 
and should be dealt with promptly.” 
With the economic downturn in its 
eighth month and nearly 15 million 
American workers either unemployed 
or underemployed, there is no decrease 
in unemployment in sight, the council 
observed. And this rising unemploy- 
ment has a dramatic impact on the 
federal treasury, it said. 

“Each 1 percent of unemployment 


R eal weekly pay for the average non- 
supervisory worker fell 1.9 percent 
in January while retail prices rose 0.4 
percent, the Labor Department re- 
ported. Over the year, real weekly earn- 
ings have slipped 2.8 percent as the con- 
sumer price index for urban wage 
earners (CPI-W) jumped 5.5 percent. 

The take-home pay situation is even 
worse over the decade, AFL-CIO 
economist Anne Draper pointed out, 
with average weekly wages 7.8 percent 
below January 1981 after adjustment 
for inflation. 


costs American taxpayers $33 billion 
— $28 billion in lost tax revenues and 
$5 billion in payments for unemploy- 
ment compensation, food stamps, 
Medicaid and similar costs. Workers, 
too, pay a stiff personal toll of lost in- 
come, diminished self-esteem and fami- 
ly turmoil.” 

The economic policies of the past 
decade have benefited a privileged few, 
the council said, “but they have 
decreased the economic security and 
well-being of average Americans. They 
should be replaced now with sound, ef- 
fective programs to counteract the 
recession.” 

Topping the agenda are: 

• Immediate reform of the unem- 
ployment compensation system to pro- 
vide extended benefits, expanded eli- 
gibility and adequate funds for efficient 
administration of the UI program. Only 
one in three unemployed workers gets 
any benefits at all, the council noted. 

• The green light to improve and 
repair the nation’s highways and 
bridges, as well as the transportation, 
sewer and water systems. 

“Equally important is the critical 
need for adequate housing for low- and 
moderate-income families in cities, 
suburbs and rural areas,” it added. 

In discussing the nation’s economic 
problems with the council, House 
Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D- 
Mo.) pledged to put high priority on 
passage of a jobs-creating highway bill, 
which would draw on the reserve funds 
in the Highway Trust Fund. 


The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 
three key components of the index — 
housing, apparel and food and bever- 
ages — each rose 0.9 percent in Jan- 
uary, although the transportation com- 
ponent eased by 1.4 percent. 

Health care costs increased 0.8 per- 
cent over the month, and are up 9.2 per- 
cent over the year — the sharpest ad- 
vance of any major component. 

Heating oil prices continued to 
decline, dropping 3.6 percent over the 
month, and were down 1 .9 percent over 
the year. Gasoline prices eased by 6.8 


“This bill is very important because 
it allows us to get more money to the 
states to help build up our infrastruc- 
ture and public works industry, which 
desperately need help,” Gephardt said. 
“We also hope to include funds for 
mass transit to help our big cities with 
major problems.”’ 

House Speaker Thomas Foley (D- 
Wash.) joined Gephardt in calling for 
improving national educational perfor- 
mance, including funding for job train- 
ing. Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell (D-Maine) told the council he 
considers a national energy policy, 
which would create new jobs, essential 
to maintaining the country’s economic 
strength. 

Mitchell, Foley and Gephardt criti- 
cized President Bush’s proposal for 
reducing the capital gains tax, urging 
instead tax relief for lower- and middle- 
income Americans, particularly through 
reduced payroll taxes. 

The council said the federal govern- 
ment should provide needed funds to 
maintain state and local government 
services that have been crippled by 
revenue shortfalls, including Medicaid 
that has bearing the burden of mass 
unemployment. 

“Many states and cities are facing 
cuts in police, fire and municipal ser- 
vices, and their schools are suffering 
from a shortage of teachers and from 
deteriorating facilities,” the statement 
said. “Families find themselves unable 
to find affordable, adequate child 
care.” 

to rising prices 

percent in January, but were up 18.7 
percent from the year-ago month. Fuel 
gas and electric rates jumped 2.4 per- 
cent in January and were up 3.5 per- 
cent over the year. 

BLS said a 4-percent increase in local 
telephone charges in January more than 
offset lower long distance rates. 

New federal excise taxes triggered 
hikes in alcoholic beverage prices of 4.9 
percent in January and were up 8.7 per- 
cent over the year. Tobacco prices rose 
1.3 percent over the month and were 
12.4 percent ahead of a year ago. 


Workers continue to lose ground 







Council backs prison skills-building program 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

U nderscoring the rehabilitative effect 
of prison skills-training programs, 
the AFL-CIO Executive Council ex- 
pressed its support for programs that 
provide training without displacing jobs 
of the general population. 

Noting that the nation’s prison popu- 
lation has swelled to more than 
750,000, the council said that the issues 
surrounding the use of prison labor — 
which prisoners should be allowed to 
work, to what purpose and under what 
conditions — have become more ur- 
gent. Badly conceived programs often 
provide unfair competition and take 
jobs from the general population, it 
said. 

The council affirmed its support for 
programs that: 

• Provide training for jobs available 
to convicts after their release. 

• Produce goods and services that 
are exclusively for government use and 
may not be sold to the public. 

• Pay prevailing wages for similar 
work in the private sector, with ap- 
propriate deductions not to exceed 50 
percent for room and board, taxes, and 
contribution to victim restitution funds, 
but with family support deducted from 
the remaining funds. 


• Prohibit the use of prison labor to 
replace strikers or provide services that 
may prolong a strike and bar the dis- 
placement of existing jobs by prison 
labor. 

The council also reaffirmed AFL- 
CIO opposition to constitutional amend- 
ments that would limit the terms of 
federal and state legislators. 

“Such proposals strike at the heart of 
representative government and the es- 
sence of a democratic society by deny- 
ing citizens the right to vote freely for 
the candidate of their choice,” the 
council said. 

The AFL-CIO pointed out that voters 
already have the power to limit terms 
of elected officials by denying them 
re-election. 

“Denying voters the right to re-elect 
worthy public servants deprives the na- 
tion and the states of valuable expertise, 
experience and effective leadership,” 
the council said. 

In other actions, the council extended 
to the federation’s president the right to 
file Article XX internal disputes com- 
plaints, heard a report on its Article 
XXI rules on organizing procedures and 
asked affiliates to write the Postmaster 
General to urge issuance of a George 
Meany commemorative stamp. 


In expanding the Article XX internal 
disputes complaint policy, the council 
gave the federation president authority 
to intervene in Section 5 cases in which 
no affiliate files a complaint. 

The council said that authority was to 
meet the larger purpose of Article XX, 
Section 5, which is, “to prevent the 
breaches in trade union solidarity and 
the long-term harm to the trade union 
movement that eventuate from ‘no holds 
barred’ organizing campaigns.” 
Section 5 prohibits the circulation of 
campaign materials “which are de- 
signed to bring or have the effect of 
bringing another affiliate into public 
disrepute or of otherwise adversely af- 
fecting the reputation of such affiliates 
or the federation.” 

In a report to the council on Article 
XXI’ s organizing reponsibilities pro- 
cedures, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue said that unions 
won the subsequent organizing cam- 
paign in 15 cases — and lost only 
three — out of the first 20 cases in 
which the AFL-CIO process deter- 
mined which affiliate should proceed. 
He also reported continued success with 
cases being settled in the mediation 
phase, without going to a final determi- 
nation. 


Council boosts Red Cross drive, honors Leland 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO Executive Council 
urged its affiliates and state and local 
central bodies to support Operation 
Stateside, a program established in part- 
nership with the American Red Cross 
to assist the families of military person- 
nel who are serving overseas. 

The council also agreed to award the 
1991 Murray-Green-Meany award for 
humanitarian work to the late Rep. 
Mickey Leland (D-Texas), who was 
killed in a plane crash in December 
1989 while delivering emergency sup- 
plies to starving refugees in Africa. 
Letter Carriers President Vincent 


Sombrotto, chairman of the AFL-CIO 
Committee on Community Services, 
outlined several activities that the 
federation will expand this year, in- 
cluding unemployment assistance, drug 
and alcohol counseling, food drives, 
disaster training and strike assistance. 

“Every day of the year, without any 
fanfare, the unions of the AFL-CIO 
reach into communities and homes all 
across the nation providing a helping 
hand, from emergency assistance dur- 
ing major disasters to rallying donors 
for a local blood bank,” he said. 

In urging union members to contri- 
bute to the Operation Stateside fund, the 


council noted that the Red Cross has 
estimated that $40 million will be 
needed to help the families of troops 
whose call-up has deprived them of in- 
come, to help families keep in touch and 
to monitor the condition of American 
prisoners of war. 

Contributions, made payable to the 
American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund, 
can be sent to Operation Stateside, 
American Red Cross, Department 
0499, Washington, D.C. 20073-0499. 

The Murray-Green-Meany award 
will be presented at the AFL-CIO ’s na- 
tional Conference on Community Serv- 
ices in Washington July 21-26. 


Unions help working families 
caught up in housing crunch 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

U nions are exploring creative and 
innovative ways to help working 
Americans and their communities over- 
come the housing crunch, the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council was -told by its com- 
mitee on housing. 

The committee, chaired by Brick- 
layers President John Joyce, reviewed 
a housing trust program first established 
by Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees Local 26 in Boston. That 
program — authorized after Congress 
approved an amendment to the Taft- 
Hartley Act — allows employers and 
unions to bargain over contributions to 
jointly administered housing trusts. 

Under the plan, covered workers can 
receive a range of housing services, ad- 
ministered through a separate non-profit 
corporation, including home purchase 
assistance, counseling, credit services 
and other aid. 

Another innovation includes the First 
Trade Union Savings Bank, established 
by the Massachusetts Carpenters Union 
Pension and Annuity Funds, which has 
provided acquisition and construction 
financing to build housing for homeless 
women. The bank also lent more than 
$18 million for the construction of 250 
housing units for working families in 
eastern Massachusetts. 

Working with the Massachusetts Bay 
Transit Pension Fund, the Bricklayers 


and Laborers have sponsored three 
projects to offer more than 100 units of 
affordable housing to working families, 
while unions in Phoenix, Kansas City, 
Albuquerque, N.M. and other cities are 
working to shelter to the homeless. 

The committee also reviewed the 
results of a survey of union-sponsored 
housing, completed by the AFL-CIO 
Department of Economic Research, in- 
dicating that unions since 1952 have in- 
itiated 139 projects covering 27,000 
housing units in 29 states and Puerto 
Rico. 

The survey did not cover pension 
fund activities, nor did it include hous- 
ing projects sponsored by the AFL-CIO 
Housing Investment Trust, which has 
financed more than $750 million of 
multi- and single-family homes, as well 
as retirement centers and health care 
facilities over the past 25 years. 

As of January 1990, HIT’s portfolio 
was invested in 88 real estate projects 
nationwide, the committee said. 

Among the programs reported were 
a 2,585 unit, 5-building cooperative for 
middle-income persons in New York 
City; housing for the elderly and han- 
dicapped in Morgantown and other 
West Virginia cities, and an ongoing 
rehabilitation project that restores 
repossessed buildings in Des Moines, 
Iowa, for purchase by low-income 
tenants. 


Iui\ 

Resources 


T he following publications are 
available from the AFL-CIO 
Publications and Materials Office, 815 
16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20006: 

Labor Law Handbook explains 
various aspects of labor law, including 
unfair labor practice charges, employee 
rights and duty to bargain. Pamphlet 
No. 216. 

Economic Comparisons Between 
Right-to-Work States and Free Bar- 
gaining States provides geographic 
data on poverty rates, various trades 
and professions, wage rates and unem- 
ployment rates in states with right-to- 
work laws and in free bargaining states. 
Publication No. 196. 

AIDS in the Workplace is a stewards 
manual for dealing with the psycho- 
logical, legal, educational and union 
aspects of the AIDS crisis. Publication 
No. 901. 

Child Care is a guide to implemen- 
ting child care laws. This publication 
provides background information on 
child care legislation, an explanation of 
current legislation and a plan of action. 
Publication No. 217. 


The council urged affiliates to write 
the Postmaster General requesting a 
commemorative stamp of George 
Meany, the AFL-CIO’s first president, 
honoring his service to all working 
Americans. It suggested issuance of the 
stamp in 1994, the centennial of 
Meany ’s birth. 

Meany’ s dedication to his beliefs, his 
integrity and his record of accomplish- 
ment have won him “a lasting place of 
honor in the rolls of the trade union 
movement and in the history of the 
United States,” the Executive Council 
said. 

In other business, the council: 

• Created a new ad hoc council 
committee on energy to be chaired by 
Richard Trumka of the Mine Workers. 
Members are John Barry of the Elec- 
trical Workers, Owen Bieber of the 
UAW, Robert A. Georgine of the 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department and George Kourpias of the 
Machinists. 

• Heard a report from its State and 
Local Central Bodies Committee on the 
continuing efforts to increase local af- 
filiation with those AFL-CIO bodies. 

• Set its next meeting for May 8-9 
at the AFL-CIO building in Washing- 
ton. 

Meany Center 
class schedule 

Organizing II (March 3-8) — 
Topics for experienced union staff in- 
clude internal private sector organizing, 
issue-oriented campaigns and recruiting 
and training. 

Newswriting and Editing for Union 
Publications (March 10-15) — For 
union editors who want coaching on the 
basics of union publications. 

Teaching Techniques for Labor 
Education (March 10-15) — A class to 
demonstrate techniques used in labor 
education for those who teach in union 
conferences, summer schools or night 
classes. 

Occupational Health and Safety 

(March 24-29) — A skills-building in- 
stitute to help union officials effective- 
ly respond to workplace hazards. 

Craft of Negotiating (April 
7-12) — A study of negotiating tactics 
that avoid impasses in bargaining, 
grievance, and leadership situations. 

Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation (April 14-19) — A 
workshop presenting mock cases before 
professional arbitrators. 

Effective Union Action in Civil 
Rights (April 15-19) — The annual 
conference of the Department of Civil 
Rights for civil rights and women’s 
rights designees of AFL-CIO unions. 

Contract Negotiations in the Con- 
struction Industry (April 28-May 
3) — An institute to improve bargain- 
ing skills of union leaders. 

AFL-CIO affiliates and departments 
using the campus in March for their 
own staff training programs are: 
Human Resources Development In- 
stitute, March 3-8; Flight Attendants, 
March 4-8; Service Employees, March 
4-6; Organizing Institute, March 8-10; 
Amalgamated Transit Union Legislative 
Conference, March 9-12; ATU 
Women’s Conference, March 13-17; 
ATU Leadership Conference, March 
16-21; Bricklayers, March 17-23; 
American Institute for Free Labor 
Development, March 17- April 13. 

For more information contact the 
Registrar’s office, George Meany 
Center, 10000 New Hampshire Ave., 
Silver Spring, Md. 20903. Telephone 
301/431-6400. Fax 301/434-0371. 





Council sets 
health care 
reform plan 


Health care reform is a top priority in the Senate, Majori- 
ty Leader George Mitchell tells the Executive Council. 
From left, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 


Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 

Donahue, Mitchell, President Lane Kirkland and Vice 
President Susan Bianchi-Sand. The council outlined ob- 
jectives for universal access to quality care. 


Continued from Page 1 

would build upon the current health 
Care system. 

Foley cautioned that any program 
would have to be realistic in terms of 
cost, but that “there is no doubt of the 
importance of legislation, and we are 
headed toward some type of decision. ” 

Kirkland told the news conference 
that the federation would “pursue any 
and all measures we believe will pro- 
vide health care for all our citizens.” 
The AFL-CIO proposals were projected 
to save $165 billion by the end of the 
decade by Sweeney and AFL-CIO 
Employee Benefits Director Karen Ig- 
nagni during a news media briefing. 

The statement said the AFL-CIO 
would “form coalitions with consumer 
groups, employers, community-based 
organizations and providers to call on 
Congress for expeditious enactment of 
federal legislation.” 

Kirkland noted that one such coali- 
tion member could be the American 
Medical Association, which traditional- 
ly has opposed reform iniatives. 

“(The AM A) now has enunciated the 
proposition that access to health care is 
a basic human right,” Kirkland said. 
“And that represents an extraordinary 
movement. We ought to be prepared to 
move with them and work with them in 
an effort to achieve that.” 

In a speech to the AMA National 
Leadership Conference in Miami Beach 
on Feb. 17, Kirkland said, “Clearly, 
we’ve entered a new era of dialogue and 
cooperation — of open agendas and 
open minds. And those of us who can 
remember back a few years can certain- 
ly appreciate how far both of our organ- 
izations have come in our effort to find 
common ground to do what’s right by 
the working Americans who depend on 
our health care system. 


“We in labor now find ourselves in 
common cause not only with the AMA, 
but with many of our traditional adver- 
saries in the business community — 
including the National Association of 
Manufacturers and some of the nation’s 
biggest corporations,” he said. “Our 
shared goals are a great source of hope 
that the time for real health care reform 
has finally arrived.” 

Other specific objectives outlined by 
the council were: 

• Guaranteeing a core package of 
health care benefits, including prenatal 
and post-natal care; inpatient and out- 
patient hospital services; physicians’ 
services; well-child care; laboratory 
tests; and prescription drug coverage. 

• Continuing the labor movement’s 
goal of a social insurance national 


health care program while recognizing 
that reform may come about in stages. 

• Progressive and equitable finan- 
cing that requires all employers to con- 
tribute. 

• Overhauling the existing admini- 
strative structure to standardize claim 
forms, restrict the number of intermed- 
iaries participating in the system, im- 
prove delivery of care and assure that 
no one is denied coverage. 

• Dropping the Medicare eligibility 
to age 60. 

• Improving quality through a na- 
tional system for technology assessment 
and the establishing a national data base 
on the cost and quality of care. 

• Forming a strategy for long-term 
and home care. 

The Executive Council statement 
calls for guaranteed universal access by 


requiring all employers, including the 
federal government, to contribute fair- 
ly to the cost of care. 

Currently, 37 million Americans are 
without health insurance, with another 
50 million believed underinsured, leav- 
ing nearly one-third of all Americans 
without adequate protection against 
medical expenses and illness. 

Last year, the federation held eight 
regional hearings around the country to 
expose the dimensions of the health care 
crisis, as workers, state and local 
government officials and represen- 
tatives from consumer groups, health 
care providers and insurance companies 
provided testimony. The transcript and 
videotaped highlights from those hear- 
ings, presented to members of Congress 
by Kirkland Jan. 29, were given to 
council members. 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 5 
MARCH 4, 1991 


INSIDE 

Striker replacement , 
Mexico trade assailed 

The Executive Council tells Democratic 
leaders in Congress that a ban on the 
permanent replacement of strikers and 
full debate on U.S. -Mexico trade are 
essential labor goals. 

High court hears 
hospital unit case 

The Supreme Court heard arguments on 
a labor-backed rule by the National 
Labor Relations Board that established 
eight bargaining units for hospital 
workers. 




Union Privilege offers 
home mortgage plan 

The Union Privilege Benefit Programs 
adds a mortgage and home buyers 
assistance program to its roster and 
broadens eligibility for the Union 
Privilege MasterCard plan. 

Aug. 31 designated 
Solidarity Day ’ 91 

Solidarity Day 1991 will be held the 
Saturday of Labor Day weekend, mark- 
ing the 10th anniversary of the gather- 
ing that brought hundreds of thousands 
of unionists to Washington. 









Large-unit wins 
boost organizing 

New strategies and programs aimed at 
large units featuring Hispanics and 
women help give unions the winning 
edge in campaigns, the Executive 
Council was told. 

AFL-CIO campaigns 
for Cuban democracy 

The AFL-CIO joins a international 
campaign to end the brutal regime of 
Fidel Castro and to help Cuban trade 
unionists restore democracy and human 
rights to their country. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


3 / 4/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






VOLUME 36, NUMBER 6 MARCH 18, 1991 


Unions, Maxwell agree to save Daily News 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland testifies before House Director Robert M. McGlotten. Behind Kirkland is UAW 
panel on striker replacement bill. At right is Legislative President Owen Bieber, who also testified. 

Kirkland: Strikebreakers poison talks 

Labor intensifies campaign to ban ‘permanent replacements' 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he willingness of some unscrupulous 
employers to “permanently replace” 
striking workers upsets the balance in 
collective bargaining and threatens the 
economic well-being not only of work- 
ers, but of employers and the local com- 
munity as well, AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland told a House subcom- 
mittee. 

The “permanent replacement” doc- 
trine established by the Supreme Court 
in the Mackay decision “corrupts the 
collective bargaining process itself by 
transforming disputes over the terms of 
the next labor contract into larger, life- 
or-death confrontations over whether 
the parties’ bargaining relationships will 
continue,” Kirkland said. 


Testifying before the Education and 
Labor Committee’s subcommittee on 
labor-management relations, Kirkland 
said that disputes poisoned by the use 
of “permanent replacements” become 
a war of attrition. 

“When one party comes to the table 


Catholic bishops back ban 

See Page 7 


with a desire not to agree but rather to 
force confrontation in the hope of de- 
stroying the other, the prospects for a 
peaceful, honorable and mutually bene- 
ficial settlement are close to zero,” he 
said. 

“That is particularly true when the 


other party has neither the desire nor the 
economic weapons to wage such a 
war,” Kirkland continued. “In such 
situations, the rough balance of bargain- 
ing power that brings reason, modera- 
tion and compromise into the bargain- 
ing process is destroyed.” 

Kirkland’s testimony kicked off a 
parade of labor witnesses — including 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue, Steelworkers President 
Lynn Williams and UAW President 
Owen Bieber — at several congres- 
sional hearings. The legislation, H.R. 
5 and S. 55, also was endorsed by 
Bishop Frank J. Rodimer on behalf of 
the U.S. Catholic Conference. 

The difference between “firing 
Continued on Page 7 


By James B. Parks 

T he striking New York Daily News 
unions called it “a great victory for 
the labor movement.” The newspaper’s 
new owner, British publisher Robert 
Maxwell, called it “a miracle.” 

By any description, the tentative 
agreements reached March 12 may save 
the newspaper, which has been losing 
$750,000 a day under the union-busting 
Tribune Co. ownership. 

“Now the Tribune Company can 
leave New York and go back to 
Chicago,” said George McDonald, 
president of the Allied Printing Trades 
Council, which represents the nine 
striking unions. “This agreement shows 
that if the labor movement stays 
together, it can overcome these 
obstacles. 

“If management really wants to use 
collective bargaining and really wants 
to talk, then the process will work, ’ ’ he 
said. 

Union members in the Daily News 
units still must ratify the agreements and 
Maxwell also must finalize the sale with 
the Tribune Co., but both parties were 
hopeful that a new page was being 
turned at the historic New York City 
newspaper. 

“We went out together, and we want 
to go in together,” McDonald said. He 
said he hopes to move the ratification 
process as fast as possible under the 
various union constitutions. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the federation is “delighted” at the 
news of the settlement. 

“This agreement was made possible 
when Mr. Maxwell removed the issue 
of ‘permanent replacement’ workers 
from the bargaining table,” Kirkland 
said. 

‘ ‘We hope the Tribune Company will 
move expeditiously to reach a final 
agreement with the paper’s new owner 
as we await ratification by the rank-and- 
file.” 

The settlements call for the elimina- 
tion of more than 800 jobs, or about one- 
third of the union jobs at the paper. The 

Continued on Page 2 


Worker involvement crucial to job safety, labor says 


By Arlee C. Green 

A year and a half after employees for 
an outside contractor mistakenly 
crossed two pressure lines on a valve, 
causing an explosion that killed 23 
workers at Phillips Chemical Co. plant 
in Pasadena, Texas, employees still 
have only limited say on plant safety. 

There are no workers on the com- 
pany’s central safety committee or its 
seven subcommittees, said C.T. 
Roberts of the Oil, Chemical and 
Atomic Workers Local 4-227. The 
union’s participation is limited to two 


members who meet with workers on 
safety concerns one day a month. 

“We asked management a number of 
times to form a joint safety committee, ’ ’ 
Roberts said. “They’ve been looking 
into it for years, but their main reason 
for not doing it is they figure the less 
we know, the less trouble we are.” 

Legislation needed 

The involvement of workers in safety 
committees is one of the goals of labor 
in its drive for legislative reform of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act, 


said federation Safety and Health Direc- 
tor Peg Seminario. 

“The people affected by these prob- 
lems are also the ones most able to 
resolve them,” said Seminario. “Real 
improvement in workplace safety and 
health requires a major effort among all 
three parties — government, manage- 
ment and labor — not just OSHA with 
management alone.” 

The grass-roots push for passage of a 
reform package will be marked this 
April 28 - the third AFL-CIO Work- 
Continued on Page 8 








Strike spotlighted permanent replacements 


Continued from Page 1 

reductions would come through a com- 
bination of buyouts and layoffs, 
McDonald said. 

“If the News expands as we hope 
under the new leadership, eventually 
we’ll have the 800 people back, a lot 
more readers and advertisers than the 
Daily News has ever had before,” he 
said. 

McDonald said he has asked Maxwell 
to set up a family assistance fund to help 
those who are laid off. He also said he 
would seek federal and state assistance 
to bolster the fund. 

Replacement workers hired by the 
Daily News will be let go under the 
agreements, Maxwell said. Union 
members that crossed the picket lines 
to return to work during the strike will 
continue to work and will retain any 
seniority accrued during the strike. 

If any actions are taken against those 
who crossed the lines, it will be taken 
by the various unions according to their 
bylaws, McDonald said. 

The buyouts will total $40,000 each, 
with $50,000 offers for those unions 
that have lifetime contracts, he said. 
The buyouts will be offered in order of 
seniority, with layoffs made in order of 
inverse seniority. 

The agreements also call for the 
unions to drop their National Labor 
Relations Board complaints against the 
paper, if the board agrees. Maxwell’s 
deal with the Tribune Co. calls for the 
company to drop its lawsuits against the 
unions and individual union members. 

The settlements came after six days 
and nights of marathon negotiating be- 
tween Maxwell and representatives of 
the striking unions. Maxwell signed a 
letter of intent March 5 to buy the paper 
if he could reach agreements with the 
unions. 

About 2,300 workers went on strike 


Oct. 25 after working nearly seven 
months without a contract. The Daily 
News management had announced 
plans to close the paper on March 15 
if the paper had not been sold. 

The strike and the Daily News’s use 
of replacement workers spurred a ma- 
jor effort by the AFL-CIO’s Strategic 
Approaches Committee, including a 
local advertising and circulation boycott 
and national corporate campaign. 

It also focused increased attention on 
the need for legislation aimed at cor- 
recting the loophole in federal labor law 
that says it is illegal to fire workers like 
those at the Daily News for exercising 
their legal right to strike, but it is legal 

“The settlement 
shows what can be 
done when an em- 
ployer recognizes 
and accepts the rights 
and role of employees 
and their unions. ” 

— Charles B. Dale, 
President, Newspaper Guild 


to “permanently replace” them. The 
AFL-CIO has made that legislation one 
of its major priorities. 

Maxwell had said he needed more 
than $70 million in cuts in the paper’s 
annual operating budget. Theodore 
Kheel, an adviser to the unions, said the 
concessions will do that. “He got what 
he wanted dollarwise,” Kheel said. 

In addition to saving the paper and 
getting rid of the replacement workers, 
the unions won a major victory when 
Maxwell agreed to reduce the work- 
force through collective bargaining 
rather than through management fiat, as 


the Tribune Co. persistently had 
demanded. 

The unions made it clear throughout 
the strike they would not give the 
Tribune Co. or Maxwell a management 
rights clause that allowed the company 
to set hours, wages and work 
conditions. 

Maxwell emerged after talks 
mediated by former Labor Secretary 
W.J. Usery Jr. broke down. 

Those talks ended when the Daily 
News management demanded that half 
the pressmen’s jobs be eliminated and 
that the wages of those remaining be 
greatly reduced. 

Support for the strikers led to a drop 
in the Daily News’ circulation from its 
pre-strike level of 1.1 million to 
300,000. More than 75 percent of New 
York outlets refused to carry the paper 
and only 20 of the paper’s original 750 
display advertisers remained. 

The Daily News lost $69.3 million in 
the last quarter of 1990, contributing to 
a 99 percent drop in Tribune Co. prof- 
its. The Daily News lost $114.5 million 
in 1990, compared with $2.2 million in 
1989. 

Maxwell will assume about $150 
million of Daily News liabilities, in- 
cluding $25 million in pension pay- 
ments, in return for a $60 million pay- 
ment from the Tribune Co., according 
to a report in the New York Times. 

Along with the various unions, AFL- 
CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue and the AFL-CIO Strategic 
Approaches Committee, chaired by 
Lynn Williams of the Steelworkers, 
guided the multi-union assistance to the 
Daily News workers. The federation 
provided staff for organizing, legal 
work and community services. The fed- 
eration and many affiliates provided 
money for strike funds and for services 
to the families of the strikers. 


Ministers decry 
strike breaking 

M ore than 100 religious 
leaders have called the per- 
manent replacement of striking 
workers at the New York Daily 
News “morally unjustifiable and 
reprehensible.” 

In a statement, the leaders said 
“the central moral issue” of the 
strike “is the right of workers to 
strike without recriminations.” 
The decision by the Daily 
News’ parent Tribune Co. to 
replace all striking workers is a 
“moral outrage,” they said. The 
leaders named the Tribune Co. ’s 
top executives and board of direc- 
tors and challenged them “to 
justify their employment of per- 
manent replacements for the New 
York Daily News strikers on 
moral and ethical grounds.” 
Among the signers of the state- 
ment were the Most Rev. Ed- 
mond Browning, presiding 
bishop of the Episcopal Church; 
Rabbi Allan Kaplan of the New 
York Federation of Reformed 
Synagogues; two Roman Catholic 
bishops, three Episcopal bishops, 
three United Methodist bishops, 
one bishop of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church, and others. 

Cardinal John O’Connor of 
New York previously told a hear- 
ing on strikebreaker legislation 
that if management knows it can 
permanently replace workers, 
this “makes a charade of collec- 
tive bargaining and a mockery of 
the right to strike.” 

AFL-CIO liaison with the 
religious community is coor- 
dinated by Michael Szpak of the 
Department of Organization and 
Field Services. 


UAW Mazda workers win wage parity in three-year pact 


By Arlee C. Green 

U AW members at Mazda’s Flat 
Rock, Mich. , plant approved a new 
three-year agreement that will provide 
them pay parity with workers at the Big 
Three automakers — Ford, General 
Motors and Chrysler — plus cost-of- 
living adjustments and bonuses. 

Under the agreement, the 2,900 
members of UAW Local 3000 will see 
their hourly wage go up by $1.01 for 
assembly workers and to $1 .50 an hour 
for skilled maintenance workers. In- 
cluded in that is a 3 percent pay 
increase, 30-cent skilled trades adjust- 
ment and a COLA float of 39 cents. 

A lump-sum bonus equal to 3 percent 
of the prior year’s qualified earnings 
will be paid on April 19, 1992, and 


April 18, 1993. Pro-rated Christmas 
bonuses of up to $600 will be paid each 
December, based on the number of 
weeks worked during the year. And the 
quarterly COLA will be continued, the 
union said. 

The profit-sharing plan will be based 
on the same formula used in the UAW’s 
Big Three agreements, with the payout 
percentage increasing from 6 percent to 
17 percent as the rate of profits over 
sales increases. 

Mazda agreed not to lay off any 
workers unless compelled to do so “by 
economic conditions and financial cir- 
cumstances so severe that its long-term 
financial viability is threatened.” The 
union also bargained a stronger voice 
in the company’s outsourcing of work 


and outside contracting, and will 
receive advance notification of any 
plans to introduce new technology, so 
that appropriate training programs can 
be set up to retrain workers. 

The agreement added significant new 
safety and health language, providing 
for a full-time union ergonomics rep- 
resentative, and a full-time safety 
representative on the afternoon shift. 

Mazda and the UAW agreed on the 
framework for establishing a joint 
safety and health committee and pro- 
vided a complaint procedure to resolve 
safety issues. 

New language also covers work in 
confined spaces and precautions to be 
taken for those who must work alone. 

The pension plan was improved by 


setting the UAW-Ford basic pension 
benefit as the minimum for Mazda 
workers, providing full benefits at age 
62, establishing an early retirement 
benefit of $300 a month payable from 
age 55 to 62, and increasing benefits for 
future retirees. 

Health care gains included provisions 
for well-baby care, a higher maximum 
dental benefit, a wider scope for home 
health care coverage, removal of deduc- 
tibles for physical therapy, improved vi- 
sion, hearing and hospice benefits pro- 
grams and extension of full dental and 
vision benefits to retirees. 

A bonus of $225 will be paid for each 
quarter of perfect attendance and four 
days of paid discretionary leave was 
added. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 6 



MONDAY, MARCH 18, 1991 


m 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 


American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 


Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. Bywater 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






LEGISLATION 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Con- workplace discrimination. They are (from left), Patricia 
ference on Civil Rights, introduces several victims of Carroll, Sidney Williams and Patricia Swanson. 

bill makes headway 


Civil rights 

By Mike Hall 
and James B. Parks 

L abor-endorsed civil rights legislation 
cleared several legislative hurdles last 
week as civil rights advocates launched 
a national campaign to ensure its pass- 
age. 

The House Education and Labor 
Committee and Judiciary’s subcommit- 
tee on civil and constitutional rights 
marked up the bill on March 12, the 
same day the Bush administration in- 
troduced its weaker version of a civil 
rights bill. 

The administration’s bill falls short of 
the remedies needed to restore civil 
rights protections, AFL-CIO Legisla- 
tive Representative Jane O’ Grady said 
in reiterating labor support for the 
House bill. 

House Majority Leader Richard Gep- 
hardt (D-Mo.) predicted that the 
stronger bill would pass the House 
soon. 

During the markups, several guaran- 
tees against sexual discrimination were 
added to the bill, now known as the 
Civil Rights and Women’s Equity in 
Employment Act of 1991 . It is H.R. 1 . 

The bill would clarify the intent of 
law following several recent Supreme 
Court decisions that made it more dif- 
ficult for individual workers to sue 
employers who discriminate in the 
workplace. The bill would allow 
women and the disabled to sue employ- 


By Mike Hall 

A nother battle is brewing between 
Congress and the White House over 
AFL-CIO-backed family and medical 
leave (H.R. 2). 

President Bush vetoed similar legisla- 
tion last year even though it won bipar- 
tisan support in both the House and 
Senate. The bill has earned bipartisan 
House support again this year, gaining 
169 co-sponsors. The Senate version, 
S. 5, has 39 co-sponsors. 

“It is my hope and belief, that after 
years of hard work, this will be year 
that American families receive the 
much-needed support that the passage 
of the Family and Medical Leave Act 
will provide,” said Rep. Pat Williams 
(D-Mont.), chairman of the House 
labor-management relations subcom- 
mittee. 

Two House subcommittees have 


ers for damages for intentional job bias. 

The bill is similar to the Civil Rights 
Act of 1990 passed last year and vetoed 
by President Bush. 

“Equal opportunity is a basic Amer- 
ican principle, and we should pass civil 
rights legislation in order to take a 
strong stand against discrimination,” 
said Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.), 
chairman of the Education and Labor 
Committee. “Any American who is 
willing to work hard deserves legal pro- 
tection against discriminatory treatment 
by employers who put corporate prof- 
its ahead of basic fairness.” 

He also said the added provisions and 
name change reflect the fact that civil 
rights “is not just a matter of race, but 
involves gender and ethnicity as well. ’ ’ 

Grass-roots campaign 

Civil rights leaders agree. In a Capi- 
tol Hill press conference, the Leader- 
ship Conference on Civil Rights 
(LCCR), which includes some 170 civil 
rights, consumer and labor groups, 
launched a national grass-roots effort to 
persuade Congress to pass the bill. 

“Working Americans should be able 
to find the jobs for which they’re 
qualified,” said Antonia Hernandez, 
LCCR vice president. “They should be 
able to move as far in their careers as 
their talents can take them; they should 
be able to support their families . . . And 
they should be able to do all these things 


marked up H.R. 2, and the bill is 
scheduled for a March 19 markup 
before the full Education and Labor 
Committee. Introduced by Reps. 
William Clay (D-Mo.) and Margaret 
Roukema (R-N.J.), the legislation 
would: 

• Allow up to 12 weeks per year of 
unpaid leave for childbirth, adoption or 
the serious illness of an immediate fami- 
ly member (child, parent, spouse or 
self). 

• Be available to employees who 
have worked at least 12 months and 
1,000 hours for a public or private 
employer with 50 or more workers. 

• Guarantee the worker the same or 
equivalent job upon return. 

• Continue any pre-existing health 
benefits during the leave. 

• Require the employee to give 
reasonable notice and, when possible, 


without being held back by any form of 
discrimination.” 

“The President’s bill protects 
employers who discriminate,” said 
Ralph Neas, LCCR’s executive direc- 
tor. 

The practical effect of the 1989 
Supreme Court rulings is that working 
Americans who are discriminated 
against on the job have fewer and 
weaker avenues of redress. The rulings 
reduce a victim’s options in seeking 
relief from discrimination and, in some 
situations, deny any relief at all. 

The bill reaffirms the prohibition 
against both intentional discrimination 
and discriminatory practices. It also 
prohibits racial discrimination at all 
stages of a contract. 

The labor-backed bill would return to 
a 1971 standard that requires businesses 
that use practices that have a discri- 
minatory effect to justify those practices 
on the basis of “business necessity.” 
Congressional research shows this test 
was well understood by employers and 
employees, and did not result in quotas. 

The bill also would extend the same 
remedies for discrimination to women 
and religious minorities that are now 
only available to racial minorities. 

The added provisions would establish 
a “glass ceiling” commission to study 
the underrepresentation of women and 
minorities in top level jobs and to study 
the issue of pay equity. 


schedule the leave to accommodate the 
employer. 

“Workers should not be forced to 
stay on the job when they are needed 
at home to help a mother with a broken 
hip, a husband going for chemotherapy 
or a child facing surgery,” Bishop 
James W. Malone of the U.S. Catholic 
Conference in testified before the labor- 
management relations subcommittee. 

About two dozen states have some 
sort of maternity, parental or family 
leave policies. But, as former New 
Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean testified, 
“For every state the laws look dif- 
ferent. . . . That’s just not fair.” 

The business community has geared 
up an anti-leave campaign, claiming the 
legislation would be too costly and in- 
trusive — despite a General Accounting 
Office study showing it would cost only 
$5.30 a year per employee. 


i 


Capitol Digest 


T he House beat back an attack on the 
Davis-Bacon Act that could have cost 
the jobs of 40 percent of the workers 
covered by the law. 

The House rejected, by a 244-173 
vote, an amendment to the Emergency 
Supplemental Appropriations bill that 
would have allowed the Labor Depart- 
ment to implement helper and appren- 
ticeship regulations that the AFL-CIO, 
Congress and courts have fought. 

The regulations, developed in 1981, 
would have allowed contractors on 
federally funded projects to replace the 
laborers and journeymen covered by 
Davis-Bacon with “helpers.” The 
helpers would receive no formal train- 
ing and have little of hope of advance- 
ment in the construction industry. 
Estimates indicated some 40 percent of 
laborers would have been replaced, 
many of whom are minorities. 

A federal appeals court in 1983 struck 
down those regulations saying they 
undermined the purpose of the Davis- 
Bacon Act. Congress also has repeat- 
edly rejected efforts to repeal or water 
down the act. 

The proposal would have abolished 
the employer-employee apprenticeship 
councils in 26 states and the District of 
Columbia, and it would have allowed 
out-of-state contractors to import 
apprentices. 

In other congressional developments: 
AIRLINE EMPLOYEES - 
Unions representing airline workers 
asked Congress to develop programs to 
keep the industry from devouring itself. 
Pilots, Flight Attendants and Machinists 
officials told the committee that regula- 
tions against foreign control of airlines 
should not be relaxed. They also said 
workers who lose their jobs when 
airlines are sold or merged should have 
a chance to follow their work to the 
company which acquires the old firm 
or its routes. 

A coalition of flight attendant unions, 
including the Transport Workers, 
Teamsters and the AFA, also testified 
in favor of H.R. 14, which would 
establish duty time limits and minimum 
rest breaks. 

WORKPLACE MONITORING - 

Bills backed by the AFL-CIO to prevent 
abuses from secret electronic monitor- 
ing in the workplace were introduced 
in the House and Senate. The bills (S. 
516 and H.R. 1218) would ban secret 
monitoring and require notification to 
workers of any type of surveillance. 

RECESS — The Congress will take 
its annual two-week Easter recess 
March 25-April 8. The AFL-CIO’s 
Legislative Department asks state 
federations, central labor councils and 
legislative action committees to meet 
during the recess with members of Con- 
gress to press them for support on four 
major issues: anti-strikebreaker legisla- 
tion (H.R. 5 and S. 55); denying “fast 
track” authority for a U.S. -Mexico free 
trade agreement; civil rights legislation, 
and family and medical leave legislation 
(H.R. 2 and S. 5). 


Battle lines drawn in family leave fight 







Labor: ‘Fast-track’ authority slights trade issues 


By John R. Oravec 

L abor members of the federal Ad- 
visory Committee for Trade Policy 
and Negotiations urged Congress to re- 
ject President Bush’s bid to extend fast- 
track procedures on both multilateral 
and bilateral trade agreements, par- 
ticularly in dealing with the controver- 
sial U.S. -Mexico free-trade pact. 

The White House wants to extend to 
mid- 1993 the fast-track authority that 
limits Congress to an up-or-down vote 
on trade accords without amendments. 
Under current law, that rule would ter- 
minate June 1 . 

The trade advisory panel’s labor con- 
tingent reiterated the AFL-CIO’s con- 
cerns that the fast-track rule seriously 
limits public and congressional involve- 
ment in any discussions with Mexico, 
while diluting the lawmaking authority 
of Congress. Serving on the panel are 
AFL-CIO Vice President Jack Sheink- 
man, president of the Clothing and Tex- 
tile Workers, and Economic Research 
Director Rudy Oswald. 

“The U.S. -Mexico free-trade pro- 
posal has serious and far-reaching con- 
sequences for the two countries, and in 
particular for workers in both coun- 
tries,’’ the labor members stressed. 

“Such an initiative requires a full and 
open debate to identify its effect on 
economic growth, wages, income dis- 
tribution, the environment, and the 
quality of life in both countries.’’ 

The majority of the 44-member trade 
advisory committee (ACTPN), com- 
prised of high officials from major U.S. 
corporations who were appointed by 
Bush and former President Reagan, 
recommended that Congress approve 
Bush’s petition for extending the fast- 
track rule on trade negotiations. 

Many of the companies represented 
on the panel have major manufacturing 
operations in the border maquiladora 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue outlines labor's opposition 
to fast-track U.S. -Mexico free trade pact. At right is K. R. Whitmore, chair- 
man of Eastman Kodak Co., who supported the administration's plan. 


complex, as well as in other plants in 
Mexico. 

In underlining labor’s concerns, 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue told the Congressional 
Competitiveness Caucus that fast-track 
approval of the Mexico trade pact 
amounts to “buying a pig in a poke.’’ 

Enactment of the proposed free trade 
agreement would be an economic and 
social disaster for U.S. workers and 
their communities, while doing little to 
help the vast majority of Mexican 
workers, Donahue said. 

Citing the wide wage disparity be- 
tween the two countries, Donahue noted 


that U.S. companies are already flock- 
ing to the maquiladora plants across the 
border to exploit Mexican workers who 
earn less than $1 an hour at the expense 
of U.S. jobs. 

What Mexico needs is economic de- 
velopment assistance, much like the 
European Economic Community’s ef- 
forts to help Portugal and Greece, and 
not a further drain on U.S. jobs, he 
stressed. 

The prospects of a free-trade accord 
generating demand for U.S. exports to 
Mexico are unlikely, Donahue told the 
congressional caucus, dismissing claims 
by the administration’s trade negotiators 


that there are 90 million new consumers 
in Mexico clamoring to buy U.S. prod- 
ucts. 

In Mexico, only about 10 million 
people are able to buy much of anything 
at all, Donahue said. Because of the 
severe wage disparity, the other 80 
million gripped in poverty are merely 
trying to survive. 

Donahue warned that fast-track au- 
thority could result in an agreement that 
would ignore serious problems that ex- 
ist between the two nations. 

The economic impact on U.S. work- 
ers is not addressed in the Bush ad- 
ministration proposal, nor are the con- 
cerns of environmental damage, dismal 
living conditions around the maquila- 
doras and worker rights, Donahue said. 

Congressional leaders warned the 
White House that the failure of its trade 
negotiators to address the social and 
economic impact of the Mexico trade 
pact jeopardizes its bid for extending the 
fast-track rule. 

In a letter to President Bush, Senate 
Finance Committee Chairman Lloyd 
Bentsen (D-Texas) and House Ways 
and Means Committee Chairman Dan 
Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) specifically cited 
the issues of environmental hazards, job 
safety and worker rights. 

Whether a free-trade accord is ap- 
proved by Congress “will depend on an 
assessment of whether the agreement 
has a net positive effect on jobs and 
wages in the United States,’’ Bentsen 
and Rostenkowski wrote. 

In February, the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council noted that hundreds of 
thousands of U.S. workers have lost 
their jobs to the maquiladoras. 

“Hundreds of thousands more would 
see their jobs exported to plants 
throughout Mexico with the advent of 
a free-trade agreement,’’ the council 
said. 


Low-wage competitors bring down U.S. standards, study says 


By John R. Oravec 

L ow wages in newly industrialized 
countries like Mexico are not only 
undercutting the earnings of American 
workers and the ability of U.S. 
manufacturers to compete in world 
markets, but they now threaten to 
stagnate international trade, an 
Economic Policy Institute study warns. 

An immediate consequence of low- 
wage, high-productivity countries is the 
menace to the U.S. standard of living 
with the slippage of workers’ real earn- 
ings, writes Walter Russell Mead in his 
treatise, “The Low-Wage Challenge to 
Global Growth.’’ 

Mead said evidence is lacking that 
wages are on the rise in developing 
countries — the raises that would be 
needed to narrow the labor cost gap and 
diminish the competitive advantage of 
low- wage producers. Instead, wages in 
advanced countries will decline to close 
the gap — a trend already under way. 

“We now have concrete evidence to 
show that real wages have been declin- 
ing in the United States since 1973 — 
clearly, the effect of manufacturing 
shifts to low-wage countries is a partial 
explanation of this trend,’’ said Mead. 

In testimony before the Senate, EPI 
President Jeff Faux cited the Mead 
report as evidence that a U.S. -Mexico 
free-trade agreement the Bush ad- 
ministration is trying to ram through 
Congress would undermine investment 
and wages in the United States while 
failing to improve pay or living stan- 
dards of Mexican workers. 

Mead’s study shows that workers in 
developing countries continue to suffer 


from persistently depressed wages and 
poor working conditions. Because of 
the pay imbalance, workers in low- 
wage countries cannot afford to buy the 
manufactured goods imported from 
economically advanced countries, thus 
stifling trade. Both advanced and 
developing countries would suffer from 
the oversupply of unsold products, 
Mead observed. 

It was a problem that Henry Ford ad- 
dressed in 1914 with the advent of 
mass-produced autos. Stating that it 
didn’t make any sense to mass produce 
cars if the “mass’’ of citizens couldn’t 
afford to buy them, Ford raised the pay 
of skilled workers to $5 a day, about 
double the going wage, so they could 
buy the Model T they produced. The 
sticker price was about $825. 

Not enough customers 

“If workers in Mexico earn only a 
fraction of the wages of Ford workers 
in Detroit, but produce as many engines 
as Detroiters, then potentially we have 
a problem that Henry Ford would 
understand: too many Fords, not 
enough customers,” Mead said. 

Proponents of open-door trade policy 
have contended that low-wage countries 
also have low levels of output per 
worker, and thus do not undermine 
world competitiveness. But Mead 
points out that developments in 
technology have enabled the low-wage 
countries to increase output in key 
manufacturing sectors to about the same 
levels as advanced countries. 

As an example, Mead shows that pro- 
ductivity in iron and steel making in 


Korea and Brazil have risen to about 60 
percent of U.S. levels, but wages re- 
mained around 10 percent of the U.S. 
rate. As a result, the unit labor cost for 
iron and steel in the two countries 
averages about 17 percent of the cost 
for U.S. firms. 

Mead also made these points: 

• Imports of manufactured goods 
from developing countries grew 240 
percent between 1980 and 1988, two- 
thirds faster than from developed 
countries. 

• Output per employee in Mexico 
rose 2.2 percent per year from 1967 to 
1985 while pay dropped 0.5 percent a 
year. Meanwhile, General Motors is 
doubling its work force in Mexico and 
Chrysler is already the country’s second 
largest exporter. 

• From 1975 to 1986, raw steel pro- 
duction per worker rose 38 percent in 
Japan, 83 percent in the United States, 
76 percent in France and 266 percent 
in Korea. At the same time, steel in- 
dustry employment rose 44 percent in 
Brazil and 87 percent in Korea, but fell 
62 percent in the United States, 53 per- 
cent in France, 36 percent in Germany 
and 23 percent in Japan. 

“The economic consequences of unit 
labor cost disparities will be serious for 
both developed and developing econ- 
omies without an appropriate response 
from policy-makers,” Mead cautions. 
“The long-term persistence of these 
unit labor cost differentials will have a 
profound and dangerous effect on the 
world economy.” 

Instead of assuming that market 
forces automatically would correct the 


problems, Mead calls for the adoption 
of a comprehensive economic strategy 
keyed to internationally recognized 
labor standards, including the prohibi- 
tion of child labor, an appropriate 
minimum wage and the right of workers 
to unionize. 

“Strong and free trade union move- 
ments in developing countries would 
serve as an important element of a 
stable international trade regime,” 
Mead stressed. 

Dismal labor standards 

He notes that a garment worker in 
Bangladesh earns about 10 cents for a 
shirt that retails in the United States for 
$16. Hours are longer and holidays 
fewer for workers in developing coun- 
tries. A Korean factory worker 
averages about two days off per month. 
“In Morocco, children as young as 7 
years old work in Oriental carpet 
factories. 

“Continued economic growth in a 
liberal trading order requires increased 
consumption and higher real wages 
among newly productive workers of the 
developing world.” 

Mead said that “balanced growth” 
would create new export markets for in- 
dustries in advanced countries while ex- 
pediting growth in the developing 
world. 

“The alternative — continued reli- 
ance on export-led growth in develop- 
ing countries and increasing sentiment 
for protection in advanced industrial- 
ized countries — serves the interests of 
no one and exposes all countries to 
serious risks.” 





Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Jobless workers in Prince George's County, Md., stand in line to file claims 
for unemployment benefits. Because of administrative fund shortfall, 
unemployment offices in many states have cut staff and services. 


House bill would fix 


inadequate III system 


By Candice Johnson 

A bill introduced in the House would 
reform the nation’s unemployment 
compensation system, including the ex- 
tended benefit program that now falls 
far short of meeting the needs of the 
unemployed. 

The proposal, introduced by Rep. 
Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.) and sup- 
ported by the AFL-CIO, calls for a 
federally funded extended benefit pro- 
gram to replace the combined state- 
federal system now in place. It also 
would limit state restrictions on 
eligibility and change employer 
financing. 

Changes in the extended benefit pro- 
gram during the 1980s have made it dif- 
ficult for states to “trigger” the addi- 
tional 13 weeks of benefits for jobless 
workers. As the recession worsens, 
with more than 8.2 million workers 
jobless, just five states currently are 
eligible for extended benefits. 

Under Downey’s plan, jobless work- 
ers could receive nine weeks of extend- 
ed benefits when a state’s total 
unemployment rate reaches 6 percent, 
18 weeks at a 7 percent state jobless 
level, and 26 weeks if unemployment 
hits 8 percent. 

Changing the ‘trigger’ 

Currently, workers can receive ex- 
tended benefits only when a state’s in- 
sured unemployment rate is above 6 
percent — or when unemployment hits 
5 percent and is at least 120 percent of 
the average of the past two years. 

The insured rate counts only those 
workers actually collecting unemploy- 
ment compensation — a much lower 
figure than the total number of jobless 
workers, which includes workers 
unemployed for longer than 26 weeks 
as well as those working in jobs not 
covered by the state unemployment 
system. 

Michigan, for example, just “trig- 
gered on” to the extended benefit pro- 
gram, although total joblessness, now 
at 9.3 percent, has been above 6 per- 
cent for more than two years. 

The federal extended benefit plan 
would be financed by an increase in the 
unemployment tax paid by employers. 
The program would increase the taxable 
wage base from the current $7,000 to 
the same base as the Social Security 
payroll tax, now $53,400, but would 
reduce the tax rate from 0.8 percent to 
0.3 percent by 1997. 

The proposed tax changes would 
bring in about $27 billion, while the 


program and benefits would cost about 
$24 billion. 

Downey’s plan also includes a federal 
job search assistance program, admin- 
istrative funding reforms and limits on 
a state’s ability to arbitrarily restrict 
eligibility for benefits. 

Meanwhile, the House on March 7 
voted 365-43 to approve an appropria- 
tion of $200 million to cover the ad- 
ministrative shortfall that is forcing state 
unemployment offices to curtail ser- 
vices. The Senate is expected to follow 
suit before the March 25 Easter recess. 

Offices swamped 

As the recession worsens, state job- 
less offices have been swamped by 
unemployed workers filing claims. The 
Labor Department reported that the 
number of new applications filed in the 
week ended Feb. 23 was more than the 
508,000, the highest number in eight 
years. 

The Bush administration had re- 
quested only $100 million for the sup- 
plemental payment, an amount that 
would not cover the shortfall, said Sen. 
Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), chairman of 
the Joint Economic Committee. 

“Waits of four to six weeks for 
benefit checks are not uncommon,” 
Sarbanes said. “In many states, 
decreased staff and increased workload 
has resulted in waiting lines of up to six 
hours.” 

Jobless workers attested to the failure 
of the current unemployment insurance 
system during recent JEC hearings. 

Joseph Cichowicz had worked for 1 1 
years at the Georgia-Pacific Corp. plant 
in Reading, Pa., when he was laid off 
last June. When his jobless benefits ex- 
pired in January, he was no closer to 
finding work, despite applying for more 
than 50 jobs. Cichowicz said people in 
his area were suffering and that job pro- 
spects seemed limited. 

Frank Ortis and Mike Flynn, long- 
time Eastern Airlines workers and 
Machinists local union presidents, told 
the committee of their members ex- 
periencing lengthy delays or unfair 
denial of benefits, as program ad- 
ministrators seemed more concerned 
with limiting claims than meeting the 
needs of jobless workers and their 
families. 

And despite the local’s paying into 
the jobless compensation fund as an 
employer, those employees the union 
was forced to lay off experienced delays 
of more than six weeks in obtaining 
benefits, Flynn said. 


AFL-CIO plans united 
endorsement procedure 


By Michael Byrne 
Bal Harbour , Fla. 

W hile noting the dearth of presiden- 
tial candidates this year, the AFL- 
CIO Executive Council approved the 
same general procedure for presidential 
endorsements for 1992 that the federa- 
tion used for the 1984 and 1988 elec- 
tions. 

That careful, deliberative process is 
designed to keep labor unified and 
focused before consensus is reached on 
an endorsement. 

The council in 1987 agreed that labor 
is best served by developing a consen- 
sus and that “it is in no one’s interest 
for different affiliates to jump on some- 
one ’s bandwagon before the AFL-CIO 
has a chance to make a decision,” AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland said. 

Before the 1984 election, the AFL- 
CIO unions reached an early and over- 
whelming consensus for Walter Mon- 
dale and endorsed him for president at 
General Board and convention gather- 
ings in October 1983. With no such 
consensus in 1988, the AFL-CIO en- 
dorsed Democrat Michael Dukakis after 
the Democrats and Republicans had 
both chosen their candidates. Prior to 
1984, affiliated unions made their own 
choices and the General Board met only 
after the party nominating conventions. 

The 1991 endorsement process “is 
subject to refinement and improve- 
ment,” Kirkland said. “The important 
thing is that we work toward a collec- 
tive decision.” He pointed out that the 
federation took great pains to assure 
unity in 1987, reviewing the steps taken 
that year: 

• Candidates from both parties were 
asked to respond to questions, both 
written and videotaped. By May 1987, 
the responses of all participants — 
seven Democrats and six Republicans 
— had been videotaped. 

• The responses were printed in the 
AFL-CIO News and distributed to af- 
filiates and state and local central 
bodies, for use in COPE and other 
union meetings. By October 1987, 
13,000 copies of the videotape had been 
distributed and the printed responses 
had been circulated widely by the labor 
press. 

• COPE tracked and developed 
materials on the delegate selection pro- 
cess for both the Democratic and 
Republican conventions. Since no con- 


sensus had developed before the con- 
ventions, labor delegates ran on various 
delegate slates, and ran uncommitted 
where possible. 

• In August, after the party conven- 
tions, the AFL-CIO called a meeting of 
the General Board, which consists of 
the AFL-CIO Executive Council plus 
the president or principal officer of each 
AFL-CIO union and of the trade and in- 
dustrial departments. The General 
Board votes its membership, that is, 
each union’s per capita. The board en- 
dorsed Dukakis by the necessary two- 
thirds vote. 

Unlike four years ago, when the 
arena was crowded with candidates 
from both parties, no one has yet to 
emerge to challenge President Bush, 
who is riding a wave of popularity in 
the wake of the Persian Gulf War 
triumph. With 19 months to go before 
the general election, however, the mood 
of the electorate could swing as the na- 
tion confronts its economic problems. 

In his report to the council, COPE 
Director John Perkins noted that voters 
last year sent a message to incumbents: 
“not necessarily to throw them out, but 
certainly to make them sweat.” Some 
incumbents were turned out, but many 
more were given very narrow margins 
of victory. In addition, three states — 
Oklahoma, Colorado and California — 
voted to limit terms of their represen- 
tatives, as did the cities of Kansas Ci- 
ty, Mo., and San Jose, Calif. 

The council reaffirmed its opposition 
to constitutional amendments or ballot 
initiatives that would limit the terms of 
legislators, noting that it denies “citi- 
zens the right to vote freely for the can- 
didate of their choice.” 

Perkins reported on the results of a 
survey that showed “one of the highest 
levels ever of electing COPE-endorsed 
candidates.” Union members voted 70 
percent for endorsed House candidates, 
74 percent for endorsed Senate can- 
didates and 69 percent for endorsed 
gubernatorial candidates, Perkins said. 

He pointed out that COPE success 
continues to depend on up-to-date 
membership lists of AFL-CIO affiliates, 
predicting that “1992 will be a tough 
election year.” Besides the presidential 
election, control of the Senate will be 
at stake, and many House seats may be 
open due to reapportionment and 
retirements. 


Striker replacement, trade 
top IAM legislative goals 


A bill to ban the use of permanent re- 
placement workers and trade and 
health care reform were high on the 
agenda of the Machinists legislative 
conference, held March 3-5 in Wash- 
ington. 

More than 300 IAM members dis- 
cussed their union’s legislative priorities 
with key labor and political leaders, 
then met with members of Congress in 
afternoon lobbying sessions. 

IAM President George Kourpias 
called on union members to use their 
political and communications skills, as 
well as legislative tools, to even the 
playing field between labor and man- 
agement. 

“Your work here is the opening shot 
in a battle to win the 1990s back for 
workers,” he stressed. “Yours are the 
voices that members of Congress will 
listen to, because you can vote them in 
or vote them out,” he added. 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the delegates that the federation 
launched its grass-roots campaign to 
convince Congress to end the contradic- 
tion in the law “that says you can lose 
your job for exercising your legally pro- 
tected right to strike.” 

That educational effort is beginning 
to pay off, he said, as nearly half of the 
House and a third of the Senate have 
signed on as co-sponsors. 

Before heading out to congressional 
offices, IAM members heard from 
Senate Majority Leader George Mitch- 
ell (D-Maine), Sen. Edward M. Ken- 
nedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Howard Metzen- 
baum (D-Ohio) and Rep. Marty Russo 
(D-Ill.). 

Among other members of Congress 
who spoke or joined in grassroots 
workshop sessions were House Majori- 
ty Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) 
and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.). 




Teachers: War heroes can lead education revival 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Teachers are looking for a few 
good service men and women who 
are ready to move from the Persian Gulf 
War zone to the head of the classroom. 

The more than 200 AFT delegates at- 
tending the union’s legislative/political 
conference also discussed proposals for 
reform of the nation’s education and 
health care systems. 

AFT President Albert Shanker, not- 
ing that nearly half the nation’s public 
school teachers will retire or leave the 
profession over the next seven or eight 
years, called for a comprehensive feder- 
al program to assist returning service 
men and women interested in becoming 
teachers. 

The diverse backgrounds of the serv- 


ice personnel, the high numbers of 
minorities serving and their depth of ex- 
perience and training make them attrac- 
tive recruits to the teaching profession, 
Shanker said. 

“Given that some of our returning 
soldiers will be looking to start a career, 
it just makes sense to bring their talents 
and energies into our schools,” he 
added. 

The AFT proposal calls for recruit- 
ment incentives to help service person- 
nel learn about teaching as a career. 
These could include scholarships, loan 
programs or additional retirement bene- 
fits, including credit in the public retire- 
ment system for years served in the 
military. 

The men and women who have 


served in the Persian Gulf can “con- 
tribute to the wave of innovation and 
vigor” needed to help tranform public 
education, Shanker said. 

In the area of education reform, the 
AFT’s legislative goals call for: 

• A voluntary certification process 
for experienced teachers through the 
National Board for Professional Teach- 
ing Standards. 

• Improved in-service teacher 
education, assessment and research. 

• Expanded student loan and finan- 
cial aid programs for needy students. 

• Expanded early childhood educa- 
tion programs and Head Start. 

The nation must turn its “ideas and 
energy to the home front” and work to 
realize the national goals for education 


laid out by President Bush at the 1989 
national education summit, Shanker 
said. 

Besides national health care reform, 
the AFT’s legislative agenda includes: 
job protection for workers under a fam- 
ily and medical leave program; a ban 
on permanent replacement of strikers; 
extension of the tax exemption for 
employer-paid education and legal 
benefits, and a program to repair public 
facilities, including schools, offices and 
hospitals. 

Among the conference speakers were 
House Majority Leader Richard 
Gephardt (D-Mo.), Sens. Arlen Specter 
(R-Pa.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), 
and Democratic National Committee 
Chairman Ron Brown. 



UFCW targets strikebreakers, health care, OSHA reform 


Bush assailed 
for abandoning 
states, cities 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

A FSCME criticized the Bush ad- 
ministration’s failure to meet the 
needs of state and local governments 
and endorsed legislation to create a na- 
tional health insurance system during its 
biennial legislative conference. 

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee 
also cited passage of civil rights legisla- 
tion and the Family and Medical Leave 
Act as among the union’s top legislative 
priorities. 

The administration has been unre- 
sponsive to the problems created by the 
deepening recession for state and local 
budgets, McEntee said. 

“Bush’s block-grant proposal is 
nothing more than a ploy to cash in on 
the fiscal desperation of so many state 
governments,” he said. Under the Bush 
plan, states would get money now given 
directly to cities for specific programs, 
and could spend the money as they see 
fit. 

“That’s fine with the governors, but 
for the mayors unable to raise the ad- 
ditional revenues it’s more like a 
political death sentence,” McEntee 
said. “It is certainly a death sentence 
for many essential city services.” 
Municipal officials blame the federal 
government for their fiscal chaos. The 
federal government has decreased the 
amount of city revenue it provides from 
17.7 percent in 1980 to 6.4 percent in 
1990. 

In calling for national health care 
reform, McEntee noted that 37 million 
Americans have no health insurance and 
three-fourths of those are workers and 
their families. 

“The state of our current health care 
delivery system is a national shame,” 


McEntee said. “Only the United States 
and South Africa have no national 
health care program for their citizens.” 

Senate Majority Leader George Mit- 
chell (D-Maine) and House Speaker 
Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) told the 250 
AFSCME activists that the nation’s 
unmet domestic needs no longer can be 
ignored. 

The United States spends over $600 
billion annually on health care, more 
than any other country in the world, ac- 


cording to Mitchell. “Yet, more than 
37 million Americans don’t have health 
insurance and the number is rising by 
more than a million a year; two-thirds 
of them are persons who are employees 
or their dependents.” 

“The president says he seeks a new 
world order,” Mitchell said. “We say, 
‘Join us in putting our own house in 
order.’” 

Morning sessions during the three- 
day conference included a panel discus- 


sion on state and local fiscal crises, a 
workshop on reform of the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Act and lob- 
bying. Conferees spent afternoons on 
Capitol Hill, meeting with their 
representatives and senators to make 
labor’s positions clear. 

Other speakers included Sens. Ed- 
ward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and J. 
Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.), and Reps. 
Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) and Ma- 
jor Owens (D-N.Y.). 


Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) tells AFSCME delegates 
that cities are "taking it on the chin." She said mayors 


Rick Reinhard/AFSCME 

ask of her, "What do we do to get more money out of 
Washington — declare war?" 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he Food and Commercial Workers 
political and legislative conference 
agreed to turn up the heat on Congress 
and the administration to gain enact- 
ment of measures banning permanent 
striker replacements, national health 
care and occupational health and safety 
reforms. 

The more than 250 conference par- 
ticipants lobbied face-to-face on Capitol 
Hill for labor issues. They spent four 
days attending workshops on political 
education and labor’s legislative goals 
and heard assessments of upcoming Hill 
action from members of Congress. 

UFCW President William H. Wynn 
emphasized that “involvement in 
politics is an important part of citizen- 


ship. We have to get involved in all 
aspects of members’ lives. We have to 
go beyond bargaining and get involved 
in politics. We need to protect our 
members on all fronts — in the state 
house, on Capitol Hill, and in the 
courts.” 

Wynn said it would take a “grass- 
roots effort that involves all workers to 
help create a new society for the 21st 
century,” one where everyone is 
treated more humanely and where fair- 
minded people are elected to office. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
stressed to the conference that union 
legislative activity is not strictly an 
inside-the-Beltway function. It’s the 
“grass-roots support we get from our 
members in communities across the na- 


tion” that determines labor’s clout in 
Washington. 

“Labor’s legislative challenges have 
never been greater,” Kirkland told the 
group. 

He pointed out that “our government 
responded to the crisis in the Middle 
East and it has responded to the savings 
and loan crisis — in both cases without 
moaning about budget deficits and 
who’s going to pay the tab. Now it’s 
time to address the hardships faced by 
millions of unemployed workers with 
something other than promises of tax 
cuts for the rich.” 

Kirkland called the judicially created 
paradox in the law that says workers 
cannot be fired for exercising their 
legally protected right to strike, but can 


be permanent replaced, a “distinction 
without a difference.” 

He urged too that the conference par- 
ticipants work to scuttle the Bush ad- 
ministration’s push to put the U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement on a fast 
track, thereby eliminating the oppor- 
tunity for amendment or debate. 

Guest speakers included House 
Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.), 
House Majority Whip William Gray 
(D-Pa.), and Reps. Charles Hayes (D- 
111. ), John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), and 
William Ford (D-Mich.), who chairs 
the House Education and Labor Com- 
mittee. Also speaking were Sens. Bar- 
bara Mikulski (D-Md.), Robert 
Packwood (R-Ore.), and Paul 
Wellstone (D-Minn.). 




‘Permanent replacements’ 
chill bargaining process 


Continued from Page 1 

strikers and replacing them is too 
mystical for me to appreciate,” Bieber 
said in describing the judicially created 
loophole that says it’s illegal to fire 
workers for engaging in a legal strike, 
but okay to permanently replace them. 
“It’s just not fair,” he said. 

Testifying before the Senate subcom- 
mittee on labor, Donahue disputed a 
Bush administration contention that 
passing the legislation would undercut 
“stiff competition in global markets.” 

Eight out of the 10 major industri- 
alized countries “prohibit by law or 
custom the permanent replacement of 
strikers,” Donahue noted. “Among 
that eight are Japan and Germany, each 
of which is certainly holding its own in 
world markets.” 

Tilt to management 

Donahue also challenged the claim by 
Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin that 
striker replacement legislation would 
upset a delicately balanced collective 
bargaining system that has remained in- 
tact for 50 years. 

“The assertion that S. 55 would upset 
a fair and well-established balance be- 
tween management and labor is fiction. 
The truth of the matter is that S. 55 is 
but a single small step toward restor- 
ing some of the balance between em- 
ployers and organized employees that 
obtained in 1938.” 

Donahue traced the history of “at 
least four major changes” in the law — 
either judicially or legislatively — that 
shifted the balance toward management: 
stripping from unions the right to sup- 
port each other with a variety of strike 
and boycott weapons; changing the 
definition so an employer no longer is 
required to bargain with a sincere desire 
to reach a settlement; undercutting 
picket solidarity by permitting resigna- 
tions from the union and granting legal 
status to employer lockouts. 

The endorsement of the legislation by 
the Catholic conference reflects general 
concern within various communities on 
the impact of “permanent replace- 
ment” workers. 

Another community representative 
addressing the Senate panel was Charles 
Noonan, town manager of Jay, Maine, 
who testified of the devasting effect that 
replacement workers had in his town 
when, in 1987, the new owner of the 
International Paper Co. plant replaced 
striking workers. 

“The permanent replacement work- 


ers weren’t from Jay,” Noonan said. 
“Most of the former workers were, and 
had a $60 million impact on the econ- 
omy. I don’t see where socially or 
economically we will get back to where 
were were at least for a generation.” 

Williams, testifying before the Senate 
panel, also disputed Martin’s contention 
that “the balance, as it exists today, has 
proven to be well-placed and in the pub- 
lic interest.” 

“It is ironic that critics claim that the 
prohibition of permanent replacements 
will destroy a careful balance in our 
labor laws,” Williams said. “The op- 
posite is true.” 

The Senate hearing was the fifth held 
by Congress on permanent replacement 
legislation in less than 10 months. 
Grass-roots efforts are under way 
among trade unionists to push for both 
bills. H.R. 5, which has 202 co- 
sponsors, was marked up March 13. S. 
5, with 31 co-sponsors, hasn’t been 
scheduled for mark up. 

The importance of passing the legisla- 
tion is not lost on Karen Behnke, who 
worked at Curtis Industries in Ohio for 
23 years before being replaced during 
a strike. 

“I worked hard to earn enough to 
raise my kids, to build up a small pen- 
sion, and to have self respect,” she 
said. “I am in danger of losing 
everything I worked for because the 
company decided to get rid of its 
workforce. I just don’t understand why 
after 50 years of cooperating with the 
union, Curtis Industries suddenly de- 
cided to try to get rid of us.” 

Issue of honesty 

Williams said the issue comes down 
to honesty on the part of employers. 
“Employers, aided by union-busting 
management consultants, have become 
increasingly adept at disguising what is 
impermissible — a lack of good faith in 
bargaining — to make it appear per- 
missible — simple hard bargaining.” 

The evolution of the professional 
union-busting industry has served to 
“poison the well,” Kirkland said. 

“Some of the poison that has entered 
the picture in recent years has been the 
emergence of hired guns who look for 
these little loopholes and these little op- 
portunities for union avoidance,” he 
said. “They have been encouraged and 
promoted by the organs of business 
enterprise — like the Chamber of Com- 
merce, the institutional bodies that help 
in this process.” 



Lane Kirkland testifies before House subcommittee. 

‘There ought to be a law’ 


REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R- 
Ohio): The example that you used 
about running an ad prior to negotia- 
tions beginning, isn’t that an unfair 
labor practice? 

KIRKLAND: No, not under the 
present law. It should be but it is not. 

BOEHNER: But wouldn’t it in- 
dicate an intent to bargain in bad 
faith, which is in fact an unfair labor 
practice? 

KIRKLAND: By reason it is, by 
law it is not. In common sense it is. 
And I say to you it is. But the law 
does not say that. 

BOEHNER: Obviously, union 
busting is an unfair labor practice. 

KIRKLAND: No, it is not. Not 
under the Supreme Court’s inter- 
pretation in die Mackay doctrine. 
That is precisely what I am here to 
tell you. 

BOEHNER: There was a point 
made earlier that I wanted to get 
your reaction to. There have been 
fewer strikes. In my own mind, there 
have been strikes because of this 
judicially created permanent strike 
replacement doctrine, which is re- 
placing the earnest desire for better 
working conditions and wages with 
fear. I would like you to respond to 
the question, of what is the reason 
for fewer strikes now. 

KIRKLAND: I don’t know if 
there is one generic explanation for 
the statistical trends in the number 
of settlements and the number of 
strikes. I suspect there are a variety 
of reasons. 

Clearly, in the case of the in- 
dustrial sector, one reason for fewer 
strikes is the damage that has been 
done to our industrial base, by the 
decline of our industrial capacity — 
the fact that more and more com- 


panies have found themselves in 
difficulties. 

In many of those cases, when the 
trade union has come to the table and 
examined the facts and the cir- 
cumstances, they have gone far 
above the call of duty in trying to 
help that company stay alive. We 
have had what i s commonly called 
“concession bargaining,” because 
of that. I can cite you case after case 
where the trade union went to great 
lengths to rescue a company. 

Chrysler could not have been 
saved and would not exist had it not 
been for the sacrifices and the invest- 
ment of time and deferred wages that 
the UAW provided. The union 
joined with management in coming 
down to try and seek some help, a 
little assistance, in the form of 
guarantees, together with manage- 
ment and the Congress. 

That is the kind of cooperative 
relationship and the kind of collec- 
tive bargaining that we believe in. 
Collective bargaining is not a gravy 
train for trade unions, it is not a 
candy tree. Collective bargaining is 
a problem-solving process and when 
there are real problems it is a way 
to address them mutually, where 
each side can make appropriate con- 
tribution to the resolution of those 
problems. It does not always yield 
great increases or continual improve- 
ments for workers. It frequently has 
to address the problem of what do 
we have to do to save this place of 
employment and to save these jobs. 

I regret to say that in many sec- 
tors of the American economy in re- 
cent years that has been the practical 
situation that we have had to face and 
deal with. We have gone to great and 
extraordinary lengths to do that. 


Catholic Conference endorses ban on striker replacements 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he U.S. Catholic Conference, the 
public policy agency of the nation’s 
Catholic bishops, added its voice to the 
call for legislation to ban the hiring of 
“permanent replacements” for striking 
workers. 

“The right to strike without fear of 
reprisal is fundamental to a democratic 
society,” said the Rev. Frank Rodimer, 
bishop of the Paterson, N.J., diocese, 
in testimony before the Senate subcom- 
mittee on labor. 

“I think we have to decide whether 
we will be a country where workers’ 
rights are totally dependent on the good 
will of employers or whether we will 
be a country where the dignity of work 
and the rights of workers are protected 
by the law of the land,” Rodimer said. 

Rodimer reiterated the church’s 
century-long recognition of the impor- 


tance of unions and said it is especially 
appropriate for the Conference of 
Catholic Bishops to speak out on this 
issue because the Church is celebrating 
the 100th anniversary of Rerum 
Novarum, the first papal encyclical on 
modern Catholic social teaching. One 
hundred years ago the Church pointed 
out that protecting workers rights not 
only benefits the workers, but protects 
society as a whole. 

“In previous generations, labor 
unions were the bridge to economic and 
social participation for newcomers, and 
union wages gave the kind of security 
families needed to raise children and 
build communities,” he said. “We 
believe workers need them now more 
than ever.” 

Rodimer told the panel that he has 
watched with displeasure the erosion of 
the balance of power between manage- 


ment and labor. The bishop said eco- 
nomic and social changes have tom apart 
the cohesiveness of many communities. 

“Forty years ago, when I became a 
priest, it would have been unthinkable 
for an employer in my community to 
respond to a strike by hiring permanent 
replacements. I am told that because of 
a Supreme Court decision in 1938, it 
would have been legal to do so. But 
employers then knew better. Union 
values permeated the community. 

“Economic restructuring and social 
change have undermined the cohesive- 
ness of our communities, and devotion 
to the common good is often sacrificed 
in pursuit of personal gain,” Rodimer 
continued. “In such an atmosphere, 
some employers feel free to use strikes 
as an opportunity to get rid of the union 
and collective bargaining and their 
union workforce.” 


The bishop was one of several wit- 
nesses urging the Senate committee to 
quickly pass S. 55. The companion bill 
in the House is H.R. 5. 

“When employers are allowed to of- 
fer permanent jobs to strikebreakers, 
strikers lose their jobs. It’s that sim- 
ple,” Rodimer said. 

Borrowing the words of Monsignor 
John A. Ryan, the first director of the 
organization that preceded the Catholic 
conference, Rodimer said: 

“Effective labor unions are still by 
far the most powerful force in society 
for the protection of the laborer’s rights 
and the improvements of his or her con- 
dition. No amount of employer benevo- 
lence, no diffusion of a sympathetic at- 
titude on the part of the public, no in- 
crease in beneficial legislation, can ade- 
quately supply for the lack of organiza- 
tion among the workers themselves.” 




Workers seek 
OSHA reform 
20 years later 

Continued from Page 1 

ers Memorial Day and the 20th anniver- 
sary of the law’s enactment. By that 
time, labor-backed legislation will be 
introduced in Congress that would pro- 
vide workers the opportunity to take an 
active role in job safety. 

The legislation should require 
employers to have a worksite safety and 
health committee that provides full 
union and worker participation, Semi- 
nario said. The committee would have 
the right to meet, conduct inspections, 
investigate accidents and gain access to 
safety and health information. 

Workers should have the right to act 
on job hazards, Seminario said. Trade 
unions fought the battle to win the right 
for workers to know about the toxic 
chemicals used on the job. Now, they 
need the right to act on what they know 
and the right to refuse dangerous work 
that threatens their lives, without fear 
of employer retaliation for exercising 
those rights. 

OSHA’s legacy 

Since OSHA’s enactment, more than 
245,600 workers have died from 
traumatic injuries received on the job, 
according to the National Safety Coun- 
cil. More than 100 million have been 
hurt on the job, Bureau of Labor 
Statistics show— despite chronic under- 
reporting by many businesses. And up- 
wards of 2 million more may have died 
from occupational diseases, according 
to figures derived from NIOSH data. 

In 1989, the NSC estimated more 
than 1 1,000 workers died from traumat- 
ic injuries received on the job. BLS 
statistics collected only from businesses 
with more than 10 employees showed 
that 6.5 million workers were injured. 
Perhaps another 100,000 died from oc- 
cupational illnesses, according to 
government estimates, as data collec- 
tion in this area is hampered by the lack 
of a uniform reporting requirement. 
Throughout the years, however, the 
figures have remained nearly static 
despite OSHA’s efforts to make work- 
places safer. 

Through four Republican administra- 
tions and one Democratic, OSHA’s list 
of achievements has been sorely out- 
stripped by its shortcomings and reluc- 
tance to act, Seminario said. The 
agency takes years to issue even 
moderate standards, prodded all the 
while by unions and often by the courts. 

Even with that pressure, OSHA to- 
day has issued only a handful of com- 
prehensive standards. Once issued, 
many of the rules are subjected to court 
review. The result is more dealy, with 
workers’ lives awaiting the outcome. 

Understaffed from the beginning, 
OSHA often seems to be walking a 
political tightrope, trying to meet its 
mandate without upsetting employer 
groups. 

Ronald Reagan rode to victory in 
1980 on a pledge to bury OSHA, 
Seminario noted. “While he didn’t ac- 
tually kill it, his budget cuts and direc- 
tives so paralyzed the agency that it has 
not recovered yet.’’ OSHA’s perfor- 



Arlee C. Green/AFL-CIO News 

0CAW committeeman C.T. Roberts reviews the record on the 1989 explosion at a Phillips petrochemical plant. 


mance remains far short of the goals 
Congress envisioned in 1970, she said. 

Enforcement has been hamstrung by 
inadequate staffing, weak penalties, the 
need to rely on the general duty clause 
in the absence of specific standards and 
the lack of unhampered access to job 
sites, Seminario said. Legislation pro- 
posed by the AFL-CIO would bring 
OSHA penalties and enforcement into 
line with other federal environmental 
and safety and health laws, she said. 

To further beef up enforcement, 
criminal sanctions against employers 
should be increased, she said, and 
OSHA should have the right to shut 
down jobs where there is imminent 
danger to workers. Special inspection 
programs should be mandated for high 
hazard industries and employers should 
be required to correct hazards that pose 
serious risks to workers, even though 
they have contested the citations. 

A right to act 

Workers and their representatives 
should have the right to contest all 
aspects of OSHA citations, including 
the failure to issue a citation, Seminario 
said. The unions also should have equal 
rights with management in OSHA set- 
tlement conferences, she said. 

Despite OSHA’s woeful record, 
OSHA Administrator Gerard F. Scan- 
ned recently told a House labor ap- 
propriations panel that the budget 
requested by the Bush administration is 
“adequate for our needs.” The 47,000 
planned worksite inspections for the 
next fiscal year are somewhat less than 
for the current year. But Scanned 
assured the panel that inspections would 
be of higher quality — “compre- 
hensive, well-targeted inspections.” 

Further, Scanned declared that 
reform of the OSHA law would be 
“counterproductive,” and that ad- 
ministrative measures may be ad that 


is needed to improve the way OSHA’s 
responsibilities are carried out. 

“This is an argument nearly every 
OSHA administrator has used to blunt 
efforts to reform the act,” Seminario 
said. “Time has exposed the act’s and 
the agency’s shortcomings. Now Con- 
gress must make the correction neces- 
sary to achieve the goals it set for the 
OSHA in 1970. 

Updating the act 

“Twenty years after passage of the 
act, there is stid nothing that specificady 
covers the types of catastrophic ac- 
cidents that have occurred lately in the 
petrochemical industries,” she said. 
“After the explosion and deaths at 
Phillips, the company was cited by 
OSHA mainly under the general duty 
clause which remains a weak catchall. 
Workers must be empowered to act. 
There is no other answer.” 

Seminario said the act should be ex- 
panded to cover ad workers. Millions 
of workers, including many state and 
local public employees and workers in 
transportation, agriculture and federal 
nuclear facilities, have little or no legal 
protections under the OSHA law. 

Likewise, the law should direct 
OSHA to act quickly on serious job 
hazards and should limit political in- 
terference in the standard-setting proc- 
ess by the White House Office of 
Management and Budget, Seminario 
said. OMB reviews OSHA standards 
and regulations under the authorization 
of the Paperwork Reduction Act. 

The continuing lack of complete and 
accurate statistics on occupational in- 
juries, dlnesses and deaths also must be 
addressed, Seminario said. New sys- 
tems of reporting must be established 
so this data can be used in standard set- 
ting, inspection targeting and program 
evaluation, she said. Further, employ- 
ers should be required to immediately 


report fatalities, serious injuries and 
catastrophes to OSHA. 

To augment the data collection, 
statistics on injuries and illnesses col- 
lected by state workers’ compensation 
systems should be coordinated with 
OSHA reporting, Seminario said. Com- 
pliance with the recommendations of 
the National Commission on Workers’ 
Compensation also should be evaluated 
and legislation enacted at the state and 
federal level to address deficiencies in 
workers’ compensation programs. 

Life or death issue 

The federation also is seeking im- 
proved monitoring of state OSHA pro- 
grams and improved status and funding 
for the National Institute for Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health (NIOSH), the 
research arm of OSHA. Workers at 
high risk of disease should be notified 
and a National Surveillance Program 
for Occupational Diseases should be set 
up, Seminario said. 

Separate pending legislation would 
establish an OSHA Office of Construc- 
tion Safety. The bill, introduced in the 
House by Rep. Joseph Gaydos (D-Pa.), 
would set up a system of multi- 
employer oversight and coordination 
for construction projects, require con- 
tractors to implement safety and health 
programs and maintain accurate rec- 
ords. It also would establish an academy 
to train OSHA inspectors and develop 
an inspection targeting system. 

With workers’ lives at stake, the bat- 
tle for OSHA reform is a vital mission 
for labor, Seminario said. No one 
knows that more than C.T. Roberts, 
who lost friends in the explosion at 
Phillips and who has spent the past year 
working with the law firm that is han- 
dling worker suits against Phillips. 
“We want a voice in determining how 
safe our jobs are,” he said. “Our lives 
hang in the balance.” 



W orkers around i 
April 28? the 
Memorial Day^payi 
injured or disced 6 
tention on the jseed tc 
Safety and Health A 
Major events are b 
at four sites — Lot 
N.C., Philadelphia, 
stressing the theme 
Right,” said federal 
Seminario. 

But numerous oth( 
case every year, will 
tion of unions, state 
bodies in organizing 
their communities ai 


Variety of activ 

Activities at the 1 
scores of others will 
memorial services, < 
moments of silence, 
tional workshops. 

Perhaps the most e 
forts by individual > 
own workplace com 
“We are ur gin g ^ 
inspections, to lool 
hazards,” she said. 1 
done jointly with 
However, the main 
to emphasize that th 
job safety, a primary 
tion sought by the / 
Many unions perse 
brance by developing 
in the workplace. Th 
are then read at mem 
on permanent memo 
Unions may obtair 
or killed on the job f 
sonal injury or wc 
torneys, state worke 
and federal, or stat 
agencies. 

The Occupational 
ministration requires 
maintain records oi 
deaths. Most employ 
tain an OSHA 200 I 
all injuries and iilnes: 
workdays, medical 
sciousness, job rest) 
The Log is posted 
be made available up< 
their unions. Failure 
cident to the Log is ai 
led to million-dollar : 
panies have failed to 

Widespread safe 

The events in Faye 
Angeles and Lansing 
safety problems that 
those communities. 

Mark Forrest of 
Labor Council can a 
reform. He remembe 
their lives this yea 
Philadelphia building 
not comply with heal 
“We hear this san 
Forrest said. “We he 
Workers Memorial I 
the need for greater e 
safety laws 



Fe Jobs 


■J 


S OUR RIGHT. 


Workers to dramatize 
need to change law 


By Sharolyn Rosier 
ind the nation will rally this 
the >third annual Workers 
paying tribute to those killed, 
edlSrthe job and focusing at- 
sd to reform the Occupational 
th Act. 

Lre being planned by unionists 
Los Angeles, Fayetteville, 
hia, and Lansing, Mich. — 
leme “Safe Jobs. It’s Our 
leration Safety Director Peg 

other events, as has been the 
will depend on the participa- 
state federations and central 
izing events and activities in 
ss and workplaces. 

rtivities 

he four designated sites and 
will include marches, rallies, 
es, candlelight vigils, public 
ice, proclamations and educa- 
s. 

ost effective action will be ef- 
lal Workers to improve their 
conditions, Seminario said. 
'grz&ons to conduct workplace 
look for and document job 
id. These inspections could be 
r ith management or alone, 
ain purpose is for employees 
it they need a right to act on 
lary goal in the reform legisla- 
he AFL-CIO, she said. 
>ersonalize the annual remem- 
ping a list of the workers killed 
. The names of fallen workers 
nemorial services or engraved 
lemorials, Seminario added. 
[>tain names of persons injured 
ob from their employers, per- 
workers’ compensation at- 
orkers compensation records, 
state job health and safety 

onal Safety and Health Ad- 
lires that employers collect and 
is on workplace injuries and 
lployers are required to main- 
00 Log, a complete listing of 
lnesses that result in death, lost 
ical tre atment, loss of con- 
restriction or transfer. 

>ted every February and must 
e upon request to workers and 
lure to accurately report an in- 
is an OSHA violation and has 
liar fines in cases where com- 
d to record multiple incidents. 

safety problems 

Fayetteville, Philadelphia, Los 
ising will call attention to the 
that have become epidemic in 
ies. 

of the Philadelphia Central 
an attest to urgency of safety 
mbers the firefighters who lost 
year fighting a blaze in a 
Iding where the occupants did 
health and safety regulations, 
same story year after year,’’ 
r e hope the events surrounding 
ial D^y will alert the public to 
iter enforcement of health and 


In California, the number of workers’ com- 
pensation claims has continued to climb as a 
result of injuries on the job, according to the 
California Workers’ Compensation Institute. 
The rising claims, in many instances, are the 
result of employer non-compliance with health 
and safety laws, said AFL-CIO Regional Direc- 
tor David Sickler. 

Companies with good safety training, em- 
ployee assistance and modified-work programs 
had one-fourth fewer workers’ compensation 
claims than those without such programs, 
according to a recent study of Michigan 
employers conducted by the Upjohn Institute 


for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, 
Mich. 

Companies with lower than average workers’ 
compensation claim rates offered wellness pro- 
grams or fitness resources, vigorous monitor- 
ing and correction of unsafe behavior, safety 
training for new or transferring employees and 
modified job assignments. 

Dick Whitwam, Michigan AFL-CIO health 
and safety director, said workers in his state 
cannot hope to overcome mounting safety prob- 
lems without the right to act and the right to 
refuse work that endangers the workers. “We 
gained the right to know in 1985,” he noted, 



Right 


*° Know 


^ight 


Right 


Planning an event, getting supplies 


A Workers Memorial Day kit is available for 
affiliates. The kit includes a poster, 
brochure, proclamation, camera-ready ad and 
clip sheet, suggested activities list, vendor list, 
a letter from AFL-CIO President Lane Kirk- 
land, an order form and a sheet on which to 
report activities to the federation before April 
28. Sponsors should send information and in- 
quiries to Workers Memorial Day, AFL-CIO, 
815 16th St., N.W., Room 303, Washington, 
D.C. 20006 or call 202/637-5366. 

A videotape and radio public service an- 
nouncement (PSA) also are available for the af- 
filiates. The 10-minute videotape produced by 
the Labor Institute of Public Affairs features 
footage from previous Workers Memorial Day 
activities. The radio PSA has additional space 


on the tape for each affiliate to tailor the 
message to their community. The videotapes 
are $10 and the radio PSAs are $5. 

The videotape and radio PSA are broadcast 
quality. Their use gives event sponsors an op- 
portunity to reach a much larger audience. 

Previous sponsors have used a wide variety 
of vehicles like educational workshops to call 
attention to job safety. Some have invited 
elected officials as well as members and leaders 
from community and religious groups, natural 
allies in the quest for safer workplaces and a 
cleaner environment. 

AFL-CIO industrial hygienist Diane Factor 
(202/637-5210) and Sharolyn Rosier of the In- 
formation Department (202/637-5010) are 
available to help sponsors with questions. 


“but without the right to act and refuse, our 
mission cannot be accomplished.” 

Time for right to act 

Health and safety at work is one of the 
greatest environmental concerns of the general 
public, a 1988 Roper poll conducted for the En- 
vironmental Protection Agency showed. For 
union members, that concern has translated into 
fights for health and safety provisions during 
contract negotiations. 

The Clothing and Textile Workers recently 
secured an agreement with Sheldahl Corp. in 
Northfield, Minn., providing for the elimina- 
tion from the workplace within two years of 
80 percent of the methylene chloride, a cancer- 
causing chemical. In 1989, EPA listed Sheldahl 
as the 45th worst polluter in the United States, 
emitting more than 600 tons of methylene 
chloride into the air in one year. 

The union had long suspected the presence 
of toxic chemicals at the facility, which 
manufactures electronic circuitry and laminated 
products. Even though workers complained of 
a chemical haze hanging over entire depart- 
ments, OSHA was ineffective because of in- 
adequate legal limits for many chemicals. 

“OSHA’s current standard-setting approach 
is inefficient and subject to too much political 
influence,” said Dr. Linda Murray, an occupa- 
tional health and safety physician in South 
Oglesby, 111. 

“I think it’s absurd to have standards for air 
levels of toxics that we know don’t really pro- 
tect workers but are the result of political 
negotiation,” she said, citing the substance-by- 
substance rule-making procedure as an exam- 
ple of the OSHA inertia. 

At the beginning of this century, she notes, 
people went to work and accepted a certain 
level of accidents and diseases as part of their 
job. People did not think that they could do 
anything about changing the risks that jobs 
presented. “We’re approaching this new cen- 
tury now, and clearly we can do something 
about it,” she said. 

Deadly industries 

Workers killed on the job annually come 
from every economic sector. The deadliest in- 
dustries, according to government statistics, are 
transportation, construction, mining and 
agriculture. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
occupational injuries in the construction in- 
dustry have increased by 100,000 over the past 
10 years. Injuries in the service sector have 
increased from 650,000 in 1980 to approx- 
imately 1.1 million. 

The increase in the service sector could be 
traced to the influx of workers in the industry. 
However, the construction industry has not 
made much progress in terms of improving 
health and safety regulations, said Seminario. 

Younger, less experienced workers who may 
not be adequately trained are particularly at 
risk. Workers aged 20 to 24 have the highest 
injury rate and more than 40 percent of those 
injuries occur during the first year on the job, 
BLS figures show. 

Estimates on the annual number of workplace 
fatalities vary from the BLS figure of 3,300 — 
a figure covering only the private sector and 
workplaces with more than 10 employees — 
to the National Safety Council’s (NSC) estimate 
of more than 11,000 workers. Since 1971, the 
first year in which workplace injuries and 
deaths were recorded, the National Safety 
Council estimates there have been approxi- 
mately 245,600 fatalities. 

BLS figures are based on employers’ injury 
and illness records, which OSHA audits have 
shown are subject to gross underreporting. The 
NSC uses state workers’ compensation records 
and data from the National Center for Health 
Statistics. 




OSHA chemical rule plan seen upholding status quo 



Arlee C. Green/AFL-CIO News 

Steven Tunbridge, safety chairman for USWA Local 7340, explains how his 
committee has gotten the company to buy the proper gloves for handling 
chemicals, and to replace paper masks with air-supplied ones. At right 
is Pat Flannery, president of USWA Local 8578 in Syracuse, N.Y. 


By Arlee C. Green 
Houston 

U nless the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration’s proposed 
standard for the petrochemical indus- 
tries gives workers a role in job safety 
and requires adequate training for con- 
tractor employees, it simply will be 
upholding the status quo, unions told an 
OSHA field hearing. 

Workers as well as union officials 
testified for the Oil, Chemical and 
Atomic Workers and the Steelworkers, 
whose testimony also included the com- 
ments of the Chemical Workers 
(ICWU). Underscoring the proposal’s 
shortcomings, the witnesses gave first- 
hand testimony on job safety problems 
in an industry where accidents have the 
potential to devastate entire communi- 
ties. 

At a similar hearing last fall, con- 
struction and industrial unions urged 
that workers be given a role in job 
safety, as well as other proposals for 
change. 

Explosions continue 

The Houston area has been the site 
of numerous industrial accidents, many 
cause by contractor employees. Explo- 
sions in August and October 1989 at the 
Phillips Chemical Co. in Pasadena, 
Texas, killed 25 workers and injured 
262. A July 1990 blast at the Arco 
Chemical Co. in Channelview, Texas, 
killed 17. 

Since the unions testified Feb. 27, six 
workers have been killed and 46 injured 
in accidents at four petrochemical plants 
in Texas and Louisiana. 

The proposal says little about contrac- 
tor employees, despite their widespread 
use in the industry, OCAW Vice Presi- 
dent Robert Wages noted. Critical 
safety questions regarding contractors 
are reduced to one paragraph, he said, 
and “nothing in it references a single 
shred of the extensive and shocking 
evidence revealed during the one-year 
investigation of the industry by the John 
Gray Institute” — a study commis- 
sioned by OSHA. 

“Essentially it is a ratification of the 


status quo,” he said, arguing that 
petrochemical companies should be 
responsible for contractor employees’ 
safety training or skills proficiency. 

Four labor representatives have 
withdrawn from the 15-member steer- 
ing committee set up to aid Lamar 
University’s John Gray Institute in 
studying the use of contract workers in 
the petrochemical industry. 

In a letter to OSHA Administrator 
Gerard Scannell, the union members 
protested efforts to divert and dilute the 
study and accused Scannell of holding 
secret meetings with industry 
representatives. 

Wages objected to industry sugges- 
tions that management be allowed to 
handpick workers to serve on joint 
safety committees if OSHA requires 
such joint participation. 

Since 1984, explosions and fires at 


OCAW-represented facilities have 
caused 81 deaths and 364 injuries. 
Wages provided the panel with a copy 
of the OCAW video, “Out of Control,” 
which points out the underlying causes 
in many accidents — poorly trained 
contractor employees, an emphasis on 
profits before safety and the lack of 
worker input into safety. The panel 
viewed the tape following the day’s 
testimony. 

Jim Harrington, secretary-treasurer 
of the Beaumont, Texas, Local 4-243, 
works at Mobil Oil Co.’s refinery 
where, he said, steep maintenance cut- 
backs have led to the taking of “cal- 
culated risks.” 

He told of poor workmanship from 
contractor employees who are trained 
for six weeks, contrasting that with 42 
to 48 months of apprenticeship for 
refinery craftsmen. 


W.E. Sanders, secretary-treasurer of 
OCAW Local 4-449 in Texas City, told 
of contractor misdeeds, including faulty 
wiring of warning alarms. He urged 
that contractors be required to show 
proof they have completed a Labor 
Department-approved apprenticeship 
program, and that no contractor be 
allowed to perform work on a running 
process unit. 

USWA safety director Michael J. 
Wright likewise scored OSHA’s pro- 
posal for lacking worker participation 
and requirements for outside contrac- 
tors and training. 

A chemical process change at the 
Neville Chemical Co. plant near Pitts- 
burgh, he said, caused problems that 
eventually led to a fire that killed 
Steelworker James G. Thompson in 
September 1989. Although the com- 
pany knew of the problems, it did 
nothing, Wright said. OSHA cited it for 
an electrical violation, with a penalty of 
$420. 

Had an adequate chemical industry 
standard been in effect, Thompson pro- 
bably would be alive today, Wright 
contended. 

Workers make a difference 

USWA safety specialist James J. 
Valenti said workers think job safety is 
too important to be left to managers. He 
urged that workers have the right to take 
appropriate steps when a process begins 
to exceed safe operating limits, even if 
it means shutting down the process. 

Workers also should be allowed to 
participate in development of the hazard 
analysis, incident investigations and all 
safety audits, Valenti told the hearing 
panel. 

Steven Tunbridge, safety chairman 
for USWA Local 7340 in Reading, Pa. , 
highlighted the need for worker par- 
ticipation by telling how his committee 
initiated an investigation of toxic fumes 
that blew down from a rusted vent pipe 
onto the workers. 

While the problems were corrected, 
he said, a 42-year-old operator died six 
months after discovering he had con- 
tracted cancer. 


Educational effort seeks to cure worker concerns on AIDS 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he fear and phobias generated by the 
AIDS epidemic are a greater pro- 
blem than actual exposure to AIDS in 
the workplace, the AFL-CIO said. 

The federation is conducting an 
education program, attempting to pro- 
tect members from discrimination while 
providing health and safety solutions to 
workers exposed to infected blood on 
the job. 

AIDS is a union issue because it is 
a workplace issue, AFL-CIO industrial 
hygienist Diane Factor stressed. 

“In protecting the occupational rights 
of HIV-infected workers, in educating 
members about AIDS, and in providing 
information and support to the front-line 
workers whose jobs may expose them 
to contaminated blood, unions can make 
a difference,” Factor said. 

Nearly one million persons in North 
America are infected with the human 
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that 
causes the disease, according to World 
Health Organization estimates. 

The virus is spread solely by sexual 
or blood-to-blood contact, Factor em- 
phasized, noting it also can be passed 
on from an infected pregnant woman to 
her baby. 

Through a five-year grant from the 
Centers for Disease Control, the AFL- 
CIO and several affiliates have worked 
to develop a trade union program that 


includes a pamphlet detailing labor’s 
concerns about AIDS in the workplace, 
a shop stewards’ manual on AIDS, a 
two-day training seminar and a 
15-minute video. 

“Workers who develop HIV infec- 
tion or AIDS still need to earn a living, 
receive continued health benefits and be 
productive,” Factor said. 

Information about risk 

Workers who may be at risk of ex- 
posure to infected blood on the job also 
need information about how to protect 
themselves, Factor said. Workers in the 
health care industry, corrections facili- 
ties, mental health institutions and 
emergency response jobs may face this 
risk. 

In 1989, an AFL-CIO convention 
resolution stressed the need for 
educating workers and the public about 
AIDS. It committed the federation to 
work for increased health protections 
for those workers whose jobs put them 
at risk. 

The AFL-CIO also pledged to lobby 
for increased funding for AIDS 
research, education and social and 
health services. 

The resolution also urged the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration to issue a standard on 
blood-borne infectious diseases, noting 
that a number of unions had petitioned 


the agency in 1986 for an emergency 
standard. 

Just recently, OSHA revised its 
timetable for issuing such a standard, 
moving the date back from May 1991 
to September 1991. Union safety and 
health directors think that date too may 
slip out of reach if the White House Of- 
fice of Management and Budget’s 
review becomes excessive. 

Further, the convention resolution 
said that testing for HIV should be of- 
fered to those who want it, but only on 
a voluntary basis. 

On Feb. 22, Jordan Barab, assistant 
director for health and safety at 
AFSCME, testified at a Center for 
Disease Control hearing in Atlanta that 
testing and restrictions for health care 
workers “simply will not be an effec- 
tive public health tool to minimize the 
risk of worker to patient transmission 
of HIV.” 

Any such testing, whether voluntary 
or mandatory, would have to be con- 
tinual, Barab noted, because of the time 
lag before someone registers HTV-posi- 
tive. 

He urged the agency to work toward 
developing safer surgical and other 
medical procedures and devices, and 
encouraging training programs for 
health care providers on new infection- 
control techniques and universal 
precautions. 


A study conducted recently by the 
Service Employees-affiliated San Fran- 
cisco Interns and Residents Association 
showed that 25 percent of all medical 
interns were stuck by HIV-infected 
needles in a 12-month period. 

SEIU, AFSCME and other unions 
representing health care workers have 
urged health care and nursing home 
facilities to use self-sheathing needles 
to reduce the instances of needlesticks. 

Popular misconceptions 

The AFL-CIO pamphlet, “AIDS in 
the Workplace — Labor’s Concern,” 
details how the virus is transmitted and 
answers the popular misconceptions 
about HIV and AIDS, Factor said. 
Basic information is provided on how 
workers whose jobs expose them to in- 
fected blood can protect themselves. A 
chart explains what happens to the 
health of someone who has been in- 
fected with the virus. 

A two-day train-the-trainer program 
has been developed for local union 
educators, shop stewards and health and 
safety committee members. It is con- 
ducted by two AIDS educators hired 
under the grant, Factor said. 

Information is available on the 
pamphlet, steward’s manual, video and 
training program from the AFL-CIO 
Department of Occupational Safety and 
Health. Call 202/637-5210. 





Right- to -work’ laws put states at disadvantage 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he 21 states with “right-to-work” 
laws continue to lose ground to free 
collective bargaining states in per capita 
income, average hourly earnings and 
unemployment compensation, an analy- 
sis of government figures reveals. 

The compulsory open-shop states also 
lag behind the rest of the nation when 
it comes to fair employment practices 
laws, state minimum wage legislation, 
spending on public schools and infant 
mortality, according to the study, which 
is based on 1989 statistics compiled by 
the U.S. Labor and Commerce Depart- 
ments. 

In free collective bargaining states, 
the average per capita income is $3,120 
more than in “right-to-work” states. 
The average per capita income of the 
29 free collective bargaining states and 
the District of Columbia, at $18,689, 
is higher than the national average per 
capita income of $17,596. 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

T he AFL-CIO’s Food and Allied 
Service Trades Department endorsed 
legislation prohibiting the Department 
of Defense from buying food and 
related products not packaged in the 
United States or its territories. 

The annual board meeting also heard 
from Alan McMillan, deputy 
undersecretary of labor for OSHA, who 
noted the agency’s new civil penalties 
took effect March 1. Under the new 
penalties, willful violations carry a 
minimum fine of $5,000. 

Although OSHA won the praise of 
FAST President Robert Harbrant for its 


Bal Harbour, Fla. 

C alling the nation’s education and 
training system “seriously flawed,” 
the AFL-CIO Committee on Education 
called for major reform in its report to 
the Executive Council. 

The committee, chaired by President 
Marvin Boede of the Plumbers and Pipe 
Fitters, commended the traditional ap- 
prenticeship programs of the building, 
metal and printing trade unions which, 
through a combination of on-the-job 


Of the 21 “right-to-work” laws now 
in existence, only two — Louisiana and 
Idaho — have been enacted in the 28 
years since 1963. The per capita income 
in those states has decreased since they 
adopted “right-to-work” laws. 

Louisiana’s per capita income was 
$1,163 below the national average in 
1976, when it passed a “right-to-work” 
law. In 1989, the per capita income was 
$4,675 below the national average. 

Idaho’s “right-to-work” law went 
into effect in 1986. The state’s per 
capita income dropped from $3,079 
below the national average in 1985 to 
$3,889 below the average in 1989. 

Similarly, the per capita income in 
Kansas fell from just above the national 
average in 1958, when it passed a 
“right-to-work” law, to $1,098 below 
the national average in 1989. 

Wyoming passed its “right-to-work” 
law in 1963, when the state’s per capita 
income was $6 above the national 


cooperation with the department on 
several issues, and the board supported 
the greater use of criminal penalties, 
FAST expressed its wariness of 
OSHA’s current initiative to establish 
model safety programs in hazardous in- 
dustries such as meatpacking. 

In other business, the board heard 
reports on the department’s activities on 
behalf of several legislative initiatives, 
including family leave, national health 
care reform, strikebreaker legislation 
and fish inspection. 

The board also called for the filling 
of vacancies in the Labor Department 
and expressed concern over continued 


training and classroom instruction pro- 
vide real opportunity for thousands of 
young workers. 

In contrast, most young adults under 
age 25 who do not continue their 
schooling after high school “lack the 
opportunity to be trained for more than 
a dead-end job,” Boede said. 

Constantly changing technology, the 
structuring of the U.S. economy and in- 
tense competitive pressures require a 
major overhaul in the nation’s training 


average. By 1989, per capita income 
was $3,088 below the average. 

While millions of workers sought 
unemployment benefits in 1989, “right- 
to-work” states provided only 14 per- 
cent of its jobless benefits at or above 
the national average of 33 percent. 
Among free states, 53 percent of the 
unemployed were provided benefits at 
or above the national average. 

Idaho, Kansas and Tennessee were 
the only “right-to-work” states to pro- 
vide unemployment benefits to the 
jobless at or above the national average. 

Although productivity rose 4.9 per- 
cent in 1989 in manufacturing, the 
average hourly earnings of production 
workers was $9.50 in “right-to-work” 
states, compared with $10.94 in the free 
bargaining states. The national average 
was $10.47. 

In addition, “right-to-work” states 
lagged far behind free states on social 
indicators. For example, only 5 percent 


U.S. imports from the People’s 
Republic of China. 

Danny Beagle, information officer of 
the Longshoremen and Warehousemen, 
previewed for the board a PBS pro- 
gram, “We Do The Work,” which 
depicts the lives of workers. 

The board also received a report on 
the anticipated impact of the unified 
European economy on workers in the 
food and allied trades. 

Finally, the board discussed its efforts 
to assist the Council on Economic Pri- 
orities develop a workplace issues 
category for its best-selling “Shopping 
For a Better World Guide.” 


and education system, the report said. 
But existing training programs that have 
proven effective “should not be 
harmed” by initiatives, the committee 
stressed. 

“On-the-job training and related 
classroom instruction must provide 
workers already on the job, as well as 
those in training, with adequate 
safeguards against employers seeking 
low- wage, disposable workers,” the 
committee added. 


of the “right-to-work” states are above 
the national average of expenditures per 
pupil in public schools. Fifty-seven per- 
cent of the free states are at or above 
$4,557, the national average. 

High infant mortality rates usually are 
associated with poverty, poor nutrition 
and lack of access to prenatal health 
care services. In 1987, 67 percent of the 
free states had rates at or below the na- 
tional average of 10. 1 deaths per 1,000 
live births. By contrast, only 48 percent 
of the “right-to-work” jurisdictions 
were at or below the national average. 

The report, “Economic Comparisons 
between Right-to-Work States and Free 
Collective Bargaining States,” is a 
regular study of government data by the 
AFL-CIO Department of Economic 
Research. Copies of the 1991 edition 
may be obtained by writing the AFL- 
CIO Publications and Materials Office, 
815 16th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20006. 

ACTWU fight 
saves jobs 
at Health-Tex 

By Candice Johnson 

A yearlong campaign by the Clothing 
and Textile Workers to block the 
forced liquidation of Health-Tex Inc. 
until a buyer could be found has paid 
off. ACTWU recently reached a collec- 
tive bargaining agreement with the new 
owner, VF Corp. 

As part of that agreement, VF Corp. 
will keep open the company’s remain- 
ing manufacturing plants and will con- 
tinue to produce Health-Tex brand 
clothing in the United States. ACTWU 
represents about 1,500 Health-Tex 
workers in three states. 

Final arrangements of the sale are ex- 
pected to be completed over the next 
several weeks. 

“Health-Tex employees showed that 
workers and their unions can and will 
fight to keep their jobs,” ACTWU 
President Jack Sheinkman said. “We 
made the banks take responsibility for 
fixing the shaky restructurings that were 
thrust upon healthy companies in the 
buy-out mania of the 1980s.” 

Once one of the nation’s largest 
manufacturers of children’s clothing, 
Health-Tex faced deep debt after it was 
taken over by Chesebrough-Pond’s Inc. 
in a leveraged deal in 1985. When 
banks began pushing for liquidation last 
spring, ACTWU and union members 
began a concerted campaign to find a 
buyer and save their company. 

Delegations of Health-Tex workers, 
working with other unions, held 
demonstrations at offices of the consor- 
tium of 10 banks holding Health-Tex 
loans, and mobilized support from other 
depositors. Union demonstrators set up 
informational picket lines and sought 
meetings with officials at NCNB Corp. 
in Charlotte, N.C., Ameritrust Corp. 
in Cleveland and other banks. 

The effort also won the support of 
employee pension funds, public of- 
ficials and other pension fund investors 
who called on the banks to give the 
buyout search more time. 

ACTWU ’s position from the outset 
was that “Health-Tex is fundamentally 
a solid company, despite the debt prob- 
lems of the 1985 leveraged buyout,” 
Sheinkman said, adding, “we just 
needed the time to find the right buyer. 
VF Corp. brings a new set of strengths 
to Health-Tex and we are pleased by the 
sale.” 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

States and municipalities are reeling from massive fiscal the PED mid-winter meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla., the 
crises because of the "fend-for-yourselves" policies that Ohio Democrat called for federal programs to address 
the Reagan and Bush administrations had dumped on the problems of gaps in health care coverage, under- 

them, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum tells the Public funded schools, shifting tax burdens and the nation's 

Employee Department's executive council. Speaking at crumbling infrastructure. 


FAST: DOD should buy American food products 


Panel describes need for major educational reform 





In Denver, unionists remember Bob Waterhouse, a Greyhound striker killed last year by a scab driver. 



Elizabeth Wilson/Georgia AFL-CIO 


Greyhound striker supporters | picket at the 
Atlanta bus terminal. 


Greyhound: A year of injustice 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T rade unionists from AFL-CIO unions 
joined Amalgamated Transit Union 
workers March 2 in six regional rallies 
marking the first anniversary of the 
ATU’s strike against Greyhound Lines 
Inc. 

More than 9,000 drivers and clerks 
were forced to strike last year over 
Greyhound’s demands for wage cut- 
backs, and benefit reductions for newer 
workers. 

More than 700 strikers from Mil- 
waukee, Denver, Atlanta, Syracuse, 
N.Y., Dallas and Portland, Ore., 
walked picket lines, listened to speeches 
from union supporters, shared hard- 


ship stories and offered family support. 

“My husband drove for almost 
18-and-a-half years,” said Jann Duff, 
wife of Dennis Duff of Vancouver, 
Wash. “It’s been difficult for him to get 
a job because of his age. They look at 
the age factor. It’s almost like 
discrimination, but how do you deal 
with that? 

“Financially, it’s been very, very dif- 
ficult for the last year, with him not be- 
ing able to get a job and having to take 
odd jobs. It’s hard trying to find 
something that will bring in even three- 
fourths of his original income,” she 
said. 

Strikers and their spouses have 


described the past year as a test of faith. 
“I married my husband for richer, for 
poorer, for sickness and in health, good 
times and bad, and I stand by that,” said 
Duff. “It’s not the drivers fault. They 
took a cut in wages eight years ago to 
keep the company going.” 

Striking bus driver John Schauer of 
Milwaukee noted that “once legislation 
is passed, companies will have to 
bargain with the people who helped 
build these companies. I didn’t think the 
strike was going to last this long, but 
now I think they are out to bust the 
union,” said the 15-year veteran of 
Greyhound. 

Atlanta bus driver Helen Withers- 



SUPPORTS THE 

GREYHOUND BUS 
STRIKE 


Ed Barr/ ATU Local 1610 






i 

SIJMFaa, 


TO BE A LAWf 


AULW CTV I. 


'oumcjl souoAjyfv comm 


Officials from the A. Philip 
Randolph Institute join in a 
solidarity rally at the Greyhound 
bus terminal in Syracuse, N.Y. 
(left). In Milwaukee, unionists 
block the exit of an airport-bound 
bus (right). 


Elizabeth Wilson/Georgia AFL-CIO 

Unionists confront a scab-driven Greyhound bus in Atlanta (above left), while Milwaukee demonstrators march in front of the terminal. 


Milwaukee Labor Press 


poon also said she was surprised the 
strike lasted so long. “I had hoped to 
make a settlement,” she said. “I loved 
my job and would like it back. More 
of us are in the age bracket where we 
can’t get a job past 40.” 

And even those under 40 are finding 
it hard to secure a job. ‘‘I’ve become 
Mr. Mom,” said 27-year-old Texas 
driver Curt Elliott. “My wife works 
and I stay home and take care of the 
kids. 

“I really liked my job at Greyhound. 
It devastated me because you train so 
hard to drive, get a job that you really 
enjoy and then the rug is jerked from 
underneath you.” 


Milwaukee trade unionists rally for a ban on "permanent replacement" workers. 


Milwaukee Labor Press 


Milwaukee Labor Press 





Jobless rate jump signals deeper recession 


By John R. Oravec 

N early 450,000 workers joined 
unemployment lines in February as 
the nation’s jobless rate surged to 6.5 
percent, the highest level in four years. 
The jump from 6.2 percent in January 
was the sharpest one-month increase 
since 1986, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics said. 

According to the BLS household 
survey, 8.2 million workers were 
counted as unemployed last month. 
That is an increase of 1 .6 million since 
the onset of the Bush recession last 
June, when the rate was 5.3 percent. 

“The February unemployment fig- 
ures clearly indicate a worsening reces- 
sion,” the AFL-CIO said in statement, 
“not the near-end to a mild downturn 
that is portrayed by the Bush ad- 
ministration.” 

The federation called on Congress 
and the Bush administration to institute 
new job recovery programs, as well as 
to address the “the suffering of millions 
of jobless workers and their families by 
reforming the extended benefits pro- 
gram and establishing standards to in- 
crease coverage for jobless workers.” 
In addition to the 8.2 million offici- 
ally jobless, AFL-CIO chief economist 
Rudy Oswald noted, another 7 million 
were affected by partial or total 
unemployment — 6.1 million in part- 
time jobs because they could not find 
full-time work and 900,000 discouraged 
workers who have given up looking for 


work because of the depressed jobs 
market. 

Over the month, the number of in- 
voluntary part-time workers jumped by 
550,000, BLS said, and is 1.2 million 
above the number that prevailed 
throughout the first half of 1990. 

Before seasonal adjustment, BLS 
said, 8.9 million workers were counted 
as unemployed in February. But be- 
cause of severe limitations in the 
federal-state unemployment insurance 
system, only 4.1 million jobless 
workers were drawing benefits last 
month. That left 4.9 million others 
without benefits. 

Manufacturing hit hardest 

Employers in non-farm industries 
slashed payrolls by 185,000 in 
February, including a drop of 125,000 
in the manufacturing sector. More than 
1 million factory jobs have been wiped 
out since January 1989, BLS noted. 

Most of February’s losses came in the 
better-paying durable goods jobs — 
industrial machinery, autos, transpor- 
tation equipment and fabricated metals. 

In the services sector, employment in 
retail trade fell by 70,000 and in 
transportation by 35,000 — stemming 
largely from airline job terminations 
and layoffs. Employment also declined 
by 25,000 in wholesale trade and by 

10,000 in finance, insurance and real 
estate. 

There was a slight pickup in construc- 


tion of 27,000 jobs after a long string 
of losses totaling about 425,000 since 
last May. Health care jobs increased by 
30,000, BLS said. 

BLS Commissioner Janet L. Nor- 
wood told the Joint Economic Commit- 
tee of Congress that February was the 
seventh consecutive month in which 
more industries posted job losses than 
increases. She said adult men bore the 
brunt of the unemployment surge as 
their rate jumped 0.7 of a percentage 
point over the month to 6.3 percent — 
up 1.7 points from February 1990. And 
as job opportunities deteriorated in the 
services sector, the rate for adult 
women edged up to 5.4 percent, climb- 
ing 0.7 of a point from a year-ago. 

Harder-hit by the slumping economy 
were minorities as the February rate for 
blacks was 11.9 percent and 9.5 percent 
for Hispanics, Norwood noted. 

Six large states logged jobless rates 
above the 6.5 percent national average. 
Slumping auto production drove up 
Michigan’s rate 2.6 to 9.8 percent, 
while the rate in Massachusetts rose 0.7 
of a point to 9.3 percent. The rate 
climbed 0.4 to 7.4 percent in Califor- 
nia; 1 point to 7.1 percent in Florida; 
1 . 1 points to 7 percent in Ohio, and 0.4 
to 6.7 percent in Pennsylvania. 

Those six states accounted for 3.1 
million of nation’s more than 8 million 
jobless workers. 

Meanwhile, the three major auto- 
makers — General Motors, Ford and 


Chrysler — disclosed plans to lay off 
more than 57,000 workers at assembly 
plants in the United States and Canada 
for one week or more starting March 
18. Industry analysts said the auto com- 
panies are concerned about the long- 
term impact of the sales slump, despite 
the end of hostilities in the Persian Gulf 
region. Administration economists have 
contended that the recession would 
taper off when the shooting stopped. 

Public sector furloughs 

But recovery from the rising unem- 
ployment situation is a long way off, 
even for public employees who are now 
facing layoffs and unpaid furloughs in 
many states and municipalities. New 
York has laid off 1 ,000 state employees 
and Pennsylvania has removed 1,500 
workers from its payrolls. New York’s 
budget for the next fiscal year targets 

18,000 more state jobs. 

Similar reductions are expected in 
other northeastern states as governors 
encounter severe budget crunches with 
the faltering economy. AFSCME esti- 
mates that at least 50,000 state and local 
jobs could be wiped out nationwide by 
layoffs and early retirements. 

Several states are putting employees 
on unpaid leave. Rhode Island shut 
down most state offices and instituted 
its first of 10 unpaid holidays March 15 
for its 18,000 employees in 1991. That 
translates into pay cuts of hundreds of 
dollars for each state worker. 


Current account trade gap 
narrows; U.S. debt worsens 


T he U.S. current account deficit — a 
broad measure of foreign trade in 
goods, services and investments — 
widened in the fourth quarter of 1990 
to $27.8 billion. However, the Com- 
merce Department reported, the deficit 
for the entire year slipped to $99.3 
billion. That is the first time it has been 
below the $100-billion mark since 1984. 

Even so, the deficit in merchandise 
trade remained above $100 billion, with 
manufactured goods accounting for 
more than $90 billion of the 1990 
shortfall. 

Despite the improvement in the cur- 
rent account ledger, the U.S. position as 
the world’s largest debtor nation wor- 
sened. At the end of the year, the net 
difference of what American interests 
owe to foreigners totaled more than $760 
billion. At the current pace, the debt 
could climb over $1 trillion in less than 
three years. 

The United States had been a leading 
creditor nation until the mid-1980s, after 
it began piling up huge trade deficits. 
In other developments: 

• The government’s index of leading 
economic indicators dropped 0.4 percent 
in January, the sixth monthly decline in 
succession. The gauge of future 
economic activity has not advanced 
since a 0.1 percent rise in June. It was 
flat in July. 

Six of the 11 components that com- 
prise the index contributed to January’s 
decline. The sharpest drop was in the 
average workweek, followed by falling 
building permits, vendor performance, 


money supply and stock prices. Five 
components rose. The strongest gain 
was in factory orders for consumer 
goods and materials. 

• Housing starts plunged 12.8 per- 
cent in January to an annual rate of 

850,000 units, the lowest level since the 
Reagan recession in 1982, Commerce 
Department reported. The January 
starts were 45 percent below the year- 
ago month. 

• The skyrocketing gas pump prices 
following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait 
brought booming profits for U.S. oil 
companies. A roundup by the Wall 
Street Journal showed that fourth 
quarter net income for the nine major 
U.S. integrated oil companies was 666 
percent over the comparable 1989 
period. 

• Nonfarm business productivity 
edged up 0.1 percent in the fourth 
quarter, but dropped 0.8 percent over the 
year, the Labor Department said. Fourth 
quarter output fell at an annual rate of 
2.7 percent, paralleling the decline in 
work hours. For the year, hourly pay 
rose 3.5 percent, but real earnings drop- 
ped 1.8 percent after adjustment for 
inflation. 

In the manufacturing sector, which 
has been hit the hardest by the reces- 
sion, productivity declined at an annual 
rate of 1.6 percent in the October- 
December period while factories 
slashed work hours 8.6 percent. 

But for all of 1990, manufacturing 
productivity rose 3 percent even though 
work hours fell 2.1 percent. 



Chrysler's pace-setting prototype Viper V-10 roadster. 


UAW-made Viper to pace Indy 


T o the cheers of union members, 
the American-made Dodge Viper 
took the checkered flag as the official 
pace car for this year’s Indy 500. 

Citing a surge of national 
patriotism, Chrysler Corp. said it 
was sidelining the Japanese-made 
Dodge Stealth in favor of the Viper 
for the 500-mile Memorial Day race 
at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

The shift was welcomed by 
William Osos, director of UAW 
Region 3 in Indianapolis, who was 
among the first and most vocal pro- 
ponents for running a U.S. -built 
pace car. UAW members make the 
prototype V-10 Viper roadster. 

“Having the Dodge Viper pace 
the Indy 500 showcases the pride 
taken by UAW members in the 
workmanship and their commitment 


to quality,” Osos said. “We think 
that’s entirely appropriate for this 
premier American sporting event. ” 

Race organizers had given 
Chrysler the green light some time 
ago to provide the pace car for the 
1991 Memorial Day event, but they 
ran into sharp criticism when the 
Stealth was tapped last September. 
The Stealth is built by Chrys- 
ler’s Japanese affiliate, Mitsu- 
bishi. 

As pressure mounted, Chrysler 
and speedway officials got the 
message. They agreed to shift gears. 

Tony George, president of the In- 
dianapolis Motor Speedway said, 
“IMS’s philosophy continues to be 
to support domestic manufacturers 
as they compete in today’s global 
automotive industry.” 





10 Y£ARS OF 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Visitors view a photo exhibit of the history of the Polish Solidarity movement. 
The exhibit will be shown at the George Meany Center through March 29. 


Kirkland and Havel lauded 
for advancing democracy 


W herever people seek democratic 
and human rights, “they can 
always count on the men and women 
of the American labor movement as 
a tested and proven resource in their 
struggle,” AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland told the National Demo- 
cratic Institute for International 
Affairs. 

In accepting NDI’s W. Averell 
Harriman Democracy Award, Kirk- 
land said that budding new 
democracies validate labor’s deeply 
held conviction that free interaction 
of social institutions is the real foun- 
dation of rights and liberties. 

Kirkland was honored along with 
Czechoslovak President Vaclav 
Havel, the playwright turned leader 
of his country who is architect of its 
social reforms. 

“The emerging triumph of the 
human spirit in Eastern and Central 
Europe, and elsewhere in the world, 
vindicates those of us who have en- 
dured the criticism that we were 
blind to ‘geopolitical realities’ and 
oblivious to ‘national interests’ that 
leave little or no room for such fan- 
tasies as social justice and human 
rights,” Kirkland stressed. 

“It proves that there is no more 
enduring reality than the universal 
craving to breathe free and no in- 
terest stronger than its service,” he 
said. 


Kirkland commended Havel for 
his role in ushering a new era of 
freedom and democracy for the 
Czechoslovak people, “who risked 
insult and injury to keep alive the vi- 
sion of a decent, humane society 
under the most oppressive condi- 
tions.” 

Freedom does not take root and 
grow among the governing classes 
and the elite, Kirkland said. Rather, 
its nurturing sources “are in the 
streets, workplaces and wherever 
plain people rise to their feet and 
assert and demand their rights.” 

“We have seen this demonstrated 
with stunning effectiveness at the 
shipyard in Gdansk, at Wenceslaus 
Square, in the factories of Santiago, 
by black trade unionists in South 
Africa, and by the workers and 
students who gathered in Tiananmen 
Square to look down the barrel of a 
gun.” 

Kirkland cited similar, current ac- 
tions by miners in the Soviet Union 
and by people in the streets of the op- 
pressed Baltic states. 

In presenting the award to 
Kirkland, former Vice President 
Walter F. Mondale praised the AFL- 
CIO ’s support of workers struggling 
for freedom around the world. 

Czechoslovak Ambassador Rita 
Klimova accepted the award for 
Havel. 


Federation pledges to mobilize 
support for Soviet coal strikers 



Dick Warden, the UAW’s legislative 
director, will retire on April 30. He will 
be succeeded by Alan Reuther, the 
union’s associate general counsel who 
has worked in the legislative department 
since 1982. Warden was named assis- 
tant legislative director in 1972 and 
became director three years later. He 
joined the Carter administration as an 
assistant secretary of what is now the 
Department of Health and Human Ser- 
vices. In 1980, he returned to the UAW 
as legislative director. Prior to joining 
the labor movement, Warden held staff 
positions in both the House and Senate, 
and was a lobbyist for the civil rights 
movement. 

Economist Sheldon Friedman joined 
the AFL-CIO Department of Economic 
Research March 4. He will be respon- 
sible for economic policy issues, in- 
cluding finance, banking and related 
topics. Friedman, 42, worked 15 years 
with the UAW, serving since 1981 as 
its research director. He studied 
economics at the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology and has written widely 
on a variety of economic topics. Fried- 
man currently serves on the executive 
board of the Industrial Relations 
Research Association. 

AWARDS 

Heidi Evans won both the 
Newspaper Guild’s 1990 Heywood 
Broun Award and the George Polk 
award for a series of articles in the New 
York Daily News revealing that thou- 
sands of tests for cervical cancer were 
going unexamined for a year and more 
in a city laboratory. A member of the 
Guild that went on strike at the Daily 
News Oct. 25, Evans’ work was sub- 
mitted for the Broun award by her col- 
league, Tom Robbins, who has been 
editing the Guild Strike News. Evans 
will receive the Polk award, given by 
Long Island University, in a ceremony 
on April 17. The Broun award, named 
for the Guild’s founding president, will 
be presented April 23. 

The National Football League 
Players Association and the Muscular 
Dystrophy Association presented its 
Service Award to Alfred K. 
Whitehead, president of the Fire 
Fighters, and the 185,000 IAFF 
members for their efforts on behalf of 
MDA. Over the past 80 years, the IAFF 
has raised more than $80 million to help 
MDA. Through various fundraising ac- 
tivities, including the “fill-the-boot” 
campaign, the members raised $8 
million in 1990. AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, who 
serves on MDA’s board of directors, 
noted that the IAFF is the largest con- 
tributor to the organization. 

DEATHS 

Gregory J. Bardacke, for 25 years 
the executive director of the American 
Trade Union Council for Histadrut 
before his retirement in 1978, died Feb. 
22. He was 80. 

Bardacke was a union organizer for 
four different unions and for the 
American Federation of Labor before 
World War II. He carried a Machinists 
card for 49 years. 

Bardacke was born in China in 1910 
of Russian emigre parents. His parents 
met and married in China after his 
father had escaped Tsarist Russia dur- 
ing the 1905 uprising. 


He served as an organizer for the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers, Hatters, 
Machinists and Retail, Wholesale and 
Department Store Union and during 
World War II was chief of the labor sec- 
tion in a division of the War Produc- 
tion Office. He was also a director for 
the United Nations Appeal for Chil- 
dren. His wife Beatrice died in 1986. 

Nathan Ehrlich, a founder and presi- 
dent of the Cake Bakers Local 51 in 
New York City, died of a heart attack 
Feb. 22 after attending a ceremony in 
Palm Desert, Calif., marking his 69th 
wedding anniversary. He was 87. 

Erlich, born in Poland, came to 
America as a young man and was hor- 
rified at conditions in U.S. bakeries, 
where rats, polluted air and 18-hour 
work days were common. He suffered 
from “baker’s emphysema” through- 
out his life. 

He served as president of the local 
union for 41 years before retiring in 
1973. 

He was instrumental in the founding 
of the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, 
Calif. , and was the unofficial baker to 
several U.S. presidents. He made birth- 
day cakes for John Kennedy and 
Richard Nixon and an inaugural cake 
for Lyndon Johnson. 

Erhlich was also active in raising 
money for Israeli independence in the 
1940s and helped build the first com- 
mercial bakery in the new Jewish state. 

John Gates Ramsay, a former direc- 
tor of community services for the CIO 
and a founder of the National Religion 
and Labor Foundation, died Feb. 26 in 
Berea, Ky. He was 89. 

Ramsay was the first president of the 
Steelworkers local in Bethlehem, Pa., 
in what was then the Steel Workers 
Organizing Committe (SWOC) of the 
CIO. He worked on organizing cam- 
paigns for the USWA in a number of 
cities, prior to joining the CIO’s 
southern drive in 1945. As director of 
community services, based in Atlanta, 
he worked throughout the south organ- 
izing workers in textile, lumber and 
other industries. 

He was involved in many church ac- 
tivities. In 1957, he was named Layman 
of the Year in Washington, where he 
was an elder in the National Presby- 
terian Church. In 1981, Ramsay and his 
wife, the late Gertrude Martin Ramsay, 
received the Pennsylvania Labor 
History Society’s Mother Jones Award 
for leadership and service in the labor 
movement. 

Dr. Lorin E. Kerr, a black lung 
relief pioneer and longtime director of 
occupational health for the Mine 
Workers, died of emphysema March 9 
in Chevy Chase, Md. 

Kerr, who was 81 , headed the UMW 
occupational health department from 
1969 until his retirement in 1986. He 
joined the UMW staff in 1948 and 
served as an area medical officer with 
the union’s welfare and retirement fund. 

Kerr had a major role in the passage 
and implementation of the Federal Coal 
Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 — 
landmark legislation that established 
benefits for mine workers stricken by 
black lung disease. 

“Because of Dr. Lorin E. Kerr, 
thousands and thousands of coal miners 
have received compensation and work- 
ing miners today are better protected,” 
said UMW President Richard Trumka. 
“No other single individual has done 
more than Lorin Kerr to protect the 
health of our nation’s coal miners.” 

A native of Toledo, Ohio, Kerr 
received his medical degree from the 
University of Michigan in 1935. He 
was a senior surgeon with the U.S. 
Public Health Service during the 
mid- 1940s. He also as a past president 
of the American Public Health Associ- 
ation. 


A FL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
pledged to striking Soviet miners 
that support for their efforts would in- 
clude mobilizing world trade unionists 
to bring “an immediate stop to the ex- 
port of any Soviet coal to the industrial 
democracies.” 

Strikes by Soviet miners for better 
economic conditions and more voice in 
government started March 1, with the 
Associated Press estimating that 100,000 
miners were taking part in at least 100 
mines. 

Kirkland expressed outrage over legal 
actions against the strikers and noted 
that the threats to shut off electricity to 


mining communities “would threaten 
their familes and their children.” He 
called such action “a crude violation of 
legal norms and International Labor 
Organization Conventions . ’ ’ 

In a letter to Pavel Shushpanov, 
chairman of executive committee of the 
Independent Trade Union of Miners of 
the USSR, Kirkland promised March 8 
to respond to his request for a visit from 
a delegation from the International Con- 
federation of Free Trade Unions, of 
which the AFL-CIO is a member. 
Kirkland requested appointment of such 
a delegation from John Vanderveken, 
general secretary of the ICFTU. 




Retirees worried about loss of health care 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

i t’s every worker’s nightmare: after 
giving your most productive years to 
a company that promises you a secure 
retirement, you are left high and dry 
when the promises prove to be empty. 

Fred Fields, who worked for Inger- 
soll Products in Illinois, described the 
frustration and fear that accompanied 
losing his health insurance three months 
before retirement. 

“My wife and I went without health 
insurance for over two years until we 
were finally able to join an HMO,” 
Fields testified during an AFL-CIO 
health care hearing in Chicago last fall. 
“We were fortunate. . .neither one of 
us got sick or needed medical atten- 
tion.” 

In a survey published in 1990 of 
11,417 retirees from 14 unions, more 
than 60 percent voiced a great concern 
over personal' health, with close to half 
showing concern over long-term care. 
A Gallup Poll conducted nationally last 
August showed that loss of medical in- 
surance was the major worry for 30 
percent of the 1,038 adults responding; 
19 percent of respondents cited personal 
payments as their major worry. 

The union retirees also told surveyors 
that health care and medical insurance 
coverage were by far their greatest 
need. Almost half of those interviewed 
identified specific needs, such as den- 
tal coverage and better in-home care. 

However, more and more retirees 


face the dangerous prospect of disap- 
pearing health benefits because of 
changes in the law. New rules pro- 
mulgated by the Financial Accounting 
Standards Board likely will have the ef- 
fect of making retiree health care look 
like a bad prospect for management 
because of their impact on company 
ledgers. FASB is a private board whose 
rulings carry the weight of law. 

Disappearing benefits 

Currently, most companies that 
promise to pay for retirees’ health care 
do so on a pay-as-you-go basis; they 
don’t set aside funds in advance of ex- 
penses, but deal with bills as they come 
in. FASB Order 106, which is to take 
effect in late 1992, seeks to rectify this 
situation by requiring those companies 
to carry a portion of the value of health 
benefits they provide to current retirees 
and benefits promised to future retirees. 

This pre-ftmding notion is similar to 
the way pension funds are handled. 
Beginning in 1997, companies will have 
to record the “minimum liability” of 
retiree health care costs — the value of 
health benefits due to retirees and those 
eligible to retire. 

Rather than comply with the new 
order — which experts say would raise 
expenses and lower profits and 
dividends — companies may slash or 
drop retiree health care altogether. 

Taft-Hartley plans, while not re- 
quired to comply with Order 106, still 


face the same prospect as every plan of 
dealing with rising costs. In fact, such 
multiemployer plans may be forced to 
cut benefits if costs are too great, since 
there are no corporate treasuries back- 
ing them up, experts say. 

Aside from the FASB order, there are 
four factors contributing to the finan- 
cial crisis in retiree health care: 

• Americans are living longer. In 
the year 2020, one in five citizens will 
be over 65. 

• Older people need more medical 
care. 

• Health care costs are rising 
significantly. Medicare eligibility has 
become more and more restricted, and 
Congress has shifted costs from Medi- 
care to company plans. 

• Workers are retiring earlier. 

Retirees bear rising costs 

The rising cost of health insurance 
coverage for retirees has been brought 
home dramatically to members of Local 
400 of the Food and Commercial 
Workers. In 1990, the monthly 
premium for coverage was $80; in 
1991, the premium jumped 115 percent 
to $171.95 per month. The jump in out- 
of-pocket costs laid a severe burden on 
the retirees. 

“(It was) an extremely high and 
unexpected cost increase for retir- 
ees, ’’said Jim Lowthers, secretary- 
treasurer of Local 400. “It has the ef- 
fect of driving people out of the fund, 


as some of them will not be able to pay 
that kind of increase.” 

Local 400 ’s contract calls for retirees 
to pay a greater share of their health 
care costs, but the premiums are much 
higher than the union had anticipated. 
Lowther said that approximately 10 per- 
cent of retirees had dropped their health 
and welfare coverage. He pointed out 
that, as costs escalate, a greater number 
of retirees will be priced out of cover- 
age, thus raising costs even higher for 
those remaining. 

Lowther said Local 400 was working 
toward a midterm solution to deal with 
the situation. 

Access to health care becomes nearly 
unattainable for the retiree without 
benefits and without Medicare. The 
AFL-CIO Executive Council’s Feb. 19 
statement on health care reflects the 
problem: “(The federation seeks to) 
reduce employment-based retiree health 
costs by dropping Medicare eligibility 
to age 60, putting the program in line 
with the average retirement age.” 

The council also called for cost con- 
tainment, universal access and admin- 
istrative overhaul. 

The AFL-CIO ’s Karen Ignagni, di- 
rector of employee benefits, says the 
lowered age requirement for Medicare 
“better matches the age at which 
workers are retiring.” She also points 
out that “the current Medicare system 
leaves retirees without coverage until 
they reach 65.” 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 6 
MARCH 18, 1991 







Civil rights hill 
advances in House 

Civil rights advocates kick off a national 
campaign to gain passage of labor- 
backed legislation to restore protections 
against employer discrimination; two 
House committees review the proposal. 

House hill would 
reform HI system 



Labor gears up 
for WMD activities 

Major events are planned at four sites, 
and activities will occur around the na- 
tion this April 28, Workers Memorial 
Day, focusing on the theme, “Safe 
Jobs. It’s Our Right.” 

‘Right to work ’ 
means lower pay 

States with “right-to-work” laws have 
lower per capita income, average hour- 
ly earnings and jobless compensation 
than free bargaining states, a review of 
government data shows. 


The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 









The Japan trade lobby machine is 
fueled by cash paid to former U.S. 
government officials. See Pages 6-7. 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 7 APRIL 1, 1991 


Labor celebrates new era at Daily News 


By James B. Parks 

T he presses rolled out the first edition 
of the New York Daily News under 
new owner Robert Maxwell after union 
workers scored a major victory in the 
settlement of the 146-day strike. 

“This is a great day, not only for the 
employees of the Daily News but also 
for the whole labor movement,” said 
George McDonald, president of the 
Allied Printing Trades Council, which 
represented the striking workers. 

Speaking at a rally to celebrate the 
end of the strike, AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue said 
“the victory really belongs to 2,300 
people who understood what solidarity 
was and knew it was their only salva- 
tion. They fought the union-busters to 
a standstill and were successful.” 


Maxwell made “a success of the 
negotiations” and restored “the faith of 
a lot of people in this country in collec- 
tive bargaining,” Donahue said. 

“In a free society, if collective 
bargaining is destroyed, you destroy 
democracy and, in due course, pros- 
perity,” said Maxwell, a British pub- 
lisher who announced that he would 
stay in New York to devote most of his 
time to resurrecting the Daily News. 

“The negotiations . . . have been 
tough, exhausting and at times ex- 
asperating,” he said. “But what mat- 
ters in the end is ... we not only re- 
stored your jobs, but we proved that 
naked capitalism cannot win if it goes 
about destroying true collective bar- 
gaining.” 

Maxwell pledged to do his “utmost” 


to work with the unions to make the 
paper successful. 

About 2,300 workers from nine 
unions went on strike Oct. 25 after 
working almost seven months without 
a contract. 

All nine striking unions ratified the 
agreement. The Machinists approved 
the contract just hours before the March 
20 rally. The three largest striking 
unions — the Newspaper Guild, the 
Newspaper Delivers and the Mailers 
— ratified their contracts the previous 
day after a late-afternoon meeting to 
iron out details. 

The GCIU’s Photoengravers were the 
first to ratify on March 15, followed by 
the Pressmen on March 17. The Paper- 
handlers, Stereotypers and Electrical 

Continued on Page 2 



Robert Maxwell says "Union Yes" 


Mexico trade 
doubts raised 
in Congress 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who has introduced a dresses the concerns of trade unionists who rallied for 
measure to ban permanent replacement of strikers, ad- the legislation at the U.S. Capitol. 

Strikebreaker ban seen as moral issue 


By John R. Oravec 

C ongressional leaders are voicing 
deep reservations over the Bush ad- 
ministration’s attempts to ram through 
a so-called free trade agreement with 
Mexico under “fast-track” authority. 

As the White House turns up the 
pressure on Congress in its campaign 
to secure blanket trade treaty authori- 
ty, key members of the Senate and 
House have raised concerns about the 
impact of the open-ended U.S. -Mexico 
proposal on the economy and American 
jobs. 

Resolutions have been introduced in 
both chambers to terminate the fast- 
track rule on trade agreements. The 
procedure, which bars Congress from 
amending trade accord proposals, 
would be extended automatically for 
two years if neither body adopts the 
resolution before June 1. 

The congressional response came 
after a series of hearings in which union 
witnesses documented the exodus of 
American factory jobs to maquiladora 
plants across the border, where U.S. 
multinational companies exploit Mex- 
ico’s working poor with wages of less 
than $1 an hour. 

Senate Commerce Committee Chair- 
man Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) 
charged that the White House was at- 
tempting to hogtie debate and effective- 
ly nullify Congress’s duty under the 
Constitution to “regulate commerce 
with foreign nations.” 

The fast-track rule covers all trade 
pacts, including the pending multilateral 
Uruguay Round of the General Agree- 
ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). 

Continued on Page 5 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

A group of Protestant, Jewish and 
Roman Catholic religious leaders 
announced their solidarity with labor in 
supporting a ban on the use of perma- 
nent replacements for striking workers. 

The Interfaith Impact for Justice and 
Peace, a multi-denominational organiza- 
tion seeking to advance justice, peace 
and stewardship in the public policy 
arena, told a Washington news confer- 
ence that it has formed the Religious 
Campaign for Workplace Fairness to 
support passage of H.R. 5 and S.55 bills 
to ban the permanent replacement of 
strikers. 

“The religious community supports 
the rights of working people on the 
basis of moral issues,” said the Rev. 
Theodore H. Erickson, co-chair for the 
campaign. 

‘ ‘In an era when a spirit of meanness 


and bottom-line economics appears to 
dominate many corporate approaches to 
labor relations, we must again be 
reminded of our common humanity and 
our democratic ideals,” Erickson said. 

President Richard Trumka of the 
Mine Workers, who enlisted the assis- 
tance of community and religious lead- 
ers during the union’s yearlong dispute 
against the Pittston Coal Group, told the 
religious leaders that the issue was one 
of basic morals: “Thou shall not covet 
anything that is thy neighbor’s proper- 
ty,” including the jobs of striking 
workers, he said. 

“You don’t have to look any further 
than the 10th Commandment to know 
that,” Trumka said. “There isn’t any 
more important piece of property you 
or any working man or woman is ever 
going to have than the job that puts food 
on our table. It’s a moral issue.” 


It was the second time in as many 
weeks that the religious community has 
voiced strong support for outlawing the 
practice of hiring permanent 
replacements. 

In testimony before the Senate sub- 
committee on labor, Bishop Frank J. 
Rodimer, representing the National 
Conference of Catholic Bishops, called 
for the passage of the legislation. 

The religious leaders are calling on 
their congregations “to reach out to 
workers who have been denied their 
jobs, their respect, and their livelihoods 
and to join with them in their struggle 
for justice,” Erickson said. 

Said Trumka, “The labor movement 
and the religious community have a 
shared dedication to the elevation of the 
human condition.” 

Delegates to several union legislative 
Continued on Page 12 







Jack Miller/Miller Photography 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue addresses a rally celebrating the Daily News contracts. 

Maxwell, unions pledge to rebuild paper 


Teamsters 
weighing 
freight pact 

M ore than 160,000 Teamsters are 
voting on a new three-year contract 
with the Trucking Management Inc. 
that, if approved, will serve as the 
union’s National Master Freight Agree- 
ment. 

The proposed package provides im- 
provements in wages, job security, 
equipment safety and employer pay- 
ments to pension and health and wel- 
fare, the union said. 

“This settlement represents signifi- 
cant gains for our members,” com- 
mented IBT President William J. Mc- 
Carthy, “and it certainly has to be 
ranked as one of the best since the in- 
ception of the National Master Freight 
Agreement.” McCarthy is chairman of 
the union’s National Freight Industry 
Negotiating Committee. 

IBT Vice President R.V. Durham, 
co-chairman of the National Freight 
Committee, said the accord “is the 
largest monetary settlement in the 
freight industry since deregulation.” 

Local issues addressed 

It covers drivers, warehouse, office 
and maintenance shop employees of in- 
terstate and local motor carriers. The 
31 supplemental agreements spell out 
local wage rates, work rules and opera- 
tional aspects. 

The package represents a 12.3 per- 
cent increase over three years, or an an- 
nual rate of 3.95 percent. The accord 
breaks down to hourly wage increases, 
$1.40 an hour; mileage, 3.5 cents; 
vacation improvement, 5 cents; and 
employer contributions to pensions and 
health and welfare, $1.05 a hour, the 
IBT estimated. The package thus totals 
$2.50 an hour. 

Pact endorsed 

The tentative contract with TMI, 
reached March 14, received near unani- 
mous approval from representatives of 
266 IBT locals at a March 19 meeting 
in Chicago. 

Ballots, mailed to members covered 
by the agreement, will be tallied in late 
April with majority approval required. 
The current contract was extended un- 
til balloting is completed. 

At press time, a tentative settlement 
was reported between the IBT and 
Yellow Freight System Inc., covering 
21,000 workers. 

Negotiations are continuing with two 
other employer groups, Regional Car- 
riers Inc. and Motor Carrier Labor Ad- 
visory Council. 


Continued from Page 1 

Workers ratified the agreement on 
March 19. 

The ratifications cleared the way for 
Maxwell to complete the deal to buy the 
paper from the Tribune Co. 

The end of the strike came eight days 
after the unions had tentatively agreed 
to eliminate 800 jobs, or about one-third 
of the union jobs at the paper. It came 
on the day the Tribune Co. had said it 
would close the Daily News unless 
there was a settlement. 

“All of labor followed this strike 
very intently because they knew collec- 
tive bargaining was at stake, and the 
business community watched because 
they knew labor-management coopera- 
tion was at stake,” said New York State 
AFL-CIO President Edward J. Cleary. 

Others speaking at the rally included 
Charles Dale, president of the News- 
paper Guild; James Norton, president 
of the Graphic Communications Union, 
and George Kourpias, president of the 
Machinists. 

The strike spurred a major effort by 
the AFL-CIO ’s Strategic Approaches 


A Virginia state appeals court has 
vacated more than $31 million in 
contempt-of-court fines levied by a 
Virginia county judge against the Mine 
Workers during its 1989 strike against 
Pittston Coal Group. 

“The UMWA is obviously relieved 
with this decision, and we trust that 
what has been a very difficult period for 
all concerned is now behind us,” said 


Committee, including a local advertis- 
ing and circulation boycott and a na- 
tional corporate campaign. 

It also focused increased attention on 
the need for federal legislation to ban 
the permanent replacement of striking 
workers, a major legislative priority of 
the AFL-CIO. Donahue noted that, if 
that law had been in effect, owners of 
the News would not have had the op- 
portunity to try and remove the union 
by forcing a strike and replacing the 
union members. 

“Quite possibly, we could have had 
a constructive settlement during the 
seven months between the expiration of 
the union agreement and the Oct. 25 
date when the owners finally got the 
strike they wanted,” he said. “The time 
the workers stayed on the job certainly 
proves a settlement, not a confrontation, 
is what they wanted all along.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
had said earlier that the tentative agree- 
ment was “made possible when Mr. 
Maxwell removed the issue of ‘perma- 
nent replacement’ workers from the 
bargaining table.” 


UMWA President Richard Trumka. 

The appeals court said the fines by 
Russell County Circuit Court Judge 
Donald McGlothlin Jr. were civil fines 
designed to coerce the UMWA into 
complying with his injunctions laying 
down rules for picketing. His ruling 
provided a formula for doubling the 
fines for each day of noncompliance. 

McGlothlin imposed $64.5 million in 


The Strategic Approaches Commit- 
tee, chaired by Lynn Williams of the 
Steelworkers, and the federation’s 
Department of Organization and Field 
Services guided the multiunion as- 
sistance program for the Daily News 
workers. 

The federation set up a boycott office 
to assist in organizing, legal work and 
community services and national unions 
hired Samuel McKnight, a Detroit at- 
torney, as the legal architect of the win- 
ning union boycott strategy. 

William Hauenstein, Northeast 
Regional Director of the AFL-CIO 
Community Services Liaison, United 
Way of America, coordinated the com- 
munity services programs. 

Support for the strikers led to a drop 
in the Daily News’ circulation from its 
pre-strike level of 1.1 million to 
300,000. More than 75 percent of New 
York outlets refused to carry the paper 
and only 20 of the paper’s original 750 
display advertisers remained. 

The strikers and their supporters will 
celebrate their victory with a reception 
and fund-raiser April 3. 


fines, believed to be the largest in U.S. 
labor history, but the appeals court ad- 
dressed only $31.3 million of the total. 

About $12 million was dropped at the 
request of Pittston and the UMWA after 
the strike was settled. Another $21 
million is still pending. 

The court also reversed another cir- 
cuit judge’s imposition of $600,000 in 
criminal fines against the union. 


Virginia appeals court vacates contempt fines against UMWA 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 7 ®« ^§glfe - >3 MONDAY, APRIL 1, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (1SSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


. kft0 acoMMt mica , . 

t rip 


Official Publication 


of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 







LEGISWTON 


Congress refuses to gut Davis-Bacon 


By Mike Hall 

A 10-year campaign by non-union 
construction firms to gut important 
parts of the Davis-Bacon Act was over- 
whelmingly turned back in the House 
and Senate. 

Both houses defeated amendments to 
the Emergency Supplemental Ap- 
propriations bill for fiscal year 1991 that 
would have expanded the use of low- 
wage and untrained helpers and, thus, 
destroy the nation’s long-standing ap- 
prenticeship system. 

“America’s construction unions have 
won a major victory in Congress that 
will best serve construction in particular 
and the nation in general,” said Robert 
A. Georgine, president of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades De- 
partment. 

The defeated amendments would 
have stripped language from the ap- 
propriations bill that forbids the Depart- 
ment of Labor from spending any binds 
on its new “helper” and apprenticeship 
regulations. 

“The sweeping impact of ‘helper’ 
and apprenticeship regulations would 
severely weaken the Davis-Bacon Act, 
cause serious job loss for construction 
workers and undermine a 44-year-old 
national and state apprenticeship pro- 
gram which is operating efficiently and 
not in need of change,” said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 

Meatpacking 
workers attest 
to safety woes 

By Arlee C. Green 

T he testimony of packinghouse work- 
ers before a House subcommittee 
brought living proof of the “national 
epidemic” of injuries and illnesses in 
their industry. 

On March 20, four workers from the 
Monfort Inc. plants in Grand Island, 
Neb., and Greeley, Colo., and one 
from a Wilson Brands plant in Mar- 
shall, Mo., told the House subcommit- 
tee on employment and housing of the 
injuries they had received at work and 
of the treacherous conditions workers 
face daily from poorly designed equip- 
ment, slippery floors, and production- 
line speedups. 

At the hearing, subcommittee Chair- 
man Thomas Lantos (D-Calif.) decried 
OSHA’s foot-dragging in issuing an 
ergonomics standard to help reduce the 
high incidence of repetitive motion ill- 
nesses in the meatpacking industry, in 
which more than a third of the workers 
are injured each year. 

When OSHA Administrator Gerard 
Scannell said the agency was “on the 
threshold” of proposing a standard, 
predicting it would be out by year’s 
end, Lantos declared, “That’s not good 
enough. We’re dealing with a national 
epidemic.” 

A week later, OSHA cited the Grand 
Island plant for 197 safety violations — 
more than 100 of which were judged 
willful — and recommended a fine of 
$1,092,100. The citations followed an 
OSHA investigation into the second 
worker death there in 18 months. 

At the subcommittee hearing, Food 


McGlotten in letters to members of the 
House and Senate urging rejection of 
the amendments. 

The amendments were offered by 
longtime Davis-Bacon foes Rep. 
Charles Stenholm (D-Texas) and Sen. 
Donald Nickles (R-Okla.). Stenholm’s 
amendment was defeated 244-173 and 
Nickles’ was turned down 63-37. 
Because the Davis-Bacon language is 
the same in both the House and Senate 
versions, it cannot be changed in 
conference. 

Georgine said the regulations would 
have created “a caste system of second- 
class workers” and called the votes “a 
victory for integrity over exploitation 
and greed.” 

The Davis-Bacon Act requires that 
workers be paid the prevailing wage for 
work on federal and federally assisted 
construction projects. It prevents con- 
tractors from winning bids by undercut- 
ting wage rates and also guarantees a 
trained and professional workforce for 
these projects. 

The new regulations would have 
allowed contractors to employ untrain- 
ed and low- wage “helpers” to take the 
place of qualified construction workers. 

Up to 40 percent of the current Davis- 
Bacon work force would have been 
replaced by the regulations. In addition, 
the use of helpers would have hit 
minority and female construction 


and Commercial Workers Vice Presi- 
dent Phillip Immesote warned that 
OSHA is about to repeat its earlier 
mistake in designing a program of ex- 
emptions and voluntary compliance in 
the nation’s packinghouses. 

“Meatpacking is a poor choice for an 
experiment in voluntary compliance,” 
Immesote said. The industry suffers 
from a staggering rate of repetitive 
strain disorders and injuries in general, 
he said, and has racked up record fines 
for safety and ergonomic hazards and 
egregious record-keeping violations. 

The workers showed the subcommit- 
tee their injuries and described the pain 
endured by workers and the indiffer- 
ence of their employers. 

UFCW Local 576’s Dorothy Wein- 
rich, 44, said that since starting work 
at Wilson Brands in 1980, she has 
undergone surgery on her shoulder, 
elbow and both hands to help alleviate 


workers especially hard, Georgine said. 
Also the lack of required safety and 
health training for these “helpers” 
could have resulted in increased deaths 
and injuries at construction sites. 

The DOL “helper” regulations are 
the department’s latest attempt in a 
decade-long fight to “establish a new 
class of workers who, unlike laborers, 
would work with no formal training and 
no hope of advancement within the con- 
struction industry and will become a 
permanent underclass toiling at very 
low wages,” McGlotten said in the 
letters. 

The regulations were first issued in 
1981, then struck down by the courts 
in 1983 because they undermined the 
Davis-Bacon Act. The DOL reissued 
the regulations in 1987. An injunction 
against implementing the rules was 
lifted in 1990, but the case is before a 
federal appeals court. 

The regulations would abolish state 
apprenticeship councils, eliminate 
states’ rights to set higher than federal 
standards, abolish the apprenticeship- 
to-joumeymen ratio requirements, and 
allow contractors to bring into a state 
an unlimited number of apprentices. 

The regulations also would eliminate 
the 144-hour annual instruction require- 
ment in the construction industry and 
cut in half the term of apprenticeship in 
the industry. 


the pain caused by repetitive motion 
injuries. 

A single parent, Weinrich is looking 
for another way to earn a living, but 
“not very many places will hire you 
when your hands and arms are all scar- 
red up like mine,” she said. 

The workers at Monfort’s plants are 
trying to unionize. Mateo Martinez, 
who has worked at Monfort’s Greeley 
plant since 1987, recently underwent 
surgery to replace the ball in his 
shoulder socket with a metal one. Becky 
Muransky-Martinez testified for her 
husband, Mateo, who speaks little 
English. She worked at Monfort until 
she was fired last October for alleged- 
ly trimming fat from a piece of meat 
incorrectly. 

Other testimony came from victims 
with carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis 
and a worker whose hand was ampu- 
tated after a dozen operations failed. 


i 


Capitol Digest 


A Senate child labor bill that strength- 
ens regulations on hazardous work- 
ing conditions, strengthens civil and 
criminal penalties and links education 
and labor has won the backing of the 
AFL-CIO. 

S. 600, introduced by Sen. Howard 
Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), would amend 
several provisions of the Fair Labor 
Standards Act. 

“The AFL-CIO’s long-standing posi- 
tion has been that the principal occupa- 
tion of our nation’s young people ought 
to be their education,” said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. “However, those that must 
work should be able to work in condi- 
tions that further their education, are 
safe and healthful and generally con- 
ducive to the development of young 
people.” 

The AFL-CIO has sought, through 
the Department of Labor’s Child Labor 
Advisory Committee, to strengthen the 
law covering young workers and haz- 
ardous conditions, but the DOL has 
failed to issue new regulations. The 
bill’s consideration of these concerns 
“is a step in the right direction,” 
McGlotten said. 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 
FAMILY LEAVE — Family and 
medical leave legislation, H.R. 2, was 
approved by the House Education and 
Labor Committee by a voice vote and 
could be headed to the House floor in 
late April or early May. Meanwhile, the 
bill’s supporters were cheered by a 
Small Business Administration study 
that shows that it would cost companies 
more to hire and train a replacement 
than to allow the worker to take leave. 
Also, the Service Employees have 
begun a postcard campaign to boost the 
legislation. Postcards are available by 
calling Karen Skrabut at 202/898-3360. 

CIVIL RIGHTS - The House 
Judiciary Committee reported out civil 
rights legislation, H.R. 1, after turning 
back several GOP attempts to weaken 
the bill. Committee Chairman Jack 
Brooks (D-Texas) charged the Bush ad- 
ministration’s plan, also rejected by the 
committee, was “a wolf in sheep’s 
clothing. . .(and) an employers’ rights 
bill masquerading as civil rights.” 
HEALTH CARE - The Senate 
could have a comprehensive health care 
package ready later this spring, Sen. 
Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the 
National Health Forum. The AFL-CIO 
is seeking a legislative proposal that 
addresses the problems of affordabili- 
ty, access, cost and quality. Kennedy 
also said he expects major health care 
reform to pass in this Congress. The 
House Ways and Means Committee 
will begin a series of five hearings on 
health care reform beginning April 16. 

JUDGE — The AFL-CIO joined the 
NAACP and the Leadership Confer- 
ence on Civil Rights in opposing the 
nomination of Judge Kenneth Lee 
Ryskamp to the 1 1th Circuit U.S. Court 
of Appeals, challenging his record on 
civil rights issues. 



Steve Yormola/AFL-CIO News 


Mateo Martinez displays scar from shoulder surgery for a House subcom- 
mittee investigating repetitive motion injuries in the meatpacking industry. 








‘Fetal protection’ win 
boosts women, safety 


By James B. Parks 

T he Supreme Court’s decision to 
strike down Johnson Controls Inc.’s 
“fetal protection” policy is a major vic- 
tory not only for working women, but 
for safety in the workplace as well, 
unions said. 

“What the court did means employ- 
ers now have to deal with the hazards 
in the workplace,” said Peg Seminario, 
director of die AFL-CIO Department of 
Safety and Health. “They can no longer 
remove the workers. Now they are go- 
ing to have to remove the hazards.” 
The ruling is “a vindication of our 
belief that women should have every 
right to the same employment oppor- 
tunities as men,” said UAW President 
Owen Bieber and Vice Presidents 
Odessa Komer and Stan Marshall in a 
statement. Komer directs the union’s 
Women’s Department and Marshall the 
Johnson Controls Department. 

“If the court had ruled the other way 
it would have given the green light for 
employers to broaden the use of exclu- 
sionary practices against other classes 
of workers,” Seminario said. 

She said the decision is the latest vic- 
tory in a long “ongoing battle” by 
many unions against a host of exclu- 
sionary practices in various com- 
panies — a battle that is not over. 

Johnson Controls, which manufac- 
tures automobile batteries, excluded 
fertile women from certain jobs out of 
fear that lead exposure could cause birth 
defects in unborn children and leave the 
company vulnerable to lawsuits. The 


UAW challenged that policy. 

The unions argued that the policy 
discriminated against women by barring 
them from high-paying jobs in various 
industries. 

Johnson Controls gave fertile women 
the option of being sterilized or 
transferring to jobs where they are not 
exposed to lead, the principal material 
used in making batteries. 

The decision means “women cannot 
be relegated to second-class status in the 
work force,” the AFL-CIO said. 

The court ruled in UAW vs. Johnson 
Controls that the policy violated Title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 
the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act 
that amended Title VII. 

Because studies show lead also harms 
men’s reproductive systems, “the bias 
in Johnson Controls’ policy is ob- 
vious,” said Justice Harry Blackmun. 
“Fertile men, but not fertile women, 
are given a choice as to whether they 
want to risk their reproductive health 
for a particular job.” 

As many as 20 million women could 
be affected by the ruling, according to 
women’s groups. 

Blackmun said the court rejected the 
argument that gender was a bona fide 
occupational qualification (BFOQ) for 
the jobs. The case law clearly shows 
that an exception to the discrimination 
ban can only be justified if the preg- 
nancy actually interferes with the 
woman’s ability to perform the job, he 
said. 

AFL-CIO attorney Marsha Berzon, 


Earl Dotter 

Johnson Controls excluded women from working in jobs that would have 
exposed them to lead. 


who argued the case, said the Supreme 
Court’s interpretation of the BFOQ ex- 
ception was consistent with what lower 
federal courts have determined in the 
past. 

“Had the court said something else, 
it would really have opened up an enor- 
mous can of worms,” she said. 


Johnson Controls first implemented 
the fetal protection policy in 1982. The 
UAW filed a class-action suit against 
the ban in Wisconsin in 1984 on behalf 
of women excluded from jobs. Federal 
district and appeals courts had upheld 
the policy overturned by the Supreme 
Court. 


Cuba releases trade unionist imprisoned for 22 years 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

C uba announced the release March 23 
of one of two trade unionist political 
prisoners detained since the 1960s. 

The U.S. Department of State con- 
firmed the release of Ernesto Diaz 
Rodriquez, a transport worker and 
fisherman imprisoned since Dec. 4, 
1968. 

Mario Chanes de Armas, leader of a 
brewery workers union who has been 
in a Cuban jail since July 16, 1961, is 
scheduled to be released this coming 
July 16. However, that date is not final. 

The AFL-CIO and its Labor Commit- 
tee for a Free Cuba made the release 
of Chanes and Diaz a primary goal of 
its campaign to expose worker rights 
abuses in Cuba. The two are thought to 
be the longest-held political prisoners 
in the world. 

In a letter to Diaz’ father, Pedro, on 
March 25, the chairman of the AFL- 
CIO Free Cuba committee offered the 
panel’s help in arranging for Diaz to 
come to the United States. 


“It is my understanding that Ernesto 
suffers from health problems resulting 
from his long prison stay,” wrote John 
DeConcini, president of the Bakery, 
Confectionery and Tobacco Workers 
Union, “and that if he is allowed to 
enter the U.S. soon, he will need 
clothing, food, a place to stay and a 
thorough medical exam to assess his 
health needs. Our committee is pre- 
pared to help meet these emergency 
costs if you find you need such help.” 

DeConcini also told the elder Diaz 
that the State Department had promised 
to give priority to the necessary paper- 
work to allow his son to enter the 
United States. 

Ernesto Diaz opposed the Batista 
government as a student, fisherman and 
a bus driver. After the revolution, he 
opposed Fidel Castro’s regime and 
became active in the resistance move- 
ment. He was captured in 1968 and 
sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 
1974, he was sentenced to an additional 
25 years in prison for “conspiring 


against the state” from his prison cell. 

“We are delighted with die news of 
Diaz’ release,” said AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland. “The AFL-CIO 
Labor Committee for a Free Cuba is 
working very hard to lift the burden of 
oppression from that nation. We are 
eager to welcome Ernesto Diaz into the 
freedom he so richly deserves.” 

The AFL-CIO established the Labor 
Committee for a Free Cuba in August 
1990 to help Cuban workers give 
democracy a foothold through free trade 
unionism. 

Since its inception, the panel has 
compiled extensive documentation on 
worker rights violations by the Cuban 
government. Through the International 
Confederation of Free Trade Unions, 
the federation has submitted its infor- 
mation to the International Labor 
Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. 

In February of this year, the AFL- 
CIO Executive Council spelled out the 
abuses: 

“Fidel Castro’s obsessive adherence 


to a failed totalitarian system is a blight 
on the poor and exploited working 
masses of that Caribbean island prison. 
Today, Cuban workers lack the most 
fundamental freedoms. 

The council cited “forced labor, 
speedups, excessive hours of work, 
religious and ideological discrimination 
in employment, child labor and relent- 
less pressures to produce more” as part 
of Cubans’ daily working lives. 

In remarks at a “Free Cuba Day” 
luncheon Feb. 21 in Bal Harbour, 
Kirkland said “We are convinced that 
given the choice ‘Communism or 
death,’ the working people of Cuba will 
choose life — a decent, democratic life 
that respects liberty and justice and the 
dignity of every man and woman.” 

In addition to the call for release of 
Diaz and Chanes, Kirkland said the 
federation would “organize and agitate 
for democratic elections, freedom of 
association for workers and full amnes- 
ty for the other 30,000 political 
prisoners held in Cuba’s jails.” 


Unions offer $137 million giveback to keep TWA intact 


U nions at Trans World Airlines have 
arranged a $ 137-million package of 
cost reductions in an effort to facilitate 
a buyout that would keep the airline 
intact. 

To help prevent the carrier from be- 
ing stripped of its international routes, 
the Air Line Pilots, Machinists and an 
unaffiliated flight attendants federation 
agreed to offer Tracinda Corp., owned 
by investor Kirk Kerkorian, the $137 
million in cost cutbacks to help shore 
up a bid for TWA. 

Kerkorian had said he was interested 
in buying only a carrier with interna- 
tional routes. 


The reductions would be shared by 
all employees of TWA in exchange for 
ownership of up to one-third of the 
stock of a newly capitalized TWA, the 
unions said, while Kerkorian would 
hold about 50 percent and creditors the 
remaining stock. 

Under the agreement, the IAM is to 
contribute $47 million, or 34 percent of 
the total, ALPA $40 million, or 29 per- 
cent and the IFFA, $19 million, or 14 
percent. The remainder, about $31 
million, will come from all other 
employees. 

The cost savings will be realized 
through some reductions in pay rates 


and benefits, work rule changes, an ear- 
ly retirement program and other means. 

The Department of Transportation 
had set a March 25 deadline for objec- 
tions to the sale of TWA London routes 
to American Airlines. In objecting to 
the sale, ALPA said the American take- 
over of the routes would not be in the 
public interest, because it “would lead 
directly to the demise of TWA.” 

ALPA also pointed to an earlier DOT 
filing that “demonstrated that TWA’s 
current owner is letting the carrier 
waste away and may well be using the 
sale to squeeze out a final cash dividend 
before the carrier collapses.” 


TWA’s unions have charged that 
owner Carl Icahn, while demanding 
deep concessions from workers, has 
used TWA resources for his own gain, 
refusing to reinvest in the carrier. 

DOT regulators have tentatively ap- 
proved some portions of the sale, but 
have denied American’s bid to buy 
TWA’s London routes to three cities — 
Philadelphia, Baltimore and St. Louis. 

The AFL-CIO said that the efforts of 
the three unions in putting together the 
$137 million package of cost reductions 
followed a pattern of workers and their 
unions making good faith efforts to bail 
out an employer. 





Tributes and added benefits greet returning troops 



Tom Matthews/Transport Workers 


Mourners gather at funeral services for Joseph Murphy, a member of 
Transport Workers Local TOO in Roosevelt, N.Y., who was killed in Saudi 
Arabia after volunteering to serve with his Army reserve unit. His wife, 
Dorothy, is escorted from the church along with other family members. 


By Candice Johnson 

A grateful nation is greeting service 
members returning home from 
Operation Desert Storm with cheers and 
tributes. 

In Congress, that has translated into 
quick passage of added benefits — in- 
cluding some health care and job guar- 
antees for reservists and their families. 

Differences in the House and Senate 
versions were resolved through an in- 
formal conference, with the final ver- 
sion sent to President Bush just before 
Congress left for the Easter recess. 

The benefits would be financed from 
funds pledged by the United States’ 
allies in the Desert Storm effort. The 
measure would increase GI Bill educa- 
tion benefits to $350 a month, raise 
combat and family separation pay and 
increase life insurance benefits. 

The bill also provides for one 
month’s health care coverage for re- 
servists and their families. 

Under a bill introduced by Rep. Bob 
Davis (R-Mich.), merchant seaman 
who joined the Persian Gulf operation 
would be given the same re-employ- 
ment rights as military reservists. 
“Because the federal government could 
not guarantee their civilian jobs when 
the Gulf war ended, the United States 
lost out on a major pool of trained and 
licensed seagoing expertise,’’ Davis 
said. 

A separate measure signed by the 
president requires that reservists return- 
ing to their old jobs be granted im- 
mediate coverage under employer- 
sponsored health insurance plans and 
prohibits any waiting period. 

Under federal law, employers are re- 
quired to rehire reservists and National 
Guard members sent to the Persian 
Gulf. But some reservists and their 
families are still facing difficult times. 

Many employers — like Goodyear 
Tire and Rubber Co. and Bridge- 
stone/Firestone, Inc. — have extended 
military leave for workers. Food 
chains, including Safeway Stores Inc. 


and Giant Food Inc. , have agreed to pay 
employees who served overseas the dif- 
ference between their military and 
private-sector salaries. 

But a poll of Washington and Balti- 
more metropolitan employers found 
that nearly 20 percent cut the pay and 
health coverage for reservists called to 
active duty, and that fewer than one- 
third continued full health insurance 
coverage. 

“Mortgages and car payments don’t 
stop for our reservists when they’re sent 
overseas to fight for their country,’’ 
said Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 400 President Tom McNutt. 
Labor is pressing Congress to supple- 
ment the pay of all returning 
reservists — private sector workers as 
well as government employees. 

Unions are continuing their cam- 
paigns on the home front, helping the 


families of service personnel, expand- 
ing their volunteer efforts, or ferrying 
troops home. 

Fire Fighters Local 624 and the San 
Antonio Police Officers Association 
established a support group for families 
of reservists, so that families could be 
kept informed of developments. Union 
members also provided volunteer car 
maintenance, home repairs and other 
services to families of military person- 
nel and made emergency payments 
available — for utilities and other 
needs — from the IAFF local’s benev- 
olent fund. 

Letter Carriers Local 74 in Saginaw, 
Mich., raised money for the family of 
a union member whose Marines unit 
was deployed overseas. 

As a United Airlines flight attendant 
for 22 years, Association of Flight At- 
tendants member Karen Mazuer has 


served on many runs. But she considers 
her service with the civil reserve air 
fleet — bringing military men and 
women home — “some of the best fly- 
ing a flight attendant can do.’’ 

Many AFA members — who were 
required to be certified for over-water 
flying — signed up to help transport the 
troops, she said. 

From Brussels, United flight atten- 
dants prepared for a 20-hour day — a 
15 hours-in-the-air roundtrip — be- 
cause Defense Department regulations 
did not allow civilians to stay overnight 
in Saudi Arabia, she said. 

“We would go to pick them up and 
return to Brussels, then another crew 
would take over for the flight to Ban- 
gor, Maine, and then on to wherever the 
soldiers were stationed,’’ Mazuer said. 

The crew of 12 attendants served the 
passengers twice during the seven-and- 
one-half hour flight, with every seat in 
the 747 filled. “It’s hard work, but very 
rewarding,” Mazuer said. With more 
military flights scheduled, Mazuer ex- 
pected to be heading back to Europe. 

Some military personnel did not make 
the return trip. Among them was Joseph 
Murphy, a reservist and longtime mem- 
ber of the Transport Workers. 

Murphy, 57, was a veteran of the 
Korean conflict. But when his unit, the 
102nd maintenance company, Army 
Reserve, was ordered to the Persian 
Gulf, Murphy volunteered, insisting 
that his company needed its first 
sergeant. 

Arriving Jan. 11, just before the 
fighting began, Murphy was killed in 
a jeep accident in Saudi Arabia on 
March 10, just after the fighting ended. 

In addition to his union service, Mur- 
phy and his wife, Dorothy, had opened 
their Roosevelt, N.Y. home to their 
community. As emergency foster care 
parents, the Murphys raised 100 foster 
children, some to adulthood, along with 
their own four children. Their daughter, 
Janice Gowie, an army staff sergeant, 
also was deployed in Desert Storm. 


U.S.-Mexico trade proposal 
faces congressional challenge 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


More U.S. jobs will be wiped out under President Bush's proposed free trade 
agreement with Mexico, Electronic Workers President William Bywater tells 
reporters as IUE members picket the Commerce Department. 


Continued from Page 1 

It’s obvious, Hollings said, that the 
“emerging GATT deal and Mexican 
free trade agreement are so damaging 
to key sectors of our economy and the 
work force that they simply will not 
stand up under unfettered congressional 
debate.” 

Hollings warned that “these treaties 
promise more of the same ‘free trade’ 
magic that has created $100 billion-plus 
trade deficits for the last decade while 
gutting America’s manufacturing base. 
Congress is fed up with playing Uncle 
Sucker.” 

He said Japan and Europe have 
reaped enough benefits from “one- 
sided, give-away trade agreements.” 

In a letter to President Bush, House 
Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt 
(D-Mo.) cautioned that any North 
American trade accord must carry 
assurances of preserving American 
jobs. 

“Relying on low wages and unsafe 
working conditions as comparative ad- 
vantages to lure away high-paying 
American jobs will not save the Mex- 
ican economy, but it will further 
weaken the American economy,” he 
said. “In order for Mexico to prosper, 
America must prosper.” 

For a trade agreement to benefit both 
nations, he stressed, “it must contain 
guarantees that it will not result in a 


hemorrhage of American jobs across 
the border.” 

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) accused 
the U.S. Trade Representative’s nego- 
tiators of devising a scheme to sacrifice 
the U.S. textile, auto and steel in- 
dustries in multilateral trade negotia- 
tions for an agreement with Mexico. 

Helms said promises of prosperity are 
emerging again. “The same argument 
was made after the Tokyo Round of 
GATT in 1979, and instead of prosperi- 
ty, the United States developed a larger 
and larger trade deficit,” he noted. 

House Ways and Means Committee 
Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) 
and Senate Finance Committee Chair- 
man Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) also 
spelled out their concerns to Bush about 
the need of the U.S. trade negotiators 
on the Mexican FT A proposal to ad- 
dress specific issues such as worker 
rights, job safety and environmental 
damage. 

Rostenkowski told U.S. Trade Repre- 
sentative Carla Hills that she will have 
to convince Congress that the adminis- 
tration’s push for fast track renewal is 
in the best interest of the nation. 

Testifying before a subcommittee of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- 
tee, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue noted that U.S. In- 
ternational Trade Commission has con- 
ceded that “unskilled workers” would 


lose earnings as a result of the Mexican 
trade accord. 

But the commission “mysteriously 
refused to say who is counted as ‘un- 
skilled workers,’ ” Donahue said. 
While the federation is waiting for 
release of the data after filing a 
Freedom of Information Act request, 
Donahue surmised that the group in- 
cludes workers with four years of high 
school education or less. 

“This would mean that a majority of 
the U.S. working population — 52.5 
percent — would be hurt by the free 
trade agreement,” he pointed out. 

“Further up the economic ladder, the 
affluent minority would certainly bene- 


fit,” Donahue said. “Multinational cor- 
porations would hit the jackpot, just as 
they have with the maquiladoras.” 
Donahue reiterated the federation’s 
concerns that Mexican workers would 
not benefit with pay from the multina- 
tionals at 60 to 80 cents an hour while 
hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs 
would be exported to Mexico. 

In earlier testimony, Jeff Faux of the 
Economic Policy Institute said Mex- 
ico’s low wages “will clearly create a 
strong incentive for American firms to 
shift production south of the border.” 
Faux warned that the result would be 
lower living standards for American 
families. 




The 

Japan 



Former U.S. officials become 
power brokers for Japan trade 


By James B. Parks 

I n 1988, the U.S. Customs Service took on one of the 
strongest political machines in Washington — the 
Japanese trade lobby — and lost big. 

By the time the dust had cleared, the lobby had bested 
Customs, the UAW, the Big Three automakers and the 
U.S. Treasury Department. In the process, it deprived 
the deficit-ridden government coffers of more than $500 
million a year in duties. 

Since 1981 , the Japanese government had agreed to vol- 
untary limits on the number of passenger cars it would 
export to the United States. But it had no such limit on 
light trucks. There was a huge difference in the tariffs 
on the two types of vehicles: 25 percent for light trucks 
and 2.5 percent for passenger cars. 

By 1987, transplanted Japanese automobile factories in 
the United States were producing so many cars that there 
was little need for the Japanese to export more cars, leav- 
ing the export quota unfilled. Meanwhile, there was a 
growing demand for the light trucks, which faced the 
higher import duty. 

A truck is a truck? 

The solution was obvious to the Japanese. They filled 
the auto quota, at the reduced duty rate, by reclassifying 
the trucks as passenger cars. When that action prompted 
a review by customs officials in 1988, the lobbying 
machine sprang into action. 

Suzuki hired Robert Thompson, a well-connected 
Republican lobbyist who had worked for George Bush 
in the 1980s. The Japan lobby also convinced 31 represen- 
tatives and 11 senators to urge Customs to drop the 
review. 

One congressman even summoned then-Customs Com- 
missioner William von Raab to his office, where von Raab 
was confronted by a former U.S. trade official, John 
Rehm, who represented Japanese companies. 

Von Raab stood firm and, on Jan. 4, 1989, he ruled 
that light trucks were not passenger cars for tariffs. “Even 
my grandmother can go into a parking lot and tell the dif- 


ference between a passenger car and a truck. These are 
trucks,” he said. 

Japanese officials convinced the German and British 
governments to ask the United States to reconsider, which 
it did, suspending the rule just nine days after it was 
announced. 

Then the lobby launched a massive public relations cam- 
paign, claiming that the ruling would raise the price of 
trucks. Auto importers swamped Congress with letters and 
Japanese government officials implied the ruling could 
hurt relations between the two countries. 

Within 45 days, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady 
overturned Customs’ decision: it was official U.S. policy 
that trucks are cars, with a notable exception. The 
Japanese lobby convinced the Bush administration that the 
trucks that came into the United States as cars should be 
classified as trucks for sale. That way they didn’t have 
to meet the tough fuel efficiency, safety and emissions 
standards of automobiles. 

Clout in insider game 

This story illustrates the clout that the Japanese have 
developed in the insider game of Washington politics and 
raises serious questions about our political system, said 
Pat Choate. Choate, a former TRW executive, is the 
author of “Agents of Influence,” a book that describes 
the extent and impact of the Japan lobby. 

Hiring former officials to lobby, seeking political in- 
fluence through campaign contributions and using infor- 
mation to push your economic interests is not illegal; in- 
deed, it’s the heart of the American political system. But, 
Choate says, the way the Japan lobby does it gives them 
an unfair advantage and is “corroding our democratic 
principles.” 

Japan’s government and leading companies spend $400 
million a year on a concerted political and public rela- 
tions campaign to influence U.S. trade policy and open 
up new markets in this country. That’s about equal to the 
amount Democrats and Republicans combined spent in 
the 1988 races for the House and Senate. 


They employ 92 law, publi< 
firms on their behalf, compared i 
for Britain, the next two larges 
in the United States. 

They have used that clout to £ 
footholds in the U.S. television, 
automobile, financial services 
industries. 

Because there is little or no r< 
ucts in Japan, the U.S. trade d< 
$41 billion last year, putting ab 
out of work, according to Rud) 
AFL-CIO’s Economic Researc 

Money is dominant issu< 

About $100 million of the Jap 
former government officials, es 
experience, as lobbyists. One-1 
ficials in the U.S. Trade Repr 
1973 have left to become foreign 
“Money has become the dc 
political system, in the p olitic al 
post-employment practices of 
Charles Lewis, director of the C 
For many officials, Choate 
levels of government is “merel) 
permanent career as a registei 
foreign country.” 

Generally, Choate said, the J 
sider either as a lobbyist or as a ‘ 
of an advisory board” of an ag< 
also have added another lure as 
grown: equity in a business d< 
The influence of the Japanes 
it has a name, Choate said — th< 
The huge sums of money made z 
once they leave office “demonst 
ly policies toward Japan to of 
The most obvious example of 
paid to former President Reag< 
relations work for Japan’s Fu 
Group. For the money, Reag; 
position on U.S. -Japan trade th; 
by American “protectionists.’ 

Through revolving door 

A random sampling of the hu 
ment officials who have 
reads like a “who’s who” of W 
National Security Adviser 
Democratic National Chairma 
Carter advisers Stuart Eizenste 
Powell; former chairman of the 
mission William R. Albergei 
Barnes, Thomas Evans and Jan 
was named chairman of the A 
former Sens. Howard Baker, 
and Frank Church; and for: 
counsel J. Michael Farrell. 

The current Trade Represe 
several of her top deputies havi 
revolving door between gove 
former secretary of Housing 
Hills represented Japanese die 



Resume 


Robert s 


Howetowr 

Graduated; 


Stamford 


Sit y of Te; 
La * School 


1946-77 
and Feld 
c °mpa nie 
1973-76 - 


Strauss 

foreign' 
90 Purchase 


ublic relations and lobbying 
red with 55 for Canada and 42 
rgest foreign lobby investors 

to gain superiority or strong 
ion, computer, machine tool, 
/ices and dozens of other 

no reciprocity for U.S. prod- 
le deficit with Japan reached 
g about 1 million Americans 
ludy Oswald, director of the 
earch Department. 

ssue 

s Japanese money goes to hire 
s, especially those with trade 
)ne-third of the principal of- 
lepresentative’s Office since 
•eign .agents, mainly for Japan, 
e dominant influence in our 
ticalcampaigns . . . and in the 

> of public officials,” said 
be Center for Public Integrity. 
iate said, working in the top 
srely a sabbatical from a more 
;istered agent lobbying for a 

Jie Japanese hire a former in- 
is a “consultant” or “member 
n agency or a company. They 
e as the economic stakes have 
ss deal. 

anese money is so broad that 
- the “demonstration effect.” 
ade available to Japan’s friends 
lonstrates” the value of friend- 
o officials still in office, 
e of this effect is the $2 million 
.eagan for one week of public 

> Fujisankei Communications 
teagan repeated the Japanese 
le that the problem was caused 


loor 

ie hundreds of former govern- 
■f^ented Japanese companies 
rf Washington: former Reagan 
ser Richard Allen; former 
irman Robert Strauss; former 
mstat, Anne Wexler and Jody 
f the International Trade Com- 
jrger; former Reps. Michael 
1 James R. Jones, who recently 
ie American Stock Exchange; 
ter, Birch Bayh, John Culver 
former Energy Department 
il. 

>resentative, Carla Hills, and 
have traveled full circle in the 
government and lobbying. A 
ing and Urban Development, 
: clients after she left office, as 


The revolving door between government service and the Japan lobby can be seen 
dramatically in the career of former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Strauss, who has 
come full circle from lobbying to government and back to lobbying, where he now 
represents several foreign firms. 


did many of her current deputies. Now they represent the 
United States in negotiations with the Japanese govern- 
ment. 

These ongoing relationships raise an issue of trust, 
Choate said. “What the American people have to ask is: 
can we trust officials who know when they go into office 
they will represent the other side when they leave? Can 
we trust them not to give away information or not to pull 
their punches? Too often the answer is ‘no.’ “It sends 
a message that the government is for sale,” he said. 

Political contributions 

The Japanese also spend money to get politicians 
elected. Although direct campaign contributions from 
foreign nationals are illegal, foreign-owned companies can 
operate political action committees (PACs). One of the 
largest PACs is the Auto Dealers and Drivers for Free 
Trade PAC (AUTOPAC), which raised $4.5 million in 
1988, dumping $1.4 million into just seven congressional 
campaigns for candidates. 

Democrat Buddy McKay lost the Florida U.S. Senate 
seat by 31,000 votes to Connie Mack after a $326,000 
negative ad campaign by AUTOPAC. “In the final 
analysis. . .1 was beaten by Toyota,” McKay said. 

The Japanese also have infiltrated or taken over ad hoc 
groups such as the Consumers for World Trade, over half 
of whose members work for Subaru. 


The Japan lobby also spends large amounts on public 
relations campaigns designed to blunt or prevent public 
criticism of the Japanese. It also finances university 
centers for Japanese studies, raising the question of 
whether those programs are academically independent, 
Choate said. 

Changing the law 

How can America combat the Japan lobby’s blatant at- 
tempt to further its economic interests? Choate says the 
solutions are simple: 

First, have a full “sunshine law” that makes all foreign 
agents register as agents and not hide behind phony titles 
such as “consultants,” “advisers,” etc. 

Second, close the revolving door. Make it illegal for 
trade officials or any government official to go to work 
for a foreign company or government for five years after 
they leave office. Former Cabinet-level officials should 
not be allowed to work for foreign interests ever, he said. 

Third, make foreign PAC money illegal. 

But the most important reform, he said, is an intangi- 
ble one: restore the concept of public service and 
strengthen the Civil Service. 

“There are too many hustlers” in government service, 
he said. Until the American people wake up and decide 
to do something about them, the Japan lobby will con- 
tinue to thrive, he said. 


UNION NEWS 


IUD delegates blanket Hill with labor’s concerns 



AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland addresses the 1,300 delegates to the IUD legislative conference. 


By John R. Oravec 

I t was a virtual Labor Week on the Hill 
as 1,300 delegates to the Industrial 
Union Department legislative con- 
ference fanned out around the U.S. 
Capitol for sit-down sessions with their 
senators and representatives. 

Their immediate focus was on con- 
vincing members of the House and 
Senate to pass a ban on the permanent 
replacement of striking workers and to 
vote down the Bush administration’s at- 
tempt to ram through a U.S. -Mexico 
free trade proposal under a “fast-track” 
rule. 

Delegates from just about every state 
in the nation to the two-day IUD meet- 
ing also underlined labor’s priorities for 
gaining passage of national health care 
reform, family and medical leave, the 
Civil Rights Act of 1991 and stronger 
job safety measures. 

The IUD sessions, which brought an 
attendance double that of any previous 
departmental conference, were held in 
conjunction with legislative rallies of 
several unions who are IUD affiliates. 

Gut issues before Congress that di- 
rectly affect the collective bargaining 
rights and well-being of workers 
throughout the country generated the 
largest-ever turnout of delegates, IUD 
President Howard D. Samuel said in 
opening the sessions. 

Members of Congress who reiterate 
management’s opposing arguments 
must hear the workers’ side in the ef- 
fort to restore balance in labor- 
employer relations, Samuel stressed. 

Management’s rights are clearly 
documented, he pointed out. It can 
“hire and fire, or contract out, or shift 
production to Mexico or the Far East, 
or to close a plant.” Management also 
can “advertise for replacement 
workers, deliberately bargain to im- 
passe, forcing workers to strike, and 
then permanently replace them.” 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
commended the IUD’s role in the 
legislative campaign to outlaw perma- 
nent replacement of strikers, noting that 


By Arlee C. Green 

S ome 400 union activists from five 
AFL-CIO affiliates carried a strong 
message from labor on health care, per- 
manent replacement of strikers and the 
U.S. -Mexico free trade pact to Capitol 
Hill, as part of the fifth annual 
ABCG&R legislative conference. 

The four unions that have traditional- 
ly held the conference — the Alum- 
inum, Brick and Glass Workers, Flint 
Glass Workers, Chemical Workers and 
Rubber Workers — were joined this 
time by the Oil, Chemical and Atomic 
Workers. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue stressed the need for “jobs 
and health and our ability to protect 
both’’ — a message that union 
members later took to their congres- 
sional delegations in face-to-face 
meetings. 

Donahue criticized suggestions that 
the proposed U.S. -Mexico free trade 
pact could be phased in over five years 
and that workers who lose their jobs 
could be provided trade adjustment 
assistance (TAA). 


nearly half of the House and almost 
one-third of the Senate have signed on 
as co-sponsors of H.R. 5 and S. 55. 

“When an employer can legally and 
permanently supplant his striking work 
force with lower-paid scabs, culled 
from the ranks of the jobless and 
desperate, there is no balance,” 
Kirkland pointed out. “When the law 
is actually an incentive for a company 
to provoke a strike, rid itself of the 
union and re-establish dictatorial con- 
trol over the workplace, there is no 
balance.” 

Kirkland said the labor movement’s 
struggle to build a better future for 
working people takes on greater urg- 
ency during the current recession. Con- 
gress and the nation must respond to the 


“The answer to both is no,” Dona- 
hue declared. “We will end up just as 
unemployed in five years as we would 
be now,” noting also that TAA can 
easily be eliminated, as it is in Bush’s 
current budget request. 

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), 
who is pushing for health care reform 
in this Congress, urged the participants 
to make Congress hear labor’s health 
care message. 

Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), 
sponsor of the bill to ban the permanent 
replacement of strikers (S. 55 in the 
Senate), noted that the United States 
should be ashamed of sharing “this per- 
manent scab policy with the country of 
South Africa.” 

Permanent replacements are banned 
elsewhere in industrialized countries. 

AFGW President Lawrence Bankow- 
ski pointed out that, since the last round 
of trade talks in Toyko, 15,000 mem- 
bers lost their jobs. 

“Other nations are copying items 
produced by our members and they only 
pay their workers one-tenth the wages 
of U.S. workers,” he said. “If tariffs 


domestic agenda just as was done in ad- 
dressing the crisis in the Persian Gulf, 
he said. 

“There is no excuse for rising 
unemployment in an era of crumbling 
public infrastructure and so many 
critical needs in the area of housing, 
education and transportation.” 
Delegates stood and cheered when he 
called for a massive turnout for 
Solidarity Day 1991 “to show the na- 
tion that this labor movement is as 
strong as ever in its fight for justice.” 
In keynoting the conference, Presi- 
dent Jay Mazur of the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers underscored the need to quick- 
ly address the economic crisis. 

“If we could liberate Kuwait from 
Saddam Hussein, we should be able to 


are reduced, our union is in serious 
trouble.” 

The New York state legislature has 
asked its congressional delegation to 
support the striker replacement legisla- 
tion, said ABGW President Ernest J. 
LaBaff. ‘ ‘We need to start on this level, 
at the grass roots, to win this legisla- 
tion,” he stressed. 

OCAW President Joseph Misbrener 
and URW President Kenneth Coss both 
gave examples of why the striker 
replacement legislation is so important 
to union workers. 

Chemical Workers President Frank 
Martino, chairman of the conference, 
served as moderator for the two-day 
event. 

Other guest speakers included Sen. 
Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), Reps. David 
Bonior (D-Mich.), Vic Fazio (D- 
Calif.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and 
Thomas Sawyer (D-Ohio), AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert McGlotten, 
COPE Director John Perkins, author 
Pat Choate, and Dr. David Himmels- 
tein of Physicians for National Health 
Care. 


liberate America from a recession that 
threatens to become a depression,” 
Mazur told the delegates. 

Members of Congress addressing the 
conference were House Majority 
Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), 
Reps. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), 
chairman of the Education and Labor 
Committee; Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), 
Thomas Andrews (D-Maine), Maxine 
Waters (D-Calif.) and Nita Lowey (D- 
N.Y.), as well as Sen. Paul Wellstone 
(D-Minn.). 

The IUD and the department’s affili- 
ates were the prime sponsors of a rally 
that brought hundreds of union mem- 
bers in a coalition with religious leaders 
to the Capitol grounds calling for pass- 
age of a ban on striker replacements. 

Boilermakers 
lobby Congress 

C oncerns about health care, striker re- 
placements and the proposed U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement were high 
on the agenda of the Boilermakers’ 23rd 
annual legislative conference. 

“We are not here for any far-out 
goals,” said Boilermakers President 
Charles Jones. “What we want is 
decent jobs and a decent standard of liv- 
ing for Boilermakers and for all Amer- 
ican workers.” 

“We are always glad when the peo- 
ple from reality come in to talk to politi- 
cians,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treas- 
urer Thomas R. Donahue. 

“You can’t sit through another 
negotiation and get another piece of 
your wages sliced off,” Donahue said. 
“Congress has to be urged to do 
something.” 

Other speakers at the conference 
were Rep. Neal Abercrombie (D-Ha- 
waii) and Dick Marler, senior vice pres- 
ident of Ingalls Shipbuilding. The union 
presented its Legislator of the Year 
Award to Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.). 


Five unions coordinate legislative campaign 





CWA Photo/Day Walters 

Congressional action on measures for health care reform Communications Workers, CWA President Morton Bahr 
and banning striker replacements are top priorities for tells legislative conference delegates. 

CWA: Outlaw striker replacements 


Los Angeles 
unions press 
Gates ouster 

Los Angeles 

L abor added its voice to the rapidly 
growing public outcry for the resig- 
nation of the chief of police of the 
United States’ second-largest city. 

Los Angeles County AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Secretary William Robertson, 
appearing at a jammed news conference 
March 19, announced the unanimous 
adoption of a resolution by the central 
body’s council of delegates, demanding 
that Daryl Gates step down as head of 
the 8, 500-member police force (LAPD). 

In calling for Gates’ resignation, the 
county labor federation joined civil 
rights and ethnic groups outraged by the 
March 3 beating of an unarmed black 
motorist by three officers while 11 
others, including a sergeant, stood by 
and watched. 

The county federation resolution said 
the “brutal assault. . .is only the latest 
in a pattern of unrestrained police con- 
duct directed at citizens, particularly 
members of minority groups.” 

Last June, members of Service Em- 
ployees Local 399, marching in support 
of their Justice for Janitors campaign, 
were charged and attacked by armed 
and helmeted police outside high-rise 
office buildings in Century City, part 
of Los Angeles. 

Nearly 40 persons were hospitalized, 
including a pregnant woman. Jim Zel- 
lers, president of Local 399 and an 
SEIU vice president, was among those 
beaten up. 

At a special hearing called by the 
L.A. police commission, Robertson 
confronted Gates, saying: 

“Chief Gates, as a public official, 
you owe a special responsibility to the 
people you are sworn to protect and 
serve. When the public loses confidence 
in you and in the department you have 
only one real choice. You must step 
aside . . . now is the time for you to do 
the right thing.” 

LAPD has maintained a working 
relationship with trade unions through 
the department’s labor liaison squad. 
However, the Century City incident and 
other developments, including the ar- 
rest of Robertson and other union lead- 
ers in a demonstration at the Hyatt 
Regency Hotel last year, have strained 
that relationship. 

New Jersey law 
enacted to ban 
homework abuse 

A New Jersey state law has reinforced 
a federal ban on industrial home- 
work in women’s apparel by expanding 
the ban to the manufacture of men’s 
garments. 

The measure, signed March 4 by 
Gov. James Florio, bans all homework 
in the production of men’s and women’s 
clothing. The law provides “an extra 
layer of protection” in the event that the 
Labor Department lifts the federal ban 
on homework, as it has already done in 
production of women’s outerwear, the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers said. 

The law’s sponsors noted that New 
Jersey has as many as 300 sweatshop 
operations, run by unlicensed manufac- 
turers, who ignore state wage, hour and 
child labor laws. The complete ban on 
homework will make it easier to pros- 
ecute violators of the law, the union 
said. 


By Candice Johnson 

D elegates to the Communications 
Workers’ political and legislative 
conference set plans for “Health Care 
Action Week” and raised the stakes in 
labor’s campaign to win a ban on the 
permanent replacement of strikers. 

With health care reform and the 
striker replacement ban designated as 
the union’s top legislative priorities, 
CWA members discussed activities and 
informational picketing on health care 
planned for the week of June 3-9, then 
rallied with hundreds of other unionists 
at the Capitol in pressing Congress to 
enact the striker replacement bills. 

During the four-day session, the 650 
delegates heard from key union and 
legislative representatives in morning 
sessions. Afternoons were spent in 
workshops and on Capitol Hill, meeting 


U nion officers and stewards from 
Clothing and Textile Workers locals 
in 14 states came to Washington for a 
week’s work on lobbying, political ac- 
tion and legislative activities. 

For many of the 35 ACTWU 
delegates, the institute marked their first 
experience meeting with legislators, 
tracking bills and planning political 
activities. 

The unionists met with ACTWU 
President Jack Sheinkman and 
Secretary-Treasurer Arthur Loevy, as 


T he Union Privilege Health Needs 
Service, a discount mail-order 
medication service for union members, 
is focusing its efforts on prescription 
medicine. 

Sales of non-prescription health 
items — vitamins, diet aids and over- 
the-counter medicines, among 
others — have been discontinued, said 
David Silberman, Union Privilege 
president. 

The Health Needs Service said con- 
centrating on prescriptions would 
simplify adminstration of the program, 
which now helps union members save 
as much as 30 percent off prices at 
neighborhood drugstores, Silberman 
said. 

The program is especially helpful to 
those whose prescription medications 
are not covered by insurance, or those 


with members of Congress on CWA’s 
legislative goals, which also include 
curbing electronic monitoring in the 
workplace, defeating the U.S. -Mexico 
free trade proposal, and enacting fam- 
ily leave and anti-discrimination 
measures. 

CWA President Morton Bahr said the 
union would take up at its June conven- 
tion the question of whether to give 
political support to legislators who do 
not back striker replacement measures. 
Several other unions have announced 
they will not support members of Con- 
gress who oppose the bills. 

On health care, Bahr said that the 
United States seemed to be “the only 
country in the world that can spend 
$650 billion a year on health care and 
keep just about everybody unhappy with 
the results. We cannot continue to in- 


well as with political and legislative 
representatives from both ACTWU and 
the AFL-CIO. 

Following sessions on legislative 
issues, including striker replacement 
and the proposed free trade agreement 
with Mexico, and workshops on lobby- 
ing and PACs, delegates went to 
Capitol Hill to meet with their congres- 
sional representatives. 

The ACTWU members also joined 
unionists from the Industrial Union 
Department’s legislative conference in 


who must take daily medications on a 
long-term basis, Silberman said. 

“Every year we see pharmaceutical 
price hikes outpace inflation,” said 
Robert Tahler, Union Privilege vice 
president. “We hope to cushion the 
blow to the member by doing this.” 

The problems associated with rising 
prescription drug costs came up 
repeatedly in a series of health care 
hearings held by the AFL-CIO across 
the country in the fall of 1990. 

In a hearing in Chicago in September, 
transplant patient Marie Shook spoke of 
having to bargain with another trans- 
plant patient for a $600 bottle of lifesav- 
ing medication. In Detroit in October, 
nursing home worker Attevlie Bridges 
told the panel, “I don’t take all of the 
medication I am supposed to, because 
I can’t afford to buy it.” 


vest in a system delivering such a pitiful 
return on our investment.” 

Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.) 
warned that the proposed free trade 
agreement would create a massive 
migration of U.S. jobs to Mexico, and 
would enable employers to threaten 
American workers with exporting their 
jobs. 

“We cannot maintain a middle class 
work force and continue to export 
American jobs,” he said. 

Other speakers included Sen. Paul 
Wellstone (D-Minn.); Reps. Pete Stark 
(D-Calif.), Pat Williams (D-Mont.), 
Ben Jones, (D-Ga.), Maxine Waters 
(D-Calif.), John Bryant (D-Texas), and 
Larry Smith (D-Fla.); Eleanor Holmes 
Norton, delegate from the District of 
Columbia and Patricia Worthy of the 
D.C. Public Utilities Commission. 


a rally at the Capitol to support the bill 
to ban the permanent replacement of 
strikers. 

Among the members of Congress 
who met with the ACTWU unionists 
were Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) 
and Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), 
Lane Evans (D-Ill.), Joan Kelly Horn 
(D-Mo.) and Craig Washington 
(D-Texas). 

The 1991 session marked the 42nd 
consecutive year that ACTWU has held 
its COPE-legislative institute. 


The Union Privilege program pro- 
vides discount mail-order service for 
participating unions. There is no enroll- 
ment charge or annual fee; home 
delivery usually takes 10 to 14 days, 
with no charge for postage and handl- 
ing. Every family member is eligible 
for the program. 

In addition, the plan offers an “open 
credit” that allows participants to defer 
payments during a union-sanctioned 
strike of 30 days or more. 

Members of the participating unions 
may join by sending their name, ad- 
dress, phone number, Social Security 
number, name of their international 
union and local, lodge or district 
number to Union Privilege Health 
Needs Service, c/o National Pharmacies 
Inc., P.O. Box 1000, Elmwood Park, 
N.J. 07407. 


ACTWU conferees pick up legislative skills 


Union Privilege shifts focus to prescriptions 





Food, energy 
prices ease 
inflation woe 



1978 ’79 ’80 ’81 ’82 ’83 ’84 ’85 ’86 ’87 ’88 ’89 ’90 ’91 


Source: AFL-CIO Department of Economic Research 


Minimum wage rise is small benefit 


S tatistically, workers got a break from 
the inflationary rat race in February 
as lower fuel and food costs held the 
rise in the consumer price index for ur- 
ban wage earners (CPI-W) to 0.1 per- 
cent, although core inflation remained 
high. 

Excluding the volatile energy and 
food components, the index jumped 0.7 
percent and was 5.4 percent ahead of 
February 1990. The overall CPI-W was 
up 5.1 over the past 12 months, the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. 

The bureau said prices at gas pumps 
declined 7.4 percent from January, but 
were up 10.1 percent over the year. 
Heating oil prices dropped 5.5 percent 
over the month and were down 5 per- 
cent from the year-ago month. 

The increase in public transportation 
fares slowed to 0.5 percent and were 
12.3 percent above February 1990. 
New car prices increased 0.8 percent 
for a 3.1 -percent rise over the year. 

February food prices slipped 0. 1 per- 
cent, led by a 2-percent decline in fruits 
and vegetables, but were up 3. 1 percent 
over the year. 

Clothing prices surged 1 .3 percent in 
February after climbing 0.9 percent in 
January, and were up 4.6 percent over 
the last 12 months. Medical care costs 
increased 0.6 percent over the month, 
soaring 9.2 percent over the year — by 
far the fastest-rising component in the 
consumer index. 

Stamps and booze 

Higher postal rates, including the 
4-cent jump in a first-class stamp to 29 
cents, reflected a 4.1 -percent surge in 
the “housekeeping services” index. 
Excise tax increases, which went into 
effect at the start of the year, pushed up 
the costs of alcoholic beverages 3.2 per- 
cent in February. This component rose 
11.5 percent over the year, BLS said. 

Real weekly earnings of non-super- 
visory workers rose 0.5 percent over 
the month due to a 0.6 percent pickup 
of average weekly hours. Average 
hourly wages were unchanged at $10.24 
in current dollars. 

Because of the 5. 1 -percent rise in the 
price index, real weekly earnings were 
down 2.5 percent from February 1990, 
BLS said. With prices climbing faster 
than wages over the past 10 years, real 
earnings were down 6.4 percent from 
February 1981, according to AFL-CIO 
economist Anne Draper. 

In other economic reports: 

• Industrial production dropped 0.8 
percent in February, the fifth con- 
secutive monthly decline that includes 
downturns of 0.5 percent in January and 
1.1 percent in December, the Federal 
Reserve Board said. 

The February drop left the nation’s 
factories, mines and utilities operating 
at 79. 1 percent of capacity, down from 
79.9 percent in January and the lowest 
level since late 1986. 

• Housing starts in February rose to 
an annual rate of 989,000 units — a rise 
of 16.4 percent from January, but 32.2 
percent below February 1990, when 
home construction was running at an 
annual rate of 1.46 million units. 


By John R. Oravec 

T he federal minimum wage rose to 
$4.25 an hour April 1 for the nation’s 
lowest paid workers. 

But even with the 45-cent increase 
over the $3.80 rate set a year earlier, 
millions of workers still will be trapped 
in poverty with a pay floor that is much 
less than half of the average hourly 
wage. The minimum slipped below the 
40-percent level during the Reagan and 
Bush administrations. 

The new rate brings the minimum to 
just over 41 percent of the $10.34 ex- 
pected average in April, AFL-CIO chief 
economist Rudy Oswald pointed out. In 
February, hourly wages for non-super- 
visory workers averaged $10.24. 

At $4.25 an hour, a minimum wage 
worker would draw $170 for 40 hours 
on the job. That works out to a pay raise 
of $18 over the week from the old rate 
of $3.80 an hour. 

The new minimum will provide a 
full-time worker with an annual income 
of $8,500. 

But if that worker must support two 
dependents, the family income will be 
$2,146 below the federally established 


I mports of manufactured goods ac- 
counted for most of January’s $7 
billion foreign trade deficit, which 
widened by 1 1 percent over the month, 
the Commerce Department reported. 

Incoming shipments of industrial sup- 
plies, clothing, autos and parts pushed 
up the overall U.S. import bill by $1 .9 
billion to $41.5 billion. Exports in- 
creased by $1 .2 billion to $34.5 billion. 

The deficit in manufactured goods 
alone amounted to $5.8 billion, with 
imports rising by $500 million from 
December to $3 1 billion while exports 
rose just $20 million to $25.2 billion. 

Imports of crude oil and petroleum 
products in January amounted to $5.2 
billion — about one sixth of the nation’s 
invoice for worker-intensive factory 
products. 

While the United States made some 


poverty level as calculated to February 
1991 adjustments, federation economist 
Anne Draper noted. A base wage of 
$5.17, or just slightly over 50 percent 
of the average hourly wage, would be 
needed for a family of three to get above 
the $10,746 poverty line. 

Draper said a minimum wage income 
for a family of four would be $5,279 
below a poverty level estimate of 
$13,779. Just to get even with the 
poverty threshold, that family would 
need an income of $6.62 an hour. 

32 million in poverty 

Census Bureau data showed that 32 
million Americans — including adults 
and children — were trapped in poverty. 

Throughout much of the 1950s and 
’60s, the federal minimum was above 
50 percent of the average hourly wage 
as Congress periodically amended the 
1938 Fair Labor Standards Act to 
relieve the pressure on the working 
poor. 

In 1950, for example, the federal 
minimum of 75 cents an hour was 56 
percent of the average hourly wage. In 
February 1968, when the minimum was 


gains in exports of manufactured goods, 
aircraft exports slipped by $400 million 
to $1.5 billion. 

The Commerce Department data 
showed the trade deficit in autos, 
trucks, components and parts amounted 
$3.2 billion as imports outran exports 
in January $5.4 billion to $2.2 billion. 

Any hopes for relief from excessive 
auto imports during the nation’s deep- 
ening recession dimmed in mid-March 
as President Bush turned a cold shoulder 
on the chairmen of the Big Three U.S. 
automakers. White House spokesmen 
said there is virtually no chance the ad- 
ministration would support any import 
restrictions even as Japanese auto- 
makers claimed a wider share of the 
U.S. market. 

Meanwhile, clothing imports shot up 
by $600 million to $2.2 billion, while 


raised 20 cents, the $1.60 an hour rate 
was 57.6 percent of the average wage. 

The rate was at 48.3 percent of the 
average wage in January 1980 before 
falling sharply during the Reagan and 
Bush years. With the rising cost of liv- 
ing and no upgrade in the minimum, the 
pay floor slipped to 39.5 percent in 
1985 and continued falling to 33.4 per- 
cent in 1990. The minimum remained 
stuck at $3.35 an hour for nine years. 

In April 1989, Congress adopted 
labor-backed legislation that would 
raise the minimum in three steps to 
$4.55 an hour. Bush refused to go 
along, insisting that the top step be 
limited to $4.25 an hour, which would 
not kick in until 1992, and vetoed the 
higher pay floor. 

Congress settled on a compromise 
measure, and in late 1989 approved the 
bill that brought the $4.25 wage into ef- 
fect a year earlier than Bush had pro- 
posed. 

The pay floor applies to all firms with 
an annual business volume of more than 
$500,000, as well as to public agencies, 
schools, hospitals and non-profit organ- 
izations. 


exports slipped $185 million for a 
deficit of just under $2 billion for the 
month. Footwear imports rose to $834 
million and exports fell to $37 million. 
Last year, Bush vetoed labor-backed 
legislation that would have curbed im- 
ports to save jobs of American apparel 
and shoe workers. 

The deficit with Japan widened by 
$100 million to $3.5 billion, while the 
January trade loss with the Asian Rim 
countries of Singapore, South Korea, 
Hong Kong and Taiwan narrowed by 
$200 million to $1 billion. The deficit 
with Canada eased to $436 million. But 
the trade gap with China grew by $160 
million to $914 million. 

The United States posted a $1.1 -bil- 
lion trade surplus with Western Europe, 
although the edge narrowed by $500 
million from December. 


Manufactured goods imports boost deficit 






Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


Polish President Lech Walesa (right) meets at Blair House 
in Washington with AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
Service Employees President John Sweeney and Elec- 
trical Workers President John Barry. Walesa toured the 


United States in search of investment in Poland, and 
convinced President Bush to forgive much of Poland's 
debt. Walesa thanked Kirkland and the U.S. labor 
movement for their continuing support. 



The Chrysler Corp. eliminated five 
directors from its board, including 
UAW President Owen Bieber. “It is 
a mistake to deny labor a voice on the 
board,” Bieber told a press conference. 
“But it’s one that the union won’t suf- 
fer from.” 

In 1979, in an agreement that helped 
pull Chrysler from the brink of 
bankruptcy, the UAW was given one 
position on the board. Former UAW 
President Douglas A. Fraser held the 
spot until 1983, when he retired. Bieber 
joined the board the following year. 
Both excused themselves during any 
board discussion of collective bargain- 
ing. Bieber has been donating his an- 
nual board pay, which reached $33,000 
last year, to the Grand Valley State 
University in Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Service Employees Vice President 
Rosemary Trump, president of SEIU 
Local 585 in Pittsburgh, and Secretary 
of Labor Lynn Martin on March 21 
presented Danuta Walesa with five 
portable mammogram machines for use 
in Poland. The machines were donated 
by General Electric at the request of 
SEIU, which provides health care 
assistance to Poland under a union-to- 
union agreement worked out with 
Solidarnosc in 1989. Last year, SEIU 
President John J. Sweeney, after learn- 
ing first hand of Polish health care 
needs, arranged for the shipment of 1 1 
tons of free infant formula, vitamins 
and antibiotics to Poland. 

Two labor representatives have been 
named to the 45-member Environmen- 
tal Protection Agency Clean Air Act ad- 
visory committee. Leo C. Zeferetti, 
legislative and political director of the 
AFL-CIO Building and Construction 
Trades Department, and Mary 
Masulla, legal counsel of the Sheet 
Metal Occupational Health Institute, 
will join business executives, educators, 
physicians and environmental experts in 
the committee’s first meeting in 
Washington on April 1 1 . 

Julius Uehlein, former president of 
the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, has been 
nominated to a seat on the state Public 
Utility Commission. The appointment 
by Gov. Robert P. Casey (D) is subject 
to state Senate confirmation and would 
run through May 1996. 

Ron Silver has been nominated for 
a three-year term as president of Ac- 


tors’ Equity, to succeed outgoing presi- 
dent Colleen Dewhurst, who did not 
seek re-election. The deadline for mail- 
ing ballots is April 25. The union’s 
nominating committee also nominated 
as officers: Patrick Quinn, first vice 
president; Richard W. Pugh, second 
vice president; Arne Gundersen, third 
vice president; Werner Klemperer, 
fourth vice president; Lynn Archer, 
recording secretary and Conrad 
Fowkes, treasurer. 

AWARDS 

Lynn R. Williams, president of the 
Steelworkers, will receive the inaugural 
Arthur J. Goldberg Award at a national 
Israel tribute dinner May 7 in Washing- 
ton. AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland is honorary chairman for the 
tribute dinner, which is being held in 
association with the State of Israel Bond 
Organization and is named in memory 
of the CIO attorney who became sec- 
retary of labor, a Supreme Court justice 
and ambassador to the United Nations. 

Dinner co-chairmen are: Communi- 
cations Workers President Morton 
Bahr, Service Employees President 
John J. Sweeney, Food and Commer- 
cial Workers President William H. 
Wynn, and labor lawyers Elliot 
Bredhoff and Larry Cohen. 

DEATHS 

Joseph P. Selly, who led the 1935 
strike that led to the 1938 Supreme 
Court decision on the permanent 
replacement of strikers, died of cancer 
March 13 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He 
was 85. 

Selly was president of the American 
Radio Association and its predecessor 
union for nearly 30 years, and later was 
an organizer for the Teamsters. 


In 1935, he led the American Radio 
and Telegraphists Association strike in 
New York and San Francisco that re- 
sulted in the Supreme Court’s Mackay 
decision in 1938. While the court 
agreed that the company would be in 
violation of the then-new National 
Labor Relations Act to fire strike 
leaders, it created the anomaly in the 
law that allowed employers to “per- 
manently replace” strikers. 

Lewis W. Johnson, a longtime 
representative with the AFL-CIO 
Department of International Affairs, 
died of pneumonia Feb. 26 in Rock- 
ledge, Fla. He was 87. 

He joined the AFL’s international af- 
fairs staff in 1949 and continued to 
serve as a representative of the depart- 
ment after the 1955 merger with the 
CIO. He retired from the federation 
staff in 1980. In a letter to his son, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said, “All of us who had the privilege 
to know and work with him will miss 
the example of dedication that he 
brought to the goals of the labor move- 
ment.” 

Johnson had been a member of the 
old International Typographical Union 
since 1926 when he went to work for 
the Columbus Dispatch and served as 
the ITU chapel chairman at the Ohio 
daily. For a number of years, Johnson 
had been the joint legislative represen- 
tative of the Ohio AFL and the Ohio 
CIO. 

Johnson also had been a member of 
the Newspaper Guild and served as 
public relations director of the AFL 
Labor League for Human Rights. Later, 
Johnson was the AFL-CIO represen- 
tative on the executive board of CARE, 
the international relief organization. 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Heinz-Werner Meyer, president of Deutscher Gerwerkschaftsbund, the Ger- 
man trade union federation, met with AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
at the federation's headquarters. The two discussed possible mutual pro- 
grams between the two labor organizations. 



PUBLICATIONS 

Child Care, Almost Ours: An AFL- 
CIO Guide to Implementing Child 
Care Laws is designed to make union 
members aware of the new benefits 
under the child care law passed in Con- 
gress last year. The booldet is available 
from the AFL-CIO Pamphlet Division, 
Room 209, 815 16th St. N.W., Wash- 
ington, D.C. 20006. First copy is free. 
Fifty cents per copy from 2 to 100. 

Exploiting Both Sides: U.S.-Mexico 
Free Trade explains the social and 
economic effects of an agreement pro- 
posed by President Bush. Pamphlet No. 
220. To obtain copies contact the AFL- 
CIO Pamphlet Division, Room 209, 
815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20006. 

CONFERENCES 

The 1991 Education Conference 
will be held at the Bal Harbour Sheraton 
in Miami from Tuesday, April 9 
through Saturday, April 13. The pro- 
gram will feature sessions on multi- 
cultural diversity, union administration 
and international labor affairs, as well 
as updates on current legislative topics. 
For more information, contact Ed Czar- 
necki at the AFL-CIO Education 
Department, 202/637-5146. 

A Conference for PACs, sponsored 
by the Federal Election Commission, 
will be held May 2-3 at the Sheraton- 
Carlton Hotel in Washington. The con- 
ference will cover campaign finance 
laws, how organizations can enhance 
participation in the political process, 
and how to set up a separate segregated 
fund. For more information, contact the 
FEC’s Information Services Division at 
800/424-9530 or 202/376-3120. 

TESTIMONY 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas Donahue testified before the 
U.S. Senate Committee on Finance on 
current U.S.-Mexico Free Trade 
Negotiations. Copies available from the 
AFL-CIO Pamphlet Division, Room 
209, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, 
D.C. 20006. 

Bridgeknight slacks 
added to boycott list 

T he Bridgeknight brandname of 
Master Apparel of Somerville, 
Tenn., has been placed on the AFL- 
CIO boycott list at the request of the 
Electronic Workers. 

The company, which manufactures 
men’s and boys’ trousers and slacks, 
has refused to bargain in good faith 
since the workers voted two years ago 
to be represented by IUE. A majority 
of the 200 workers chose the union to 
address problems such as low wages, 
no sick days, no retirement plan and in- 
adequate health insurance. 

The National Labor Relations Board 
also issued a complaint last year that 
Master Apparel violated the law by 
threatening to discharge workers for 
distributing union literature, inter- 
rogating a worker about union activity 
and promising increased benefits if the 
workers withdrew their support of the 
union. 

The settlement agreement included an 
arrangement to post a notice to the 
employees that they will bargain in 
good faith. However, the company has 
not complied. 






Momentum builds for permanent replacement ban 


Continued from Page 1 

conferences joined in a show of concern 
over the permanent replacement of 
strikers during a Capitol Hill rally 
organized by the AFL-CIO Industrial 
Union Department. 

Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), 
who introduced the Senate bill, ad- 
dressed the Capitol Hill rally, question- 
ing the morals of employers who use 
permanent replacement workers. 

“Employers used to go the extra mile 
to prevent a strike,” Metzenbaum said. 
“Now they are hell-bent to provoke a 
strike. These employers have no sense 
of loyalty to their workers. They have 
no interest in fairness, or in collective 
bargaining. Their goal is to escalate 
strikes into bitter confrontations which 
destroy lives and cripple unions.” 

Unionists also are working at the state 
level, and have been rewarded most 
recently with the introduction of pro- 
posals in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New 
York and Minnesota. 

With the shouts of “no scabs” from 
union supporters echoing in the 
background, Pennsylvania state Rep. 
Mike Veon sponsored an eight-bill 
reform package that would ban the per- 
manent replacement of strikers. 

In Delaware, a proposal would, 
among other provisions: ban the hiring 
of professional strikebreakers; limit 
advertisements for replacement 
workers, including requiring the ad to 
state that a strike is in progress, and 
mandate continued health and insurance 
benefits for replaced workers. 

A measure introduced Feb. 5 in the 
New York legislature would allow the 
state attorney to seek a state court in- 
junction prohibiting the hiring of 
replacement workers by an employer 
involved in a labor dispute. 

The Minnesota House approved a bill 


Daily News strikers received loud' applause as they march in New York's St. Patrick's Day parade. 


Tom Matthews 


that would prohibit employers from hir- 
ing permanent replacement workers 
during a bona fide strike or lockout. 

Meanwhile, AFL-CIO Legislative 
Director Robert McGlotten is encourag- 
ing all union members to contact their 
representatives with postcards, urging 
them to restore the balance in labor- 
management relations by co-sponsoring 
the bills. McGlotten described the 
postcards as the first step in the 
legislative campaign. 


Oscar hears about strikebreaking 


T he pain of workers who are “per- 
manently replaced” visited the 
glitz and glamor of the 63rd annual 
Academy Awards. 

Barbara Kopple, accepting the 
documentary award for her “Amer- 
ican Dream,” dedicated the award 
to the Austin, Minn., meatpacking 


workers who were forced to go on 
strike, “and then were permanently 
replaced.” 

Kopple, who said she “likes to 
make movies about workers,” prev- 
iously won an Oscar for “Harlan 
County USA.” “American Dream” 
was co-produced by Arthur Cohn. 


INSIDE 

Daily News crews 
back on the job 

Following a nearly five-month-long 
strike, the first edition of the New York 
Daily News is off the presses and on the 
newsstands, marking a big victory for 
union workers. 




Court ruling backs 
women , job safety 

The Supreme Court’s decision on 
Johnson Controls Inc.’s “fetal protec- 
tion” policy means employers must 
eliminate workplace hazards, not job 
opportunities for working women. 


0 


Returning troops 
get expanded benefits 

Congress acts to provide some im- 
proved health, education and job bene- 
fits for returning military personnel; 
unions continue their campaigns to aid 
families of reservists. 



Congress preserves 
Davis-Bacon benefits 

The House and Senate reject a cam- 
paign by non-union construction firms 
to demolish apprenticeship and abolish 
protections of the Davis-Bacon Act. 



Cuba frees unionist 
political prisoner 

The AFL-CIO Committee for a Free 
Cuba reaches a major goal: the release 
of Ernesto Diaz Rodriquez, a unionist 
held prisoner in Cuba since the 1960s. 



Minimum wage rise 
keeps many in poverty 

Despite a 45-cent increase in the 
minimum wage April 1 , millions of the 
nation’s lowest paid workers remain 
trapped below the federal poverty level. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


4 / 1/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 








VOLUME 36, NUMBER 8 APRIL 15, 1991 


Workers Memorial Day message: ‘Better law’ 


By Arlee C. Green 
and Sharolyn Rosier 

W orkers will be joined by public of- 
ficials, clergy and other supporters 
as they call for reform of the federal job 
safety law on April 28, the third annual 
Workers Memorial Day and the 20th 
anniversary of the Occupational Safety 
and Health Act. 

Lives have been saved by the passage 
of OSH A two decades ago, AFL-CIO 
Safety and Health Director Peg 
Seminario said. But many more have 
died or been injured and grown sick 
because of workplace hazards during 
those years, and the passage of time has 
shown that further legislative action is 
needed to repair major shortcomings in 
the law. 


Across the country on April 28, 
workers will be dramatizing the need 
for reform through marches, rallies, 
candlelight vigils, memorial services 
and workplace demonstrations. In ad- 
dition, they have enlisted the support of 
officials who will issue proclamations 
and participate in memorial dedications. 

The AFL-CIO is seeking legislation 
to expand the scope and coverage of the 
law, stiffen enforcement and heighten 
workers’ participation in the prevention 
of injuries and illnesses on the job. 
Specifically, the federation seeks to: 

• Give workers the right to refuse 
to do work that threatens their lives, 
without fear of employer retaliation for 
exercising those rights. 

• Give workers the right to par- 



ticipate in worksite safety and health 
committees. The committees would 
have the right to meet, conduct inspec- 
tions, investigate accidents and gain ac- 
cess to safety and health information. 

• Give workers the right to contest 
OSHA citations and penalties when 
those enforcement actions aren’t strong 
enough. 

• Direct OSHA to act quickly on 
serious job hazards and limit political 
interference in the standard-setting 
process by the White House Office of 
Management and Budget. 

• Improve the collection of data on 
occupational injuries, illnesses and 
deaths by requiring employers to report 
these incidents immediately. 

Continued on Page 5 



Anne Martens/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, accompanied by Employee tor Robert McGlotten, tells Senate panel that consen- 
Benefits Director Karen Ignagni and Legislative Direc- sus is building for health care reform. See Page 3. 


Harsh strikebreaker toll spread during ’80s 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

A mid such high-profile “permanent 
replacement’’ cases as Eastern 
Airlines, Greyhound and the New York 
Daily News are hundreds of other 
stories of smaller employers who use 
the permanent replacement tactics in 
strike situations. 

According to statistics compiled by 
the Machinists, the practice of “perma- 
nent replacements” has taken a heavy 
and increasing toll on its units of less 
than 1,000 workers. 

Of the 40 cases of “permanent 
replacements” the I AM found among 
its smaller units, only three occurred 
between 1975 and 1979. The incidents 
occurred more frequently as the 1980s 
progressed, with four cases each in 
1983, 1984 and 1985, and eight cases 
in 1987. 

In 1980, two plants — Kiene Diesel 
Accessories of Chicago and Reliable 
Tool and Machine of Kendal ville, 
Ind. — “permanently replaced” a 


Transportation unions testify 

See Page 4 


combined 65 union members, the I AM 
reported. 

But in 1990, seven employers — Re- 
liance Medical Products, Cincinnati; 
Professional Maintenance, Charleston, 
W. Va.; Scheu-Kniss Machine Co. and 
Stauble Tool and Machine, both of 
Louisville, Ky.; Sterling Factories, 
Erie, Pa.; Standard Golf Manufactur- 
ing, Cedar Falls, Iowa; and Aircraft 
Gear Corp. of Chicago — brought in a 
total of 247 permanent replacements. 

That 350 percent increase from the 
beginning to the end of the decade ex- 
plains why organized labor has mounted 
a major campaign for passage of H.R. 
5 and S. 55, legislation that would ban 
the use of permanent replacement work- 
ers. 

But statistics don’t fully tell the story, 


said Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D- 
Ohio), author of the Senate legislation, 
in criticizing a General Accounting Of- 
fice study that reported “permanent 
replacements” being threatened in one- 
third of the strikes in small and large 
units during 1985 and 1989, and being 
hired in 17 percent of all strikes in each 
year. 

“We are talking about 14,000 work- 
ers covered by the National Labor Rela- 
tions Act who are permanently replaced 
each year, plus thousands more under 
the Railway Labor Act.” 

“When the right to strike is turned 
into giving up your job to a permanent 
replacement worker, democracy is 
damaged, families are threatened and 
communities are destroyed,” said LAM 
President George J. Kourpias. “Every- 
one must be involved in this fight for 
workplace justice.” 

The story is told most vividly in the 
words of workers who have endured the 
Continue on Page 4 


Congress urged 
to push trade 
off ‘fast track’ 

Donahue: Bush trying 
to pull a fast one 

By Mike Hall 

I f fast-track authority for a U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement is ex- 
tended, “Congress would be powerless 
to steer the FT A in a more humane and 
sensible direction,” AFL-CIO Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue 
warned the House Ways and Means 
Committee. “It could not check even 
the worst excesses of this scheme.” 
The Bush administration is pushing 
the trade proposal on a “fast track,” 
which would leave Congress with only 
a yes or no vote with limited debate and 
no amendments, despite widespread 
concerns about a possible free trade 
agreement. 

Labor and environmental groups con- 
tend that such an agreement could 
wreak environmental havoc on the 
border areas, cause severe economic 
dislocation for tens of thousands of 
American workers and do virtually 
nothing for Mexican workers. 

The president, cranking up his cam- 
paign blitz for the trade deal, recently 
hosted Mexican President Carlos 
Salinas de Gortari in Texas. He criti- 
cized the labor movement for its opposi- 
tion to fast track and, according to 
White House aides, plans to stage a 
number of trade-oriented events in the 
coming weeks. 

To counter that campaign, the AFL- 
CIO sent every senator and represen- 
tative recent research material and a 
video outlining the problems of fast- 
track authority on such a vital issue, and 
Continued on Page 13 





Rail talks in uphill chug as deadline nears 


By Arlee C. Green 

W hile the Transportation Communi- 
cations Union and Railroad 
Signalmen have reached tentative ac- 
cords with the nation’s rail freight car- 
riers, members of eight other unions are 
poised to strike at 12:01 a.m. April 17, 
when the “cooling off’ period expires. 

Most of the unions involved will be 
bargaining up to the deadline. Train 
Dispatchers President Robert J. Irvin 
said the union is close to a tentative set- 
tlement, but is still ironing out “a 
troubling detail involving Consolidated 
Rail,” which sought a separate deal on 
employee protection language. 

Maintenance of Way Employees 
President Mac A. Fleming said his 
union is continuing to bargain, but is 
frustrated by the carriers’ refusal to 
bargain in good faith. Fleming is urging 
Congress not to intervene if negotia- 
tions end in a walkout. 

The main issue for BMWE is the pro- 
posed elimination of geographic senior- 
ity districts. The carriers want to elimi- 
nate the districts, which currently ex- 
tend 500-600 miles, and thereby require 
workers to travel and work thousands 
of miles from home. 

The UTU’s 80,000 conductors, 
brakemen, switchmen and firemen have 
authorized a strike. The union said it 

Solidarity Day 
to spotlight 
key labor goals 

T he AFL-CIO is organizing and 
mobilizing a show of solidarity and 
conviction in the nation’s capital on the 
Saturday of Labor Day weekend — 
Solidarity Day 1991. 

On the morning of Aug. 31, union 
members and allies — from civil rights, 
health care, education, environmental 
and other groups — will meet at the 
Washington Monument, then gear up 
for the march down Constitution 
Avenue to the U.S. Capitol for speeches 
and entertainment. 

Solidarity Day 1991 will demonstrate 
support for three key goals: legislation 
prohibiting the permanent replacement 
of strikers, national health care reform 
and full freedom of association at home 
and abroad. At home, that includes full 
collective bargaining rights for public 
employees. 

In a letter to international unions, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
called on union members to join the 
demonstration, which also marks the 
10th anniversary of the successful first 
Solidarity Day, when hundreds of 
thousands of working men and women 


hasn’t met with management for three 
weeks and no further meetings are 
scheduled. 

UTU President Fred Hardin said the 
carriers want to eliminate the brakeman 
positions, which potentially could cut 
18,000 jobs. He reportedly is lobbying 
Congress to disregard the findings of 
the Presidential Emergency Board No. 
219 (PEB) and to appoint a new 
commission to review the issues. 

The Locomotive Engineers haven’t 
met with management since March 22 
and, at presstime, no further meetings 
were scheduled. BLE spokesman Steve 
FitzGerald said the union is preparing 
for a selective strike, and has delivered 
picket signs and instructions to its local 
unions. 

The prospect of a rail strike — be it 
nationwide, limited to an individual car- 
rier or rotating — comes after three 
years of near-fruitless bargaining, 
months spent awaiting the recommen- 
dations of the PEB and a 90-day 
cooling-off period. 

The unions have made clear that if a 
strike occurs, any disruption of 
passenger service will be caused by the 
railroads, not the unions. Richard I. 
Kilroy, president of the Railway Labor 
Executives’ Association, said strike ac- 
tivities would not be directed at com- 


from across the country flocked to the 
nation’s capital on Sept. 19, 1981. 

“We shall strive to match that great 
day of a decade ago,” Kirkland wrote, 
adding, “we hope that chartered planes, 
trains and buses will bring trade 
unionists together from all parts of our 
country.” That’s a switch from 1981, 


muter railroads or any other passenger 
lines. 

“Our complaint is with the railroads, 
not the traveling public,” Kilroy said. 
“The railroads are making passengers 
the human shields in their strategy. 
While unions are pledging to keep the 
passenger trains rolling, the companies 
are looking for every excuse to shut 
them down. 

“For three-and-a-half years, the car- 
riers have refused to bargain with us in 
good faith, even though they’re making 
record profits. Now they want to push 
us into a strike, hoping a strike will 
prompt Congress to impose on us a con- 
tract patterned after the report of the 
PEB.” 

The board’s report recommends 
wages that would cut real earning 
power by 16 percent over the life of the 
contract, the RLE A said. It also calls 
for health insurance costs to be forced 
on the workers, a move that would 
undercut earning power even more. 

TCU’s tentative accord, reached 
April 5, covers more than 50,000 
white-collar, computer and clerical 
workers. The unit is preparing to vote 
on the proposal covering wages and 
work rules, which was approved by the 
union’s general chairmen on April 10. 
Ballots are expected to be counted by 


when planes were verboten to all trade 
unionists in solidarity with the air traf- 
fic controllers. 

The AFL-CIO is urging unions and 
state and local labor federations “to 
cancel plans for city and county 1991 
Labor Day parades and picnics” and 
focus those efforts on “leading your 


mid-May, the union said. The 21,000 
members of TCU’s Carmen division 
were without a contract at presstime. 

The Railroad Signalmen’s accord, 
covering 7,000 members, will be 
presented to the union’s general 
chairmen April 23. If they approve it, 
the proposal will be voted on by the 
members during May. 

The negotiations, which began in 
early 1988, have revolved mainly 
around wages, work rules, health and 
welfare co-payments and the contrac- 
tual protection of workers’ rights on 
sold-off short lines. 

Shortly after the required 30-day 
cooling-off period started on Jan. 15, 
Operation Desert Storm began. 

In February, the rail unions persuad- 
ed management to extend the cooling- 
off period by 60 days to assure full rail 
service throughout the Persian Gulf 
war. That period expires April 17, 
when the carriers can unilaterally im- 
pose wage and work rules not agreed 
to and workers will be free to strike. 

The rail unions involved are the 
UTU, BMWE, TCU and its Carmen 
division, Train Dispatchers, Loco- 
motive Engineers, Railroad Signalmen, 
Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, 
Firemen and Oilers and Sheet Metal 
Workers. 


union members to the nation’s capital 
on Aug. 31,” Kirkland wrote. 

Coordinators named by their interna- 
tional unions will work with AFL-CIO 
staff on recruiting, transportation and 
other logistical needs. Promotional 
materials, including fact sheets and 
mailings, also will be available. 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


With the U.S. Capitol in the background, AFL-CIO Presi- unionists asking their participation in Solidarity Day ac- 
dent Lane Kirkland tapes a television message to trade tivities in Washington on Aug. 31 . 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 8 


MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1991 


.H0» COMMON, 

fB 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





im™iN 


Kirkland: U.S. ripe for health care reform 


Consensus building 
for major changes 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T here is a new sense of cooperation 
among groups affected by the decline 
of the American health care system, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland told 
a Senate committee, urging Congress to 
translate that consensus into national 
health care reform. 

Testifying before the Finance Com- 
mittee April 9, Kirkland said “organ- 
ized labor, organized medicine and 
many in the business community are at 
long last forming a consensus around 
the notion that the current health care 
system just doesn’t work for the aver- 
age American. 

“We find ourselves in virtual agree- 
ment over the three basic goals of 
lowering the cost, expanding access and 
improving the quality of our health care 
system,’’ he said. 

Congressional support 

Influential senators added their voices 
to the call for national health care 
reform. Congress “must pass a health 
care bill,” said Majority Leader George 
Mitchell (D-Maine), who is a member 
of the committee. 

Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen 
(D-Texas) set the stage for the discus- 
sion in his opening remarks, when he 
pointed out that respondents in a 1990 
survey showed greater concern about 
their health care situation than about 
taxes, rising interest rates and possible 
loss of their job. 

The United States has “the best 
health care in the world for those who 
can afford it,” said Bentsen, who noted 
that middle-class Americans were fac- 
ing a real squeeze when it came to ade- 
quate health care. 

Mitchell said that access to affordable 
health care is necessary for all, and that 
it was essential that the 37 million 
Americans lacking health insurance 
receive coverage. 

Kirkland urged Congress “to take ad- 
vantage of this growing consensus and 
to take the lead in fashioning a program 
of national health care reform . . . and 
stem this crisis before it impoverishes 
the bulk of the American middle class. 
“Clearly, we are heading down that 


T he Roper Organization has found 
'new evidence that the nation’s health 
care system is failing to serve the needs 
of Americans. 

“Never before in the 17 years that 
Roper has been tracking Americans’ at- 
titudes toward health care have sen- 
timents been so universally negative as 
they are today,” Roper said of its latest 
polling data. 

In response to a survey of approx- 
imately 2,000 adults 18 and older con- 
ducted in September 1990, less than 
half — or 30 percent — describe the 
cost of medical care as “very 
reasonable” or “fairly reasonable.” 
That compares with 43 percent in 1988 
who said the cost of health care was 
reasonable. 

Likewise, in 1990 only 35 percent 
said they were very satisfied with the 



Kirkland urged Con- 
gress “ to take advantage 
of this growing consensus 
and to take the lead in 
fashioning a program of 
national health care 
reform . . . and stem this 
crisis before it im- 
poverishes the bulk of the 
American middle class. ” 


road. The health care tragedy is no 
longer confining itself to the fringes of 
our society,” he said. “It’s now strik- 
ing at millions of solid, working, tax- 
paying families.” 

Kirkland told the committee of the 
findings from eight regional hearings 
sponsored by the AFL-CIO last fall, 
and oudined the federation’s basic goals 
for national reform along with several 
specific proposals. 

Responding to a question from Bent- 
sen, Kirkland urged the creation of a 
national commission composed of con- 
sumers, purchasers, government and 
providers to help contain the growth in 
health care costs. This commission, he 
said, would oversee negotiations to set 
reimbursement levels and would utilize 
the cost-containment methodology of 
Medicare to all payors. 


quality of their own care, down from 
44 percent in 1988. A mere 25 per- 
cent — down six percentage points 
from 1988 — said they were satisfied 
with their arrangements for paying for 
medical care. 

The Roper Organization’s surveys 
also confirm the growing ranks of the 
uninsured and underinsured. Only 41 
percent of the adults responding to the 
survey said their families had 
hospitalization insurance; 30 percent 
said their families had medical-surgical 
coverage; and only 28 percent said they 
had major medical coverage. 

Finally, only 48 percent of respond- 
ents in a March 1990 survey 
characterized their opinion of the 
medical care system as “highly 
favorable” or “moderately favorable,” 
down sharply from 65 percent in 1988. 


Sen. Robert Packwood (R-Ore.) 
asked Kirkland about the federation’s 
support for mandated care. “I believe 
that would have to be a part of a health 
care reform package,” Kirkland said. 
“However, if we are to mandate 
coverage on employers, I think it is a 
collateral responsibility to create a 
package of benefits that is cost efficient 
(for small employers).” 

Kirkland opposed a suggestion by 
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D- 
W.Va.) that a cost-containment ap- 
proach could be developed on the state 
level instead of the federal level. 

“I believe there is an urgent need for 
uniformity of regulation in the re- 
quirements that may be imposed upon 
providers,” Kirkland said. “There is 
also a need for simplification and 
streamlining. I do not think a state-by- 
state cost-containment regulatory 
system would achieve those goals or be 
the most desirable way of approaching 
it.” 

Medicare eligibility 

Questioned by Sen. John Breaux (D- 
La.) on the AFL-CIO ’s proposal to 
lower Medicare eligibility to age 60, 
Kirkland noted that the evolution of 
pension plans has made it possible for 
more people to retire with a tolerable 
income — and that the spouses of these 
retirees likely are not eligible for full 
benefits yet, either. 

“Therefore, I think there is a very 
strong case for reducing the age of 
eligibility for Medicare to more closely 
reflect the actual practice and the 
average age of retirement,” he said. 

Kirkland noted also that the issue of 
retiree health care has become an in- 
creasingly difficult one for employers 
and for unions negotiating with 
employers. 

“Lowering the age for eligibility for 
Medicare would, I believe, construc- 
tively address many of those problems 
and relieve many of those problems, 
and it simply makes sense.” 

Others testifying at the hearing were 
Robert D. Reischauer, the director of 
the Congressional Budget Office, and 
Professor Robert J. Blendon Ph.D., the 
chairman of the Department of Health 
Policy and Management at the Harvard 
University School of Public Health, and 
a panel of business executives. 


The 1990 respondents ranked the 
medical system last of 12 major institu- 
tions — behind labor unions, business, 
the press, the court system, public 
schools and the Congress, among 
others. 

Roper’s polls show a growing trend 
toward support for reform of the 
system. Approximately 80 percent of 
respondents in a 1990 study said the na- 
tion should be working toward contain- 
ing spiraling costs. 

Only the need for a cure for AIDS 
and fighting crime and drugs ranked 
higher on the national agenda for these 
respondents. 

Finally, when asked how to reform 
the system, a new national plan was 
favored by 52 percent of respondents, 
while 36 percent said they favored their 
current private plan. 


i 


Capitol Digest 


I f the administration has its way, the 
ability of unions and of charitable, 
religious and educational groups to 
communicate would be severely 
slashed. 

The problem centers on the part of 
the budget for the U.S. Postal Service 
called revenue foregone, which allows 
the USPS to deliver mail from these 
groups at reduced rates. 

The administration’s proposed FY 
1992 appropriation cuts $290 million 
from revenue foregone. “If the postal 
service is compelled to pick up the cost 
for revenue foregone, these expenses 
will result in either higher postage rates 
or a reduction in service for these 
groups,” said AFL-CIO Legislative 
Director Robert McGlotten. 

The AFL-CIO has urged Congress to 
restore full funding for revenue 
foregone. 

If the money isn’t restored and the 
Postal Service is forced to raise rates, 
unions and the other groups will have 
to foot the extra cost for almost all their 
mailings, from publications to election 
notices to simple communications. 
Many will be forced to reduce the 
number or frequency of their com- 
munications with their members. 
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 

INDOOR AIR - The AFL-CIO is 
backing a bill that would begin a 
cleanup of the nation’s indoor air — ad- 
dressing the “sick-building” syndrome, 
documenting the health hazards work- 
ers face from indoor air pollution and 
setting federal regulations to protect 
workers’ health. Diane Factor, an in- 
dustrial hygienist with the AFL-CIO, 
told the House health and environment 
subcommittee that “indoor air pollution 
presents a similar, if not more complex 
and subtie version” of such toxic agents 
as asbestos, coal and cotton dust, which 
employers for years denied were the 
causes of workers’ ill health. 

CIVIL RIGHTS — Union members 
can help spur action on the AFL-CIO- 
backed Civil Rights Act of 1991. The 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 
of which the AFL-CIO is a member, 
has established a 900 telephone number 
to generate postcards of support for the 
bill. Simply dial 1 -900-370-FAIR and 
postcards expressing your support for 
the bill will be sent to your represen- 
tative and senators. There is a $3 charge 
for the call. 

FAMILY LEAVE -The Small 
Business Administration has stopped 
distribution of one its own reports that 
shows granting family or medical leave 
for workers is in fact cheaper for 
employers than replacing the worker. 
While the opponents of H.R. 2 and 
S. 5 have claimed a national leave 
policy would be a huge cost burden, 
most studies, including the SBA’s, have 
disputed that claim. The AFL-CIO has 
said a national leave policy would cost 
employers little. The SB A is an in- 
dependent executive branch agency. 
The administration is opposed to the 
bills. 


Health care disenchantment growing, poll shows 






Unions: Transportation undercut by strikebreakers 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Union witnesses tell the House aviation subcommittee of Juliette Lenoir, AFA; George Kourpias, 1AM; George 
problems caused by use of permanent striker Leitz; TWU; Vicki Frankovich, unaffiliated flight atten- 
replacements in the transportation industry. From left: dants union, and J. Randolph Babbitt, ALPA. 


Campaign picks up 
as postcards roll in 

By Mike Hall 

T he use of “permanent replacement” 
workers undermines the nation’s 
transportation system by subverting the 
collective bargaining process that keeps 
companies healthy and workers produc- 
tive, union leaders told two House 
subcommittees. 

At the same time, the AFL-CIO’s 
grassroots campaign to build support 
for bills to ban the use of “permanent 
replacement” workers began in earnest. 
Thousands of postcards from union 
members arrived on Capitol Hill call- 
ing on targeted lawmakers to vote for 
H.R. 5 and S. 55. 

Eastern Airlines could still be flying 
if the company had not been allowed to 
use permanent replacements, Machin- 
ists President George Kourpias told the 
Public Works and Transportation’s sub- 
committee on aviation. 

Shortly after Martin Shugrue’s ap- 
pointment as Eastern’s trustee during 
bankruptcy proceedings, the two sides 
met to try to end the long, bitter strike, 
Kourpias said. 

“We thought that the unions and Mr. 
Shugrue could negotiate a settlement, 
to try and save Eastern Air- 
lines. . .However, he told me that he 
would not resolve the issue of ‘perma- 
nent replacements.’ Without settling 
that issue, there could be no settle- 
ment,” Kourpias said. 

“If that issue could have been re- 
solved, the other issues would have 
fallen into place and the provisions of 
the Railway Labor Act (RLA) would 
have worked as they historically have.” 
The RLA, which governs the air and 
rail industries, requires a series of 
mediations and cooling off periods 
before workers can strike. 

Randy Babbitt, president of the 
Air Line Pilots, noted that more than 
200 Eastern pilots who had been 
permanently replaced during the strike 
served in the air war in the Persian 
Gulf. 


“They have been rightly hailed as 
heroes. .. .When they come home 
however, they’ll be unemployed. Even 
had Eastern survived, they would still 
be unemployed because they had been 
permanently replaced,” he said. 

Juliette Lenoir, vice president of the 
Flight Attendants, said striking Alaska 
Airlines attendants in 1976 felt com- 
pelled to settle a strike and accept less 
than what they wanted when the com- 
pany threatened to replace them. 

“We are faced with a new breed of 
management, which is much more will- 
ing to risk destroying their company by 
replacing dedicated and trained workers 
than to work through the negotiation 
process. . Lenoir said. 

These managers are obsessed with 
corporate debt and money, she said. 
“Workers are just replaceable com- 
modities to them.” 

Many flight attendants, after the ex- 
perience at Alaska Airlines and other 
carriers fear being “permanently 
replaced” if they strike, Lenoir said. 


“This perception has made the strike 
a much less effective tool for labor and 
has eroded the bargaining power of 
unions,” she said. 

Union leaders said using the replace- 
ments violates the goals of the RLA. 
“The key principle of the RLA. . .is 
that both management and labor are 
obliged to make and maintain agree- 
ments,” Transport Workers President 
George Leitz said. 

Does the use of “permanent replace- 
ment” workers “facilitate or under- 
mine the making of and maintaining 
agreements between parties in a labor 
dispute?” he asked rhetorically. 

The arguments that a ban would lead 
to an increase in precipitous striking are 
“spurious, even ludicrous,” said 
William G. Mahoney, general counsel 
of the Railway Labor Executives 
Association, a coalition of 18 unions 
whose members work on the nation’s 
railroads. 

“Striker replacement, used or 
threatened, significantly menaces what 


remains to employees of their very 
limited right to strike in the railroad in- 
dustry,” Mahoney told the Energy and 
Commerce’s subcommittee on trans- 
portation. 

The House Education and Labor 
Committee is expected to mark up the 
bill shortly. 

This is the last major hurdle before 
the legislation goes to the floor, pro- 
bably in late spring. 

Some two dozen AFL-CIO affiliated 
Legislative Action Committees met dur- 
ing the Easter congressional break, or 
scheduled meetings with targeted 
lawmakers to discuss the bills. Early 
reports from these meetings indicate 
that several of the representatives said 
they would support the bill if it gets to 
the House floor. 

Union members in selected districts 
also have been asked to use a special 
toll-free number later this spring to send 
mailgrams to their representatives and 
senators urging them to vote for the 
bills. 


hit by ‘replacement’ tactic 


Small jobsites 

Continued from Page 1 

frustration of seeing their hard-earned 
jobs going to workers from outside the 
union, and sometimes from outside the 
community. 

Ken King, who was replaced during 
a three-month strike with Pybus Steel 
Co. in Wenatchee, Wash., in 1983, was 
startled by a letter from the new owners 
of the plant threatening to permanently 
replace the workers. 

“In the decades of cooperation be- 
tween the I AM and Pybus, there had 
never been a strike,” King said. “We 
couldn’t believe that a dozen or so 
misfits to a decent society could replace 
us at the jobs we had done so well for 
for so many years.” 

Tim Bailey, a Machinist who worked 
for a Montana auto dealer until he was 
“permanently replaced” in 1985, was 
struck by the injustice of a company that 
would terminate its striking union 
members and advertise for 26 perma- 
nent replacements. 

“It seemed very unfair to those of us 
picketing that any company should be 
able to implement their own contract 
and then fire you for going on strike, 
then hire incompetent replacements 
while they continue to negotiate.” 

“I feel (the strike) would not have 
lasted five months if these businesses 
were forced to bargain with us instead 
of having the power to just replace us, ’ ’ 


Bailey said. “That seems too one-sided 
to me. Workers don’t seem to have 
many rights these days.” 

For Angelo Costa, president of IAM 
Local 1825 in Cleveland, “permanent 
replacements” is a personal issue. 

Costa worked in the coal mines in 
Pennsylvania for 15 years and in his day 
pitied the man who would cross a picket 
line. While he encouraged his sons to 
find union jobs, he now asks “what do 


“I feel (the strike) would 
not have lasted five 
months if these businesses 
were forced to bargain 
with us instead of having 
the power to just replace 
us.” 

—Tim Bailey 


you tell three sons who belong to a 
union, were fired from these jobs and 
been replaced by scabs?” 

Two of Costa’s sons were Air Traf- 
fic Controllers fired during the PATCO 
strike in 1980. One son is currently 
working in the computer field while the 
other “is doing nothing and can’t find 
a job.” 


A third son had what his father 
described as a good job with a steel 
plant in Cleveland, but was replaced by 
scabs in 1989. “That’s not the best 
part,” he said. 

“They signed up for the unemploy- 
ment and got it,” Costa continued. 
“The company took them to court and 
the company won. Now the unemploy- 
ment compensation people want them 
to pay back all the money they got. 
Now tell me, how does my son pay that 
money back. He has three children and 
makes $5.50 an hour.” 

And while workers are frustrated 
with the strange fruit borne by the 1938 
Supreme Court Mackay decision that 
says it is illegal to fire striking workers 
but okay to “permanently replace” 
them, most are steadfast in support of 
their unions. 

Dennis Power says “permanent 
replacements” cost him his marriage 
and his job at General Dynamic’s Con- 
vair aerospace plant in San Diego where 
the IAM struck in 1987. Rehired a year 
later in a lesser-paying job, Power is 
struggling to support his three young 
children and to keep his home and 
truck. ‘ ‘I tell my kids to look for a union 
job, because that makes for a strong 
country,” Power said. 

The IAM is among the international 
unions active in the fight to pass legisla- 
tion to ban “permanent replacements.” 


ACTWU accord 
wins protection 
for job trauma 

W orkers at three Interconti- 
nental Branded Apparel 
plants have gained some added 
protection from cumulative 
trauma disorders under a unique 
ergonomics agreement negotiated 
between the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration and an 
apparel industry employer. 

The 1,500 workers are 
members of the Clothing and 
Textile Workers Union, which 
has been working with the com- 
pany to modify work stations and 
reduce ergonomic hazards, 
ACTWU safety and health direc- 
tor Eric Frumin said. 

The agreement calls for Inter- 
continental to reduce cumulative 
trauma disorder hazards —which 
can cause such illnesses as ten- 
donitis, low back strain and car- 
pal tunnel syndrome —at its three 
plants. 

The apparel manufacturer also 
will hire an ergonomist at each 
site and institute employee and 
supervisor training in cumulative 
trauma disorders, which can 
cause permanent disability. 





Carpenters photo 


Bath Iron Workers at Workers Memorial Day rally in Portland, Maine. 


Vigils, rallies 
to dramatize 
OSHA failings 

Continued from Page 1 

• Increase OSHA enforcement and 
toughen the criminal penalties that can 
be imposed for employer violations. 

• Expand the act to cover all 
workers. Millions of workers, including 
many state and local public employees 
and workers in transportation, agri- 
culture and federal nuclear facilities 
have little or no protections. 

• Improve funding for the National 
Institute of Occupational Safety and 
Health (NIOSH) and establish a national 
surveillance program to determine the 
extent of occupational diseases. 

Workers Memorial Day this year 
falls on a Sunday, but union activities 
will occur throughout the week begin- 
ning April 23. 

Among the events will be a rally and 
memorial service April 28 in Ripley, 
W.Va., near Charleston, where four 
Ravenswood Aluminum Co. employees 
died in workplace accidents last year. 
USWA members at Ravenswood were 
also locked out in November 1990. 

The following is a partial listing of 
events that have been reported: 

ALASKA 

Anchorage — Anchorage Central 
Labor Council: a rally on the Park Strip 
in downtown Anchorage at 12:30 p.m. 
Contact: Aleene M. Brown, 

907/522-1496. 

CALIFORNIA 

Fresno — Fresno and Madera Coun- 
ties AFL-CIO: a two-mile march and 
memorial service at the Federal Cour- 
thouse on April 28 at noon. Contact 
Marcello Salido, 209/268-4389. 

Los Angeles — Los Angeles Coun- 
ty AFL-CIO: breakfast and press con- 
ference from 8-10 a.m. on April 26 and 
the presentation of a permanent 
memorial with deceased workers’ 
names inscribed. Contact: David 
Sickler, 213/387-1974. 

CONNECTICUT 

Hartford — Connecticut AFL-CIO: 
rally and memorial ceremony on April 
28 at 1 p.m. on the state Capitol 
grounds. Contact: Janeen Nolan, 
203/953-8717. 

ILLINOIS 

Chicago — Chicago AFL-CIO: a 
weeklong lecture series with slide 
presentations, videos, open discussion 
and a tree planting to commemorate 
workers who were killed on the job, 
April 15-19. Contact: Cathy Bernstein, 
312/906-2432. 

Peru — Putnam County AFL-CIO: 
memorial service at 2:30 p.m. on April 
28 at Centennial Park and a scholarship 
fund established for victims’ 
dependents. Contact: Kelly Reffett, 
815/224-4331. 

Rockford — Rockford AFL-CIO: a 
permanent memorial to be placed at a 
service at the Illinois State Building at 
2 p.m. on April 28. Contact: Tom 
Eschen, 815/398-6282. 

INDIANA 

Fort Wayne — Northeast Three 
Rivers Central Labor Council: a rally 
and memorial and tree planting in 
Auburn at 2 p.m. Contact: Tom Lewan- 
dowski, 219/482-5588. 

KENTUCKY 

Frankfort — Kentucky AFL-CIO: a 
memorial service on April 28 from 3-4 
p.m. at the state headquarters building 


in Frankfort, where an artist’s concept 
for Kentucky Workers Memorial 
Monument will be unveiled. Contact: 
Dewey Parker, Jr., 502/695-6172. 

MICHIGAN 

Lansing — Michigan AFL-CIO: a 
rally on the steps of the State Capitol 
will be held on April 23 at noon. Con- 
tact: Dick Whitwam, 517/372-0784. 

Muskegon — West Michigan AFL- 
CIO and the United Way of Muskegon: 
a memorial service on April 28 at 
Hackley Park from 12:30 to 2 p.m. 
Contact: Brent Gillette, 616/722-3134. 

MINNESOTA 

Minneapolis — Minneapolis 
Building and Construction Trades: a 
memorial service will be held at noon 
on April 26 at the Mall of America. 
Contact: John Williams, 612/379-4234. 

St. Paul — St. Paul Labor Assembly: 
a breakfast with Senator Paul Wellstone 
(D-Minn.) at 8 p.m. on April 27 at the 
St. Paul Labor Center. Contact: Steve 
Dress, 612/222-3787. 

NEBRASKA 

Grand Island — Central Nebraska 
AFL-CIO: a rally beginning at 2 p.m. 
on April 28 in Grace Abbott Park. Con- 
tact: Harvey Larsen, 308/382-1103. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Concord — New Hampshire AFL- 
CIO, State Employees Association, 
New Hampshire COSH: a program on 
Public Employee Safety and Health on 
April 26 from 9-11 a.m. at the Health 
and Human Services Building in 
Concord. Contact: Dan Toomey, 
603/224-4789. 

Pembroke — Nashua AFL-CIO, 
New Hampshire AFL-CIO, New 
Hampshire COSH: a breakfast will be 
held at City Streets Restaurant in Con- 
cord on April 28 at 10 a.m. Contact: 
Dan Toomey, 603/224-4789. 

NEW JERSEY 

Passaic — Passaic County AFL- 
CIO; a service at 1 p.m. on April 28 
will be held at the Botto House Labor 
Museum. Contact: Michael Parsons, 
201/773-1616. 

NEW YORK 

Albany — Albany, Troy, Saratoga, 
Glen Falls, Schenectady Central Labor 
Councils: a rally will be held on April 
28 at 1 p.m. at West Capitol Park. Con- 
tact: Ed Ruff, 518/436-8516. 

Homer — Thompkins -Cortland La- 
bor Coalition: candlelight vigil and rally 
at 1 p.m. on April 28. Contact: Sherry 
Slade, 215/471-6187. 


New York City — New York City 
CLC: a rally at on April 29 at Union 
Square. Contact: Ted Jacobsen, 
212/685-9552. 

Rochester — Rochester AFL-CIO: a 
ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. on 
April 28 at the Hyde Park Workers 
Memorial, dedicated two years ago. 
Contact: Chris Garlock, 716/272-9780. 

Syracuse — Greater Syracuse Labor 
Council and Central New York COSH: 
a dinner ceremony at 4 p.m. on April 
28 at the American Legion. Contact: 
Sherry Slade, 315/471-6187. 

NORTH CAROLINA 

Fayetteville — North Carolina AFL- 
CIO and Greater Cape Fear AFL-CIO: 
a rally at the Downtown Commons on 
April 28 at 2 p.m. Contact: Kathleen 
Rich, 919/371-9549. 

OHIO 

Cincinnati — Cincinnati AFL-CIO: a 
memorial service followed by a march 
at 2:30 p.m. on April 28 in the Kelley 
Auditorium at Xavier. Contact: Dan 
Radford, 513/421-1846. 

Toledo — UAW Region IIB: a rally 
at the Local 12 union hall at noon on 
April 27; Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) 
is expected to attend. Contact: Pat 
Wallace, 419/243-4611. 

PENNSYLVANIA 

Harrisburg — Harrisburg AFL-CIO: 
a service at Labor’s Grove in Riverfront 
Park on April 28 at 2 p.m. Contact: 
Robert Settle, 717/231-7830. 

Lehigh Valley — Northhampton and 
Lehigh AFL-CIOs, and Lehigh Valley 
Building Trades: a permanent workers 
memorial will be dedicated at 2 p.m. 
on April 28 at the Bethlehem Rose 
Garden; a workers memorial exhibit 
will be featured at Lehigh University’s 
campus through July. Contact: Gail 
Meyer, 215/258-7218. 

Philadelphia — Philadelphia AFL- 
CIO and Philadelphia POSH: a break- 
fast and service April 27 at 10 a.m. at 
the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 hall. 
Contact: Mark Forrest, 215/665-1730. 

WASHINGTON 

Spokane — Spokane AFL-CIO: 
dedication of a permanent memorial at 
Riverfront Park on April 28 at 2 p.m. 
Contact: John Leinen, 509/327-7637. 

WEST VIRGINIA 

Ripley — West Virginia AFL-CIO 
and Steelworkers: a rally will be held 
at the Jackson County Junior Farm 
Fairgrounds at 1 p.m. on April 28. 
Contact: Joseph Powell, 304/344-3557. 


MSHA uncaps 
mine owners’ 
dirty deeds 

By Arlee C. Green 

F ederal charges that the operators of 
nearly half the nation’s underground 
coal mines have tampered with dust 
samples proves that the mining industry 
should not be allowed to police itself, 
the Mine Workers said. 

A 20-month investigation by the 
Mine Safety and Health Administration, 
which included checking 120,000 dust 
samples submitted by some 2,000 
mines, found widespread tampering 
with dust samples. 

MSHA issued 4,710 citations to 847 
mines in 16 states. Among the nearly 
500 companies implicated thus far are 
such mames as DuPont Co., USX 
Corp., Bethlehem Steel Corp. and Gen- 
eral Dynamics. The agency proposed a 
civil penalty of $1,000 per citation. 

UMWA President Richard Trumka 
expressed the union’s appreciation to 
Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin and the 
Mine Safety and Health Administration 
for uncovering and prosecuting 847 
mines implicated in massive tampering 
with coal dust samples, which are in- 
tended to protect miners from black 
lung disease and silicosis. 

Trumka decried the current dust 
monitoring and control rules, saying the 
program is “so structurally flawed, no 
amount of enforcement can correct it. 
Coal miners will continue to slowly 
strangle to death so long as coal com- 
panies are trusted to monitor their own 
compliance with a law they bitterly op- 
pose at every turn.” 

At a press conference on April 4, 
Martin chastised the coal industry. “I 
am appalled at the flagrant disregard for 
the law designed to protect coal miners 
against disabling lung disease. This 
disregard for workers’ health protection 
is not what American industry is sup- 
posed to be about.” 

While stopping short of charging a 
conspiracy among coal operators, Mar- 
tin said, “It’s amazing how the in- 
cidents (of tampering) dropped once 
word of the investigation got out.” 
Trumka said the most disturbing 
aspect is “that the operators must have 
been fairly sure they could get away 
with this massive fraud. . . .With this 
many companies involved and the 
rapidity with which they stopped send- 
ing fraudulent samples once MSHA 
started voiding them raises the possibili- 
ty of a broader conspiracy.” 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the federation believes the U.S. At- 
torney’s Office should now determine 
if criminal prosecution is warranted. 

Martin noted that prosecutors in 
Charleston, W.Va., and Pittsburgh are 
pursuing criminal investigations. The 
UMWA is urging prosecutors in Vir- 
ginia, Alabama, Kentucky and other 
states also to actively pursue criminal 
investigations, Trumka said. 

Mine operators allegedly tampered 
with samples by vacuuming or blowing 
out the dust, methods that leave a tell- 
tale white center in the cassette. Other 
methods reportedly used included 
covering the sampling cassette with a 
rag, or simply placing it outside the 
mine, MSHA said. 

Trumka said MSHA must take re- 
sponsibility for obtaining the dust 
samples. “Coal miners themselves 
should have the right to monitor the 
sampling at every step. And sampling 
technology should be modernized to 
prevent tampering,” he said. “Unless 
this is done, coal operators will continue 
to find ways to break the law.” 




Court rulings back unions on contracts, agency fees 


Supreme Court vindicates Air Line Pilots over 
challenge on agreement with employer; UAW upheld 
on costs of servicing non-members. 


By James B. Parks 

T he rights of workers and their unions 
were at issue in a flurry of recent 
court decisions. Organized labor 
prevailed in two significant cases — a 
Supreme Court ruling limiting suits 
against unions and an appeals court ver- 
dict upholding a union’s procedure for 
handling objections to the payment of 
agency fees. 

In Air Line Pilots Association vs. 
O’Neill, the Supreme Court ruled that 
a union cannot normally be sued by its 
members over terms of an agreement 
with managment. 

The case stemmed from the two-year 
strike by ALPA against Continental 
Airlines. The Supreme Court reversed 
a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling 
that the 1985 agreement that ended the 
strike was “a breach of the union’s du- 
ty of fair representation.” 

A group of ALPA members sued the 
union, claiming that the agreement was 
worse than if the pilots had surrendered 
and called the strike off. 

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for 
the court that the standard of fair 
representation is breached if a union’s 
conduct is “arbitrary, discriminatory, 
or in bad faith,” but the ALPA agree- 
ment did not fit those criteria. 

The “final product of the bargaining 
process may constitute evidence of 
breach of duty only if it can be fairly 
characterized as . . . wholly irrational or 
arbitrary,” Stevens said. 

ALPA argued that a union cannot be 
held liable for failing to undo all the 


harmful but lawful actions of an em- 
ployer during a strike, including the hir- 
ing of permanent replacement workers. 
Judicial second-guessing of the wisdom 
of a union’s decision would undermine 
the union’s ability to settle strikes, it 
argued. 

In Price vs. United Auto Workers, 
the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied 
a challenge to the UAW’s procedures 
for collecting agency fees. 

Addressing an issue left open in the 
Supreme Court’s 1988 Beck vs. CWA 
decision, the appeals court rejected the 
arguments that the UAW procedures 
violated the non-members’ First and 
Fifth Amendment rights. 

Judge John E. Sprizzo said the Beck 
decision only prohibited the union from 
collecting and spending agency fees for 
purposes unrelated to collective bar- 
gaining and contract administration. 
The UAW’s procedures are adequate to 
satisfy the Beck requirements, Sprizzo 
said. 

No constitutional issues are involved 
when a union collects agency fees under 
a contract with a private employer, the 
court said. Rather, the applicable 
statutory requirement is that the pro- 
cedures not be arbitrary, discriminatory 


or implemented in bad faith. 

In this regard, the law requires only 
that the usual function of an auditor —to 
make sure the expenses claimed were, 
in fact, made — is performed. 

“That function does not require that 
the auditor make a legal decision as to 
the appropriateness of the allocation of 
expenses. . Sprizzo said. 

In a case on a related issue, the 4th 
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 
Dashiell vs. Montgomery County and 
United Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 400 that unions do not have to use 
certified public accountants to deter- 
mine what union expenditures are 
chargeable to non-member agency fee 
payers. 

“This is a victory for all public 
employee unions in Maryland, Virginia 
and the Carolinas,” said Tom McNutt, 
president of Local 400. 

“This will stop Right to Work 
lawyers from forcing us to provide un- 
necessary and confusing information 
regarding union fees to our non-union 
bargaining unit members,” he said. 

The circuit court affirmed a lower 
court finding that union allocations are 
based on complex legal judgments for 
which CPAs are not suited. 


In another labor case, the Supreme 
Court ruled that unions must comply 
with all reasonable requests from can- 
didates for union office to distribute 
campaign literature even if the group’s 
rules restrict such use. 

Timothy Brown, an unsuccessful can- 
didate in 1988 for president of the 
Masters, Mates and Pilots, sued the 
union after he was denied a mailing list 
before the union’s nominating conven- 
tion. IOMMP bylaws bar distribution 
of any campaign literature before the 
nominating convention. 

Justice Stevens said a pre-convention 
mailing would not burden the union 
because the candidate would have to 
pay for the mailing. 

In other cases of interest to labor: 

• The Circuit Court of Appeals for 
the District of Columbia decided that 
unions must pay taxes on fees or dues 
collected from non-members whose tie 
to the union is participation in union- 
sponsored health plans. The court 
agreed with an Internal Revenue Serv- 
ice ruling that the dues for such 
associate members were unrelated 
business taxable income under the IRS 
code. 

• The Supreme Court ruled that 
winning parties in civil rights lawsuits 
may not recover the costs of experts us- 
ed to prepare for trial. 

The court held that recovery is 
limited to $30 per day for expert 
witnesses who actually testily at the 
trial. 



Texas court 
vacates stilted 
picketing law 

T he Texas legislature exceeded its 
constitutional bounds by using an 
overly broad definition of what con- 
stitutes mass picketing, the state appeals 
court ruled. 

“A society dedicated to the preser- 
vation of freedom of expression cannot 
countenance the broad suppression of 
speech,” the court said. 

The statute, enacted in 1971, defines 
mass picketing as any form of picketing 
in which there are two pickets at any 
time within 50 feet of any entrance to 
the premises being picketed, or within 
50 feet of any other picket or pickets. 
The court concluded that this definition 
infringes on conduct protected by the 
First Amendment. 

Judge Charles Baird observed that the 
statute automatically made it unlawful 
to picket without regard to the peace- 
fulness of the group, the lack of 
obstruction to the flow of traffic or the 
noise generated by the picketers. 

The court added that picketing is a 
time-honored form of expression on a 
broad range of issues, such as labor 
disputes, the struggle for civil rights and 
voting rights and abortion issues. 

“The decision vindicates the defen- 
dants, union members, who were crimi- 
nally charged for using their civil rights 
to picket unfair working conditions,” 
said Texas AFL-CIO President Joe D. 
Gunn. 

“More broadly, the court has 
recognized the historic role picketing 
claims in American labor-management 
relations,” he said. 

The ruling stems from a lawsuit fil- 
ed by four employees of Auto Motor 
Convoy who picketed the company. 
They were given sentences of three days 
in jail and $100 fines. 


NFL owners draw $2 2 -million penalty 


N ational Football League owners 
broke many federal labor laws dur- 
ing the 1987 players strike and are liable 
for about $22 million in back pay to 
athletes who walked out, an ad- 
ministrative law judge has ruled. 

Judge Benjamin Schlesinger ruled the 
owners shorted the players one week’s 
salary after the strike ended and must 
pay about $20,000 each to the some 
1,100 striking players. 

The owners can appeal the decision 
to the full NLRB or try to work out a 
settlement with the players. 

The players went out on strike Sept. 


21, 1987, and the clubs began playing 
games Oct. 4 with replacement players. 

The players ended their strike on Oct. 
15, one day after the owners’ deadline 
for returning to work. The owners bar- 
red the returning players from the 
following Sunday and Monday games, 
which meant the players would not get 
paid for that week. The owners then 
added 15 non-strikers to their rosters for 
that weekend’s game. 

“The deadline rule excluding only 
the striking players from return- 
ing. . . discriminates against them only 
because they struck,” Schlesinger said. 


“It treats them differently from the en- 
tire universe of non-striking players.” 

Interest payments in NLRB cases 
usually are 10 percent a year. That 
would result in a payoff of about $22 
million to the 1,093 players in the 
strike, based on an average weekly 
salary of $15,625 for each regular 
season game. The payout would equal 
more than $20,000 per player. 

Schlesinger also ruled that the owners 
should make pro-rated payments to 
players who failed to qualify for 
bonuses because they were locked out 
of the Oct. 18-19 games. 


West Virginia Steelworkers, locked out by Ravenswood 
Aluminum Co., pass out handbills to pedestrians in New 
York City to underscore the connection with Clarendon 
Ltd., a Manhattan holding company that owns nearly 
half of the Ravenswood plant. Approximately 1,700 
members of USWA Local 5668 were locked out by the 


Tom Matthews/Steelworkers 

aluminium producer last November and subsequently 
replaced by scabs after management refused to con- 
tinue negotiations on a new contract. The USWA 
members also handbilled the public in Stamford, Conn., 
where the multinational investment firm Stanwich Part- 
ners controls 20 percent of Ravenswood. 




BARGAINING 


1990 contract innovations address family, security 


By Polly Callaghan 

U nions in 1990 negotiated innovative 
contracts that address such worker 
needs as family leave and job security, 
as labor continued its rebound from a 
decade of adjustment to the increasingly 
globalized economy, drastic industrial 
shifts and changing corporate struc- 
tures. 

The contract resurgence could be 
seen, for example, in negotiations by 
the Steelworkers at LTV, Wheeling- 
Pittsburgh and other companies, as the 
USWA negotiated a full restoration of 
wage sacrifices made in earlier con- 
tracts. 

The biggest private-sector contract 
negotiations in 1990 included the UAW 
settlements with Chrysler, General 
Motors and Ford covering more than 

500,000 workers; the Teamsters multi- 
state contract with UPS that covered 

140,000 workers; the Steelworkers con- 
tract with LTV Steel that covered 

23,000 workers, as well as many other 
similar contracts in steel. 

Major public-sector contracts were 
negotiated by AFSCME, the Service 
Employees, Teamsters and Teachers 
with New York City, which covered 

286,000 workers. Job and income 
security, wage gains, and employer- 
paid health care were common themes 
addressed in these large contracts as 
well as in numerous smaller contracts. 
However, postal bargaining failed to 
reach an agreement and remained in ar- 
bitration in early 1991. 

Economic constraints 

Collective bargaining in the last half 
of 1990 was made more difficult 
because of a sluggish economy further 
hampered by energy constraints. The 
Department of Commerce reported an 
index of leading economic indicators 
that fell consistently in 1990 after July. 

By December 1990, unemployment 
had reached 6.1 percent, the highest 
level since July 1987 and, with the 
resulting slack demand for goods and 
services, created a difficult collective 
bargaining atmosphere for workers. 

From May 1990 to December 1990, 
civilian employment fell by 700,000. 
Manufacturing was hardest hit, losing 

450,000 jobs since January 1990 and 
nearly 1 million jobs since January 
1989. The labor force has not grown 
since the spring of 1990, although the 
working-age population continues to 
grow. In addition, the number of 
discouraged workers also has increased, 
as has the number of workers forced to 
work part time because full-time jobs 
are not available. 

Inflation (CPI-W) rose substantially 
throughout 1990. The average for 1990 
(December to December) was 6. 1 per- 
cent, the highest inflation rate since 
1981. For most Americans, there was 
a decline in real earnings — the 
measure of wage gains for non- 
supervisory personnel in the non- 
agricultural private sector, adjusted for 
inflation. Real average weekly earnings 
in December 1990 were down 2 percent 
from December 1989, as wages failed 
to keep up with increases in prices. 
The trade deficit has been more than 


Polly Callaghan is the 1990-91 intern 
in the AFL-CIO Department of 
Economic Research. 


$100 billion each year since 1983. The 
1990 trade deficit of $101 billion in- 
cluded a deficit of $90 billion in 
manufactured products. Increased oil 
prices, caused by the Persian Gulf War, 
contributed to the increased trade 
deficit. These higher energy prices have 
had a particularly strong impact on 
transportation industries, such as 
airlines and trucking. 

The large trade imbalances have 
taken their toll through factory shut- 
downs and lost U.S. jobs. For each $1 
billion in deficit trade, an estimated 

25,000 U.S. jobs are lost or not created, 
which means that more than 2.5 million 
jobs were lost to the trade deficit in 
1990. The 1990 surge in unemploy- 
ment —exacerbated by layoffs in the 
manufacturing sector — underlines this 
effect. 

In spite of this unfavorable economic 
atmosphere, gains were made for 
workers through collective bargaining. 
Many contracts were negotiated before 
late summer, when signs of the reces- 
sion were apparent. Recovery of cost- 
of-living adjustments (COLAs) and job 
security will be more difficult to bargain 
in the aftermath of the recession. Bar- 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

gaining has focused on job security, 
COLAs and health insurance costs, as 
well as wage gains. 

Improved wage gains 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s 
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, 
over the life of the contract, wage in- 
creases will be achieved by 98 percent 
of all major private-sector settlements 
concluded in 1990. 

The BLS reports on wage ad- 
justments for contracts covering 1,000 
or more workers, but these figures do 
not include COLAs, lump-sum 
payments, stock-option plans and 
profit-sharing plans that, in recent 
years, have been significant factors of 
negotiated contracts. Because of this, 
the BLS figures tend to understate 
bargaining gains. 

Contracts primarily were front- 


loaded, averaging a 4.0 percent increase 
in the first contract year and 3.2 per- 
cent annually over the life of the con- 
tract. During the mid-1980s, when 
concession bargaining was at a peak, 
contracts were primarily back-loaded. 

The last time parties to these same 
settlements negotiated, the average 
wage rate adjustments were smaller — 
a 2.3 percent increase in the first con- 
tract year and 2.0 percent annually over 
the contract term. This is the second 
year since 1981 that new contracts call- 
ed for higher wages than the agreements 
they replaced. 

Public-sector contracts, covering 

920,000 state and local government 
workers, provided wage rate adjust- 
ments that were about the same as the 
contracts they replaced. Wage rate ad- 
justments averaged 4.9 percent higher 
in the first year and 5 percent over the 
life of the contract. The last time these 
same parties negotiated, wage ad- 
justments were 5 percent in the first 
year and 5.1 percent over the life of the 
contract. 

BLS also computes effective wage 
adjustments for new and existing con- 
tracts combined. These gains in wages 


include COLA adjustments, deferred 
payment adjustments, or new settlement 
gains. It was 3.5 percent in 1990, com- 
pared with 3.2 percent in 1989. 

Of the 5.9 million workers under all 
major agreements, 38 percent have 
COLAs in their contracts, according to 
BLS data. Wage adjustments from 
COLA reviews in 1990 averaged 48 
percent of the price change during the 
COLA review period, a level that has 
continued for several years after being 
near 60 percent between 1976 and 
1984. Of the 3.5 percent total average 
effective wage adjustment, 0.6 percent 
is attributable to COLA adjustments. 

The union advantage 

According to the Labor Department’s 
Employment Cost Index (ECI), 
unionized workers receive 32 percent 
higher compensation than non-union 


workers. The figures for March 1990 
show that union workers earn an 
average of $18.78 per hour in total 
compensation, wages and fringe 
benefits combined. Non-union workers 
earn $14.22 per hour in total 
compensation. 

The economic advantage of union 
membership is also shown by the BLS 
household survey data on median week- 
ly earnings of full-time union and non- 
union workers by occupation and in- 
dustry. All of these measures show that 
workers get a better deal when they 
bargain collectively. 

According to a report by the Institute 
for Women’s Policy Research, a Wash- 
ington-based think tank, secretaries and 
clerical workers who belong to unions 
earn an average of $56 more per week 
than their non-union counterparts. That 
amounts to $2,900 more per year. 

Forms of variable compensation, 
such as profit-sharing, gain-sharing, 
and ESOPs, have become an increasing 
part of negotiated settlements. Unions 
have found these plans useful in some 
circumstances when basic fair wages 
and good benefits were paid. 

Too often, however, variable com- 
pensation plans are used when a firm 
is in serious trouble and a decent wage 
is not available. Yet, if set up properly, 
these schemes can pay off for 
employees in the long run. 

For example, National Steel and 
Shipbuilding Co. distributed $4 million 
in profit-sharing 
bonuses to 3,200 
union members, who 
agreed to concessions 
in return for the 
profit-sharing plan . 
The average jour- 
neyman payout was 
$1,300 for the 
seven participating craft unions — Iron 
Workers, Carpenters, Painters, 
Machinists, Operating Engineers, Elec- 
trical Workers and Teamsters. While 
the unions are happy with the payout, 
they still are concerned about the health 
of the industry in the long term. 

Pension changes 

In pensions, the trend for the work 
force at large over the past several years 
has been the success of employers in. 
moving away from defined benefit plans 
and toward defined contribution plans. 
But that is not the trend in the union 
sector. 

Under a defined benefit plan, the 
level of retirement income is assured by 
the employer, regardless of the success 
or failure of the pension fund. A defined 
contribution plan specifies the 
employer’s contribution, but cannot 
predetermine the actual benefit upon 
retirement, which depends on the in- 
vestment performance of the pension 
fund. 

Most unions have maintained their 
defined benefit plans. Unions generally 
prefer defined benefit plans because 
they provide the most security to 
employees, who know, without a doubt, 
what their entitlements are. On the other 
hand, many unions representing 
workers at smaller employers have 
negotiated defined contribution plans 
and pooled the funds in multiemployer 
funds. 

Continued on Page 8 








Non mfg. Construction Wholesale Service 

& retail 

These figures include COLA adjustments, deferred increases and first year trarip 
gains in new contracts. irdue 

Percent average effective wage rate adjustment when computed only for those workers receiving wage changes. 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Continued from Page 7 

Employers who do not already have 
defined benefit plans are reluctant to 
agree to them. The increased cost, due 
to the aging of some work forces, to- 
gether with the uncertainty of the suc- 
cess or failure of the pension fund, has 
increased the employer preference for 
defined contribution plans. 

During the 1980s, pension invest- 
ments did better than expected, and 
many companies terminated their plans 
to get the so-called “excess” cash — 
a process that has drawn sustained op- 
position from the AFL-CIO and its 
unions. Employers who follow this 
process then replace the defined benefit 
plans with defined contribution plans, 
which are cheaper, less risky for the 
employer and easier to administer. 

Despite the overall growth of defined 
contribution plans, many unions have 
been able to keep and improve their 
defined benefit pension plans: 

• The UAW agreement with the Big 
Three automakers made gains for future 
and current retirees with a defined 
benefit plan in which retirees or surviv- 
ing spouses receive a combination of 
monthly payments and lump-sum pay- 
ments. 

A minimum rate of $20 a month per 
year of service was established under 
the contracts — a special “catch-up” 
feature that will bring the basic pensions 
for those who have been retired the 
longest to amounts closer to those of 
more recent retirees. 

Workers who retired prior to 1974 
will get a 26-percent increase in their 
income. Retirees on 30-and-out will get 
$1,800 a month, up from $1 ,500. Over 
the next three years of the contract, in- 
come will rise as much as $5,688 for 
the oldest retirees. New retirees will get 
increases of $4.45 a month per year of 
service. 

• Steelworkers at the Cleveland 
Cliffs iron ore mines in Michigan rati- 
fied a new agreement that guarantees 
$1,100 a month for 30-year retirees at 
any age, and $1 ,250 a month for mem- 
bers who retire at age 60. 

• Approximately 10,000 Bakery, 
Confectionery and Tobacco Workers at 
Nabisco and other major baking com- 
panies in the Northeast won increases 
in monthly benefit levels of future 
retirees from $100 to $150, making 
pension payments $850 to $900 a 
month. 

• Mine Workers at Pittston 
negotiated for the same pension im- 
provements that were in the 1988 Na- 


tional Bituminous Operators Agree- 
ment. Pension payments for active 
employees are $32 a month per year of 
service, up dramatically from the $20 
a month per year prior to 1988. In- 
creases also were won for all classes of 
current retirees. 

• The IBEW negotiated pension in- 
creases for 2,800 workers at Duquesne 
Light Co., increasing the monthly 
benefit for future retirees. The actual 
benefit varies by pay rate and years of 
service. For the average worker, the in- 
crease will amount to about $100 in 
benefits per month in each year of the 
contract. For example, if a worker has 
30 years of service and is earning an 
average of $30,000, monthly pension 
benefits will be $1,050 a month. 

Advances in pay equity 

Public-sector collective bargaining 
has seen distinctive gains in pay equity 
during the past decade. 

AFSCME won several pay-equity 
settlements in contracts for Minnesota 
workers. A contract covering 3,000 
AFSCME members in Hennepin 
County provides for a 4 percent across- 
the-board raise in each contract year, 
as well as pay equity increases from .05 
percent to 4 percent. Roughly one-third 
of the 1,200 Minneapolis city employ- 
ees negotiated for pay equity ad- 
justments from $20 to $206 bi-weekly 
in a contract that calls for across-the- 
board increases of 3.75 percent in each 
contract year. And 400 of Ramsey 
County’s 1,400 employees won pay 
equity adjustments ranging from 1 per- 
cent to 2 percent each year of the con- 
tract, beyond a 4 percent wage increase. 

To convince employers, and the gen- 
eral public, of the pay disparity between 
men and women, some locals are for- 
ming pay equity committees that pro- 
duce their own pay equity studies, 
rather than paying consultants to do it. 

Service Employee members who 
work for the city of Santa Barbara, 
Calif. , after documenting the problem, 
won pay equity adjustments of between 
3 percent and 18 percent over the three- 
year contract, and across-the-board pay 
raises of 5 percent each year. They also 
got an agreement for a reclassification 
study of the entire unit. 

Health care gains 

Because of escalating health care 
costs, unions have been engaged in a 
constant battle at the bargaining table 
against increased employee deductibles 
and co-payments or decreased benefits. 


An SEIU study reported that, in the 
period from 1986-1989, the number of 
strikes caused by health care disputes 
rose by more than 300 percent. In 1989, 
work stoppages rooted in fights over 
health insurance “cost the U.S. 
economy more than $1.1 billion in lost 
wages and productivity,” the SEIU 
said. 

In spite of the difficult circumstances, 
many settlements this year maintained 
or increased health benefits: 

• Steelworkers at LTV were able to 
eliminate the monthly premium of 
$26.82 that employees had been re- 
quired to pay for basic health care 
coverage. 

• UAW successfully resisted all 
health-care takeaway demands in its 
negotiations with the automakers last 
year, winning a contract provision that 
calls for the company and union to work 
jointly for national health care reform. 

The contract also arranged for a pilot 
project, at two locations in Texas, that 
combines mental-health and substance- 
abuse benefits, establishes a panel of 
medical providers and coordinates care 
through a local diagnostic referral 
agency. Early results of the project 
show that costs have been reduced 
through this coordination of specialized 
services. 

• The Clothing and Textile Work- 
ers, in a nationwide agreement in the 
men’s clothing industry, negotiated 
prenatal and neonatal care. The contract 
stipulates that both the union and the 
company will work for health care cost 
containment and national health care. 

• AFSCME was able to hold on to 
its health care packages in several con- 
tracts negotiated this year. In West- 
chester County, N.Y., 6,500 workers 
won agreement by the employer to pay 
the premium for all employees. The 
plan also offers new dental and optical 
benefits. 

• A three-year agreement between 
the Grain Millers and Utah-based 
Amalgamated Sugar Co., covering 
1,300 workers, links second- and third- 
year wage increases to health care costs. 
The contract calls for wage increases of 
4 percent in the first year, 4 percent in 
the second year, and 5 percent in the 
third year. But the second and third year 
wage increases may fluctuate one-half 
a percentage point up or down, depend- 
ing on health care claims. 

A joint union-management committee 
will work on health care cost-contain- 
ment measures, including sponsoring 
programs to show how workers can 


minimize medical expenses. The com- 
pany will pursue provider discounts as 
a result of faster payments. 

• The UMWA and Pittston Coal 
Co., which broke from the 1988 Na- 
tional Bituminous Coal Operators 
Agreement, negotiated an innovative 
and experimental agreement in health 
care. Active employees and younger 
retirees retain 100 percent health care 
coverage except for two $500 deduc- 
tibles, which are paid by the company. 
Every six months, workers are given 
$500 in cash, which they can use either 
to pay for the $500 deductible in their 
insurance plan, or pocket. 

Pittston views this as a health care 
cost containment measure, contending 
that workers were “over-using” their 
health insurance benefits because of the 
full coverage. 

• Some 3,000 Communications 
Workers struck Cincinnati Bell when it 
proposed moving to a flexible benefits 
plan with co-payments that would have 
cost each worker roughly $400 per 
year. The 10-day strike ended when the 
company agreed to maintain the current 
level of health care benefits. 

Aside from the increasing costs of 
health care, a change in accounting 
standards established by the Financial 
Accounting Standards Board (FASB), 
is causing companies to seek ways to 
reduce the cost of health care benefits 
for retirees. FASB is a private organiza- 
tion that establishes accounting prac- 
tices for companies and its rulings have 
the force of law. 

Beginning in 1993, employers will be 
required to report the projected cost of 
retiree health benefits on their annual 
income statements, replacing the prac- 
tice of pay-as-you-go reporting. 
Employers see this rule change as a ra- 
tionale to argue for cost shifting of 
health benefit premiums to workers, or 
to reduce benefits. 

Protecting families 

Since President Bush vetoed paren- 
tal leave legislation, contract negotia- 
tions provide the only avenue to pursue 
much-needed family leave benefits. 
Unions have targeted this as a key 
bargaining issue and have pressed for 
extended leaves, seniority protection, 
continued health insurance coverage, 
and other protections for working 
families: 

• In an agreement negotiated this 
year between 2,600 IBEW members 
and Wisconsin Power and Light Co. in 
Madison, Wis., workers are guaranteed 
one year of unpaid leave, with job pro- 
tection, for mothers and fathers of 
newborn or adopted children. The 
previous maternity leave policy, which 
gave new mothers six weeks of mater- 
nity leave with pay, was folded into the 
new family leave plan. 

• The Machinists and Hughes Air- 
craft in Tucson, Ariz., established a 
new program this year for employees 
who are forced to stay home when their 
children are sick. Under the program, 
employees pay $1 an hour toward the 
cost of bringing a care provider to their 
home, and the company will pay the 
balance of the $9.10 hourly fee. 

The benefit is offered through a care 
provider contracting service approved 
by both the company and the union. 
Employees will pay the transportation 
cost of the caregiver to come to their 
home, but the company will pick up 
transportation costs exceeding $3 a day. 
The service can be used a maximum of 
10 days a year. The program will be 
evaluated after one year, when the par- 
ties can negotiate changes. 

• In Denver and Colorado Springs, 
Colo., 1,500 UFCW members at 
Albertson’s food chain ratified a new 
three-year contract in May 1990, in 
which the company agreed to six 
months unpaid leave within a two-year 






period for employees caring for serious- 
ly ill family members. The leave can be 
extended to 12 months, on a conditional 
basis. 

• AT&T’s $5 million Family Care 
Development Fund, established by the 
1989 negotiations, supports the 
development of child care facilities and 
programs for the elderly. So far, seven 
grants for child care facilities have been 
awarded. In 1991, AT&T will begin 
coordinating grants for elder care 
facilities. 

Job and income security 

The UAW, which made job and in- 
come security its top negotiating priori- 
ty, achieved improvements that carry 
forward the UAW’s building-block 
tradition of negotiating important pro- 
grams, and then improving and 
strengthening them in subsequent 
negotiations. 

For the first time, workers in the 
three major auto companies are pro- 
tected from market volume-related lay- 
offs. Layoffs are limited to 36 weeks 
during the entire three-year contract. 
Once the 36-week layoff limit has been 
reached, the worker must be recalled. 

If no regular job is available, the 
worker is recalled to a “job bank” posi- 
tion that provides full pay and benefits. 
While in the job bank, the worker may 
participate in training programs, fill in 
for other workers who are being trained 
or carry out a special work assignment 
that is mutually agreed upon by the 
union and company. 

An active worker with one year of 
seniority who is laid off during the 
course of the new agreement will be 
guaranteed full Supplemental Unem- 
ployment Benefits (SUB) for any period 
of layoff, regardless of the worker’s 


Compensation breakdown: wacjes 
and benefits, union vs. non-union 

Union total compensation 

$18.78 

Wages and salary (66.4%) $12.47 

Paid Leave (7.2%) 1.35 

Insurance (8.3%) 1.56 

Retirement and Savings (4.5%) .84 

Legally Required (9.8%) 1.84 

Other (3.8%) .71 

Non-union total compensation 
$14.22 

Wages and salary (74%) $10.52 

Paid Leave (6.8%) .96 

Insurance (5.6%) .79 

Retirement and Savings (2.6%) .37 

Legally Required (8.8%) 1.25 

Other (2.2%) .31 


Source: Employment Cost Index, Bureau of Labor Stastics 





credit-unit standing or the status of the 
SUB fund. There will be no waiting 
time before SUB benefits are received 
for volume-related layoffs. 

Workers laid off, as of the effective 
date of the new agreement, also are pro- 
vided an array of new income protec- 
tions and offers. These include full SUB 
benefits for 26 additional weeks for a 
worker with at least one but less than 
10 years of seniority. Laid-off workers 
with 10 or more years of seniority 
receive 52 additional weeks of SUB. 

In their master agreement, the Long- 
shoremen were able to secure a 
guaranteed annual wage for workers 
who were in the industry before Dec. 
1, 1968. The agreement promises 1,900 
hours of work per year, which trans- 
lates into roughly $40,000 a year. 

Several AFSCME contracts had pro- 
visions to limit compulsory overtime. 
Contracts call for the creation of pools 
of employees who are willing to work 
overtime. Overtime hours will be 
drawn from these pools only, not from 
all personnel. 

In its hard- won Pittston contract, 
ratified in February 1990, the UMWA 
made several job security gains, in- 
cluding the stipulation that subcontrac- 
tors hired by the company must agree 
to operate with union members. 

The contract also requires that laid- 
off UMWA members have first rights 
to some jobs in the company’s non- 
union operations, when they become 
available. 

Outsourcing 

The reality of the global economy has 
provoked unions to broaden the 
bargaining process to include issues 
such as outsourcing and ownership. 

The new UAW auto contracts estab- 


lished joint union-company sourcing 
committees with full-time staff. The 
companies now are required to disclose 
to the union those procedures used to 
make sourcing decisions, to take the 


issue of job security into account and 
to give the union the right to grieve 
sourcing issues to an umpire em- 
powered to reinstate and award back 

Continued on Page 10 


1991 Bargaining Calendar 


Construction 

The Carpenters and Laborers will be negotiating 
with the Associated General Contractors, the 
General Building Contractors Association and 
several other contractors’ groups. These negotiations 
are predominantly in the Midwest and New 
England. 

Electrical equipment 

General Electric (69,000 workers) and 
Westinghouse (14,000 workers) have coordinated, 
multistate contracts with 13 unions that expire in 
June and August, respectively. The Electrical 
Workers have a contract at GTE (1,600 workers) ex- 
piring in September. IBEW and the Electronic 
Workers both have national contracts expiring at 
RCA (4,500 and 1,150 workers, respectively) in 1991. 

Finance, insurance and real estate 

In October, the Food and Commercial Workers 
will negotiate a national contract with Prudential In- 
surance covering 15,000 workers. The Service 
Employees will negotiate in April with the Realty 
Advisory Board in New York for 30,000 workers. 

Food products 

The Teamsters’ contract for 20,000 workers at 
California Processors, Inc. , is up for negotiation in 
June. The Teamsters also negotiated a new national 
contract with Anheuser-Busch that covers 9,000 
workers in February. UFCW and IBT will bargain 
with Campbell Soup Co. in Ohio, Texas and Calif- 
ornia this year. The Longshoremen and Warehouse- 
men negotiated a contract covering 6,600 workers 
with the Sugar Plantation companies in Hawaii in 
January. 

Entertainment 

The Television and Radio Artists will negotiate 
a multistate contract with the Network Television 
Broadcasting Association. In Florida, Walt Disney 
World will negotiate a multiunion contract covering 

14,000 workers. 


Rubber 

The Rubber Workers have several contracts ex- 
piring in 1991: with Armstrong Rubber Co. (2,000 
workers), Firestone (4,900), Goodyear (14,000) and 
Uniroyal Goodrich (6,400). The Ladies’ Garment 
Workers will negotiate in New York with the Plastics 
and Metal Products Manufacturers Association for 

4,000 workers. 

Services 

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees 
have contracts expiring with hotel employer associa- 
tions in Boston and Milwaukee. SEIU has several 
health care contracts expiring this year, including 
Minneapolis-St. Paul Health Employers, covering 
4,500 workers, and Greater New York Health Care 
Facilities Association, covering 3,700. 

State and local government 

States with the largest numbers of workers covered 
in 1991 negotiations are California (272,600), Florida 
(91,450), New York (264,500) and Pennsylvania 
(77,000). AFSCME and several other AFL-CIO 
affiliates are involved in those negotiations. 

Steel 

Some 22,000 Steelworkers in the production and 
maintenance unit with USX Corp., USS Division 
will bargain for a national contract. USWA also will 
be negotiating contracts with Harsco Corp. and 
Bethlehem Steel Corp. in Pennsylvania and Flexsteel 
Industries in Iowa. 

Textiles and apparel 

The Clothing and Textile Workers will negotiate 
their national agreement, covering 42,000 workers, 
with the Cotton Garment Negotiating Group. 
ACTWU also will be negotiating with multistate 
manufacturers associations for contracts covering 
more than 18,000. Other contracts expiring this year 
are Bibb Co. in North Carolina, Rayon Corp. in Ten- 
nessee and Koret Industries of San Francisco. The 
ILGWU has a May expiration date on a contract with 


the Blouse, Skirt, and Undergarment Association 
covering 19,000. 

Transportation equipment 

Farm equipment manufacturers Caterpillar and 
Deere will negotiate with the UAW for contracts 
covering more than 22,000 workers. The Machinists 
will negotiate with United Technologies Corp. for 

14.000 workers in Connecticut. 

Trucking 

Earlier in 1991, the Teamsters tentatively approved 
National Master Freight Agreements for over-the- 
road and local cartage, which expired in March. It 
covers nearly 200,000 workers. They will also be 
negotiating a joint agreement with Illinois employers 
that covers 10,000 workers. 

Utilities 

IBEW, SEIU and the Utility Workers have many 
contracts expiring in 1991. Some of the largest are 
in Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, California and the 
District of Columbia. 

Wholesale and retail trade 

UFCW has multiple negotiations with food stores. 
These contracts include 17,000 Stop & Shop 
employees in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 7,000 
Foodtown employees in New York and New Jersey, 

4.000 employees in Illinois and many others. The 
Industrial Employers and Distributors Association 
of California will negotiate with the IBT and ILWU 
in May. Those contracts cover 25,000 workers. 

Beyond 1991 

In April 1992, the LAM will negotiate with North- 
west Airlines on behalf of 20,000 unit members. 
Several Bell agreements covering 40-45,000 
members of the IBEW and the Communications 
Workers expire between June and August 1992. In 
June 1992, contracts expire for 20,000 Los Angeles 
school district employees and other public employees 
represented by SEIU. The LAM is scheduled to 
bargain with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in Oc- 
tober 1992 over contracts covering 64,000 workers. 


IEWSGRAFIC 






Technical, 

sales, 

clerical 


Services 


Production 
and craft 


Operators 
and laborers 


Farming 





| $373 

$251 



Nondurable 

mfg. 

Wholesale 
and retail 
trade 


Services 


Government 


Non-union 


Union 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Continued from Page 9 

wages to workers. The UAW will get 
advance information on future product 
plans, and will jointly develop with 
management the criteria to be followed 
on making sourcing decisions. 

The Steelworkers have established a 
union-management committee, known 
as the National Policy for Steel Com- 
mittee, to seek changes in national 
policies and laws to allow the domestic 
steel industry to sustain profitability. 

Other unions also are involved in 
such issues. Members of ACTWU in 
West Virginia negotiated early with 
their new employer, Russ Berrie Co., 
after the firm had agreed to restore 
1,000 jobs that had been lost to 
outsourcing. 

PAC checkoffs 

Union members increasingly are 
volunteering contributions to a union 
political action committee (PAC) 
through payroll deduction agreed to in 
bargaining. The Teamsters estimate that 
fully 19 percent of their members are 
signed up for PAC checkoffs. 

Safety and health 

The UAW won broad and significant 
safety and health gains in its auto nego- 
tiations. Gains included an expanded 
nationwide union-company ergonomics 
program, a top-level safety and health 
review board to be convened when 
needed, video equipment to document 
and report on safety and health issues, 
expanded safety and health training, 
as well as expanded union participation 


in eliminating workplace hazards. 

The expanded ergonomics program 
calls for the establishment of local 
ergonomics committees at each 
assembly and manufacturing facility. 
Committee members will be provided 
with training in order to conduct job 
analysis and make recommendations, 
while existing ergonomics policies are 
continued as this improvement process 
is under way. 

In order to refine and enlarge health 
and safety training programs that 
already exist, the National Joint Com- 
mittee on Health and Safety has been 
asked to give recommendations on the 
development of new health and safety 
training programs and job-specific 
training for employees during work 
hours, and evaluation of the need for 
new occupational safety and health 
research. 

Workers have also won increased 
participation in the safe design of new 
equipment. Local safety and health 
committees will be involved as early as 
possible in planning and reviewing new 
plant layouts and new manufacturing 
equipment, as well as other major 
changes occurring in the plant. 

In several contracts, Steelworkers 
were assured that safety programs 
already in the contract are carried out. 
The new program institutes a paid union 
safety representative who is picked by 
the union and paid for by the company. 

Bethlehem was the first of the steel 
companies to agree to the program, 
which calls for one union safety repre- 
sentative per operation per 8 million 


man-hours. The representative chosen 
by the union is generally a pre-existing 
worker who has an understanding of 
operations, existing safety programs 
and enforcement problems. 

Several other companies — LTV, In- 
land, Wheeling-Pittsburgh and Alle- 
gheny-Ludlum — have followed suit 
with programs that vary somewhat in 
specifics. 

A precedent-setting ergonomics set- 
tlement was negotiated by BCT with 
Keebler in Denver. In the contract, 
Keebler agreed to settle an OSHA cita- 
tion regarding repetitive motion pro- 
blems, marking the first time in the bak- 
ing industry that an employer has 
negotiated over the resolution of an 
OSHA citation. Because the contract 
stipulates that the union be involved in 
the resolution process, it will be a more 
lasting solution and go beyond the stan- 
dards set by OSHA. 

Keebler will pay to hire an ergono- 
mist, in consultation with the union and 
OSHA, to conduct a study of the cited 
jobs. Some changes recommended by 
the ergonomist will go into effect im- 
mediately, and a timetable for the 
implementation of the remaining 
changes will be agreed on by the com- 
pany, union and OSHA. Keebler also 
agreed to provide an ergonomics train- 
ing program to workers. 

Drug testing 

The Teamsters’ contract with UPS in- 
cludes language to protect worker rights 
in drug testing and assures that the 
testing will be done properly and the 


results double-checked for accuracy. 

The Boilermakers developed contract 
language stating that current employees 
will be subject to drug and alcohol 
screening only when it is a customer’s 
contractual requirement, or when there 
is reasonable suspicion that workplace 
safety is being jeopardized. 

Education and training 

The USWA established a 
Career Development Program with 
four steel companies — Bethlehem, 
National, Inland and Armco — to pro- 
vide support services for education, 
training and personal 
development for those 
Steelworkers covered by the 
agreement. 

The program will enable Steel- 
workers to improve their skills and their 
ability to handle new work systems on 
the job. It also will help members in 
their home and family lives, offering 
education and counseling to develop 
alternative careers in the event of 
dislocation. 

The fund is financed through con- 
tributions from each company and 
through receipts from a new program 
to control excessive overtime —the ex- 
cess overtime penalty account. For 
every hour worked by an employee 
over 56 hours a week, the company will 
pay $5 to the penalty account. 

The UAW auto agreements provide 
a wide array of educational oppor- 
tunities to workers, including upgraded 
tuition assistance programs for both 
laid-off and active employees. Active 
employees will be eligible for an addi- 
tional $550 a year in tuition assistance 
for approved job-related college and 
university courses, making the total 
$2,800 a year at GM and Chrysler. 
Laid-off employees are eligible for an 
extra $500 in tuition assistance, making 
the total $6,000 for a laid-off employee 
with four or more years of seniority. 

Workers’ spouses and dependents 
also have increased opportunities to par- 
ticipate in training programs. For the 
first time, the spouse or dependent 
children of a deceased active employee 
will be entitled to use the member’s re- 
maining balance for college or educa- 
tional pursuits for one year following 
the employee’s death. 

Several specific educational pro- 
grams will either be expanded or in- 
itiated with this contract. For exam- 
ple, there will be joint orientation for 
new hires that will provide information 
on benefits, educational programs, 
work responsibilities, and the history of 
the union and the company. 

International solidarity 

The International Confederation of 
Free Trade Unions held an international 
conference on multinational corpora- 
tions in Denmark in March 1990 to in- 
tegrate the activities of unions dealing 
with multinationals. 

The Food and Commercial Workers 
and the Federation of Commercial, 
Clerical, Professional and Technical 
Employees (known by its French 
acronym FIET) hosted an international 
labor summit in Washington that 
brought together leaders of commercial 
workers unions from 22 countries. 

FIET is one of 15 International Trade 
Secretariats — international groups 
which bring together unions of the same 
craft or industry. The U.S. unions that 
belong to FIET are UFCW, SEIU, the 
Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union and the Office and Profes- 
sional Employees. Like some other 
ITSs, FIET sought in the conference to 
form strategies to combat transnational 
union-busting companies and to 
enhance influence with those corpora- 
tions through international coordina- 
tion. 











NLRB scores 
Lichtenberg 
union purge 

ACTWU hails order 
for rehires, back pay 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

S Lichtenberg Co., a Georgia 
• drapery manufacturer that has 
battled the Clothing and Textile 
Workers since its workers voted 3 to 1 
to join the union in April 1988, has been 
ordered to rehire more than 120 work- 
ers it fired or laid off for union activity 
and to pay them $1 million in back pay. 

The ruling by the National Labor 
Relations Board’s Atlanta Division vin- 
dicates ACTWU ’s three-year campaign 
against the company, which has sought 
to intimidate workers into withdrawing 
support for the union while steadfastly 
refusing to sign a contract. 

“This is proof, once again, that the 
Lichtenberg workers deserve dignity on 
the job and the protection of a union 
contract,” said Bruce Raynor, 
ACTWU vice president and southern 
regional director. 

The 158-page decision by Phillip P. 
McLeod, an NLRB administrative law 
judge, said “the unilateral layoffs of 
employees beginning in April im- 
mediately after the Board-conducted 
election, followed thereafter by the June 
and July terminations of the shipping 
department employees, appears to have 
been the beginning of a general house- 
cleaning ... for no other logical reason 
than trying to disinfect itself of the per- 
vasive support given to the union by the 
employee complement.” 

In addition to layoffs and firings, the 
company also questioned employees 


Workers at S. Lichtenberg pack a room during ACTWU organizing drive in 1988. 


Vicky Willians/ACTWU 


about union activities, threatened them 
with plant closure and job loss, changed 
duties and reduced wages. McLeod 
ordered the company to cease such ac- 
tivity as well as to provide the union 
with job descriptions, pay rates, senior- 
ity lists and information on layoffs so 
it may properly represent workers. 

Barbara Lewis, one of the 120 
discharged workers, said she was 
“elated” by the judge’s decision. 

“The most wonderful feeling will be 
walking back inside that plant,” she 
said. “We didn’t do anything wrong 
and this proves it. This shows that it’s 
right to form a union and that you are 
protected. We waited a long time for 
this to happen and now it’s here and 
we’re happy.” 

Bob Giolito, an attorney representing 
the union, said McLeod’s ruling hark- 
ened back to the days when employers 
would close a plant to avoid union- 
ization. 


Although this ruling is a major vic- 
tory for the union, the struggle to get 
the company to obey the law has just 
begun. The union has also charged the 
company with race and sex 
discrimination. 

That case is pending in U.S. District 
Court in Augusta, along with a lawsuit 
alleging the company failed to meet the 
requirements of the federal COBRA 
law regarding continuation of health 
and life insurance for discharged 
workers. 

Raynor said McLeod’s order could 
have a “dramatic effect” on the litiga- 
tion between the union and the 
company. 

Additional unfair labor practice 
charges, also concerning retaliation for 
union activity, are pending, as well as 
an investigation into charges of equal 
employment opportunity violations by 
the Office of Federal Contract Com- 
pliance. The company supplies curtains 


to Army PXs around the country. 

“More than 100 of the Lichtenberg 
workers had and still have children and 
immediate family members serving in 
the Persion Gulf,” Raynor said. “It’s 
ironic that while these Americans fight 
for the freedom and rights of people in 
Kuwait, they have to endure oppression 
and denial of their rights here in 
Georgia. It’s got to be stopped, and it 
will be stopped.” 

Raynor added he hoped that 
McLeod’s decision would prompt the 
company to negotiate a contract with the 
union. 

About a dozen negotiating sessions 
have been held, he said, but no agree- 
ment has been reached. 

“We call upon the company to fin- 
ally cease its relentless campaign 
against workers and the union, abide by 
the judge’s decision and reinstate the 
workers, and conclude a contract at the 
bargaining table,” Raynor charged. 


30-month effort gets French retailer to table with UFCW 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he Food and Commercial Workers, 
supported by fellow trade unionists 
in France, have won recognition and 
gotten to the bargaining table on behalf 
of 400 Philadelphia employees of 
French retailer Carrefour. 

It took 30 months of intense effort, 
but “Carrefour learned how committed 
UFCW is to protecting our 50,000 
members in this area from non-union 
competition,” said UFCW Regional 
Vice President Gary Duckett. 

' The UFCW effort began in 1988 
when Carrefour opened its first U.S. 
operation in northeast Philadelphia. 
Union officials filed numerous unfair 
labor practice charges against the com- 


pany and launched an effective coporate 
campaign. Carrefour responded with a 
$100 million racketeering suit against 
the union. 

UFCW agreed to remove the picket 
lines at the request of the Federation of 
Food and Agricultural Workers 
(FGTA-Force Ouvriere), which began 
lobbying the home office in France. 
Two Geneva-based International Trade 
Union Secretariats — the International 
Federation of Commercial, Clerical, 
Professional and Technical Employees 
(FIET) and the International Union of 
Food and Allied Workers Association 
(IUF) — as well as the AFL-CIO Euro- 
pean office, located in Paris, assisted in 
gaining French support for the UFCW. 


As the UFCW and Carrefour tried to 
work out their differences in the ensu- 
ing months, a new “climate of coop- 
eration and understanding” was estab- 
lished, Duckett said, which led to Car- 
refour’s recognition of the UFCW. 

A majority of the employees signed 
cards asking for the union in December 
1990 and UFCW officials said they ex- 
pect the new spirit of cooperation ex- 
hibited in the cardcheck recognition to 
carry over to contract negotiations. 

Bargaining is expected to start within 
a few weeks. 

UFCW spokesman Allen Zack said 
the union will take into account “that 
this hypermarket is a different type of 
operation” than the retail food markets 


UFCW represents in Philadelphia. 

Carrefour’s “hypermarkets” sell a 
variety of goods, ranging from clothing 
to appliances and groceries. 

“The UFCW intends to show other 
European retailers planning expansion 
here that it is better to work with the 
UFCW than to declare war on the stan- 
dards and jobs of our members em- 
ployed by their competitors,” Duckett 
said. 

Carrefour is a $10 billion-per-year 
retailing giant. The union will seek to 
make Carrefour employees “partners in 
the firm’s success, in a manner that 
won’t undermine the standards of retail 
food workers in competing stores,” 
Duckett added. 


Arkansas workers vote for ACTWU after years of impediments 


Earle, Ark. 

A fter a 14-year struggle to gain a 
union, workers at Earle Industry 
voted 172-101 for the Clothing and 
Textile Workers. 

“This has been a long time coming, 
and it’s been worth the effort,” said 
veteran employee Earley Wallace of the 
vote at the closet accessory plant. 

“It wasn’t about money,” Wallace 
said. “It was about dignity. We are all 


grown and should be treated fairly.” 
She complained that the company had 
threatened to fire workers for calling in 
sick and had timed workers during bath- 
room breaks. 

Apprentices in the AFL-CIO ’s 
Organizing Institute helped in the cam- 
paign, working with ACTWU organ- 
izers. They began the drive in early 
January after being contacted by an 
Earle worker and, organizer Cassandra 


Davis noted, found that “everyone was 
pretty enthused.” 

This was the third attempt by plant 
employees to gain a union. In 1985, a 
union election fell short by five votes. 

But that was only after plant manage- 
ment refused to acknowledge the 
original union in the late 1970s. After 
years of refusing to negotiate manage- 
ment imposed wage and benefit freezes 
and a decertification vote followed. 


National statistics show that only 65 
percent of new units get a first contract, 
since federal labor law enforcement 
often is too weak for a new unit to have 
recourse against surface bargaining. 

So the history of no first contract is 
of concern to the unit. “Together we 
stand, divided we fall,” said Wallace. 
“We’ve waited too long and come too 
far. We will get a contract and we will 
stand together.” 



Union-busting binges prove costly for employers 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

E mployers who choose to “per- 
manently replace” their union work- 
forces can deal a harsh blow to the 
workers, their family and the commun- 
ity in which they all live. 

But sometimes the employers who 
answer that siren call to be rid of their 
unions by “permanently replacing” 
strikers also deal a harsh blow to 
themselves. 

That’s the lesson the Tribune Co. 
must have learned from its recent 
strategy against the workers at the New 
York Daily News. The Tribune, with 
union-busting specialists King and 
Ballow of Nashville advising it, spent 
$24 million setting up alternative shops 
and recruiting security forces and “per- 
manent replacements.” 

As a result, the Tribune lost $191 
million in the fourth quarter of last year, 
most of it directly attributable to losses 
incurred during the five-month strike at 
the Daily News. 

“It sends a signal to management to 
back off the aggressive anti-union posi- 
tion that has been creeping into the 
newspaper industry over the past 10 
years,” said Stephen Sleigh, a professor 
from the City University of New York. 

And that lesson cannot be lost on the 
managements at Greyhound Lines Inc., 
now in bankruptcy court, and Eastern 
Airlines, which went belly up when it 
chose to fight its unions while using 
‘ ‘permanent replacements. ’ ’ 

Late last year, when it was clear that 
the Tribune Co. gambit to replace its 

TWA suitor 
outlines plan 
for renewal 

By Candice Johnson 

C alifornia financier Kirk Kerkorian, 
whose purchase bid for Trans World 
Airlines is backed by TWA unions, said 
he will invest $250 million in the car- 
rier and will make a good-faith offer for 
the airline if the proposed sale of inter- 
national routes is canceled. 

In a filing with the Department of 
Transportation, Kerkorian outlined 
plans for buying and restructuring the 
carrier and urged the department to 
block the sale of key international routes 
to American Airlines. 

The Transportation Department ten- 
tatively had approved the sale of three 
U.S. -London routes, but the agreement 
reached between the unions and 
Kerkorian ’s Tracinda Corp. could stop 
that purchase. 

Transportation Secretary Samuel 
Skinner has asked Kerkorian to submit 
more detailed information, including 
whether his proposal would ensure the 
“continued viability” of TWA. Skinner 
gave Kerkorian a deadline of April 12 
to file the information. 

Several members of Congress repre- 
senting Missouri, TWA’s major hub is 
St. Louis, were joined by other political 
leaders in a call to Skinner to reject the 
TWA-American arrangement. 

American was denied the right to pur- 
chase additional routes from London to 
three U.S. cities — Philadelphia, Balti- 
more and St. Louis. American original- 
ly agreed to pay $445 million for all six 
routes and is balking at TWA owner 
Carl Icahn’s position that the price 
should remain at $445 million for the 
three routes. 

The Air Line Pilots, Machinists and 
an unaffiliated flight attendants’ union 
agreed to a $ 137-million package of 


News Analysis 


union workers had failed, Theodore W. 
Kheel, adviser for the Allied Printing 
Trades Council, noted that it had 
become increasingly likely that the 
company would shut down the news- 
paper. 

“If so,” Kheel said, “an appropriate 
inscription on a tombstone might read: 
Here Lies The Daily News. It Died in 
1990 of Permanent Strike Replacement 
Syndrome.” 

Instead, the Daily News ended its 
precipitous fall from grace when the 
Tribune Co. agreed to sell the 
newspaper to British media mogul 
Robert Maxwell. The company basic- 
ally gave the Daily News away, along 
with $60 million, when Maxwell agreed 
to assume most of its long term 
liabilities. 

The nine striking unions bargained 
the contract Maxwell said he needed in 
order to save the newspaper and when 
it was over the workers were going 
back to work; the Tribune Co. was go- 
ing back to Chicago and its “permanent 
replacements” were terminated, going 
elsewhere. 

Those same nine unions, in bargain- 
ing at another struggling New York 
City tabloid, the New York Post, also 
reached an agreement in September 
1990 — without a strike and without 
further losses to employer and 
employee alike. The difference? The 


Post, like Maxwell much much later, 
agreed to join the union members in an 
effort to save the paper. 

In contrast, confrontation and “per- 
manent replacements” were the cor- 
nerstone of the Tribune Co. strategy, 
hatched months in advance of the ex- 
piration of contracts, to force a strike. 
In addition, editors and managers were 
trained to use printing presses and a 
phantom newsroom was set up with 
personal computers, photo equipment 
and a computerized page layout equip- 
ment. 

The New Jersey plant was surround- 
ed by a chain-link fence and patrolled 
by security guards with German 
Shepherds. 

The 79-year-old daily lost $69.3 
million in the last quarter of 1990, con- 
tributing to a 99 percent drop in the 
Tribune’s operating profit. Overall, the 
News lost $1 14.5 million in 1990, com- 
pared with a loss of $2.2 million in 
1989. 

The tabloid, once the nation’s third 
largest metropolitan daily behind the 
Los Angeles Times and The New York 
Times, dropped in circulation from its 
pre-strike 1.1 million readership to 
300,000 readers. 

The nation’s unions, coordinated by 
the AFL-CIO Strategic Approaches 
Committee, rallied behind the Daily 
News workers before their contract ex- 
pired in March 1990 and long before 
they were finally forced to strike by 
management actions in October 1990. 

Particularly, New York unions rallied 


behind the effort. A newspaper and 
advertising boycott convinced more 
than 75 percent of New York distrib- 
utors to refuse to carry the paper and 
730 display advertisers to drop their 
ads. 

The newspaper derived more than 70 
percent of its gross revenues from 
advertising last year. 

“If the Tribune Co. (the Daily 
News’s former owners) was trying to 
break the unions, it didn’t do it,” said 
Richard Blood, a professor at the Co- 
lumbia School of Journalism and a 
former News editor. 

The Tribune Co. joins several other 
companies that recently have failed by 
adopting ‘ ‘ permanent replacement ’ ’ 
strategies. Three months after bringing 
in permanent replacement workers in 
March 1990, Greyhound Lines was 
forced to file for bankruptcy. The com- 
pany also faces charges of unfair labor 
practices. If the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board complaint is upheld, the bus 
line could be liable for up to $10 million 
in back pay. 

And when Frank Lorenzo steered 
Eastern Airlines into an anti-union cam- 
paign, the proud air carrier went down 
in flames after 62 years in the sky. 

For workers intent on keeping their 
jobs, with fair contracts, the failures of 
their employers is no consolation at all. 
From their point of view, legislation to 
ban the use of “permanent replace- 
ments” would protect their employers 
from themselves as much as it would 
protect their jobs. 





Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Flight Attendants picket United Airlines terminals where 
the carrier has begun U.S. -London service, to protest 
United's lackluster bargaining with the union since 
1986. The Air Line Pilots reached a tentative agreement 


covering 7,600 pilots this month, following a stop- 
gap settlement in November 1989. Negotiations be- 
tween United and the Machinists and AFA are 
continuing. 


cost reductions to help facilitate 
Kerkorian’s buyout — one that would 
keep the airline intact. The reductions 
would be offset by employee ownership 
of up to one-third of the newly capital- 
ized TWA stock and seats for represen- 
tatives of each union on a 16-member 
board. 

The unions reached the package of 
cost-savings — to come from reduc- 
tions in pay rates and benefits, work 
rule changes, early retirements and 
other means — following lengthy nego- 
tiations at AFL-CIO headquarters. 
Their efforts follow a pattern of 
workers and their unions making a 
good-faith effort to bail out an 
employer, the federation said. 

Airline unions especially have been 


active in buyout efforts, including bids 
for healthy airlines. The unions at 
United, for example, have been work- 
ing for three years to structure an ac- 
ceptable buyout bid for that carrier, 
which is one of the healthiest airlines. 
Their latest bid was rejected by the 
UAL board last year. 

While Kerkorian has been character- 
ized as a “spoiler” and his offer called 
a “charade” by Icahn, Kerkorian’s 
Tracinda Corp. filing outlined a pro- 
gram to modernize TWA’s fleet, among 
the oldest of domestic carriers, and 
other plans to reduce financing costs. 
In contrast, Icahn, who turned TWA 
private in a leveraged buyout, has refus- 
ed to invest in the carrier, instead drain- 
ing its assets, the unions charged. 


The unions strongly oppose Icahn’s 
plan to sell the carrier piecemeal and in 
a separate filing urged the Transporta- 
tion Department to keep TWA intact. 
ALPA said the American Airlines take- 
over of the routes would not be in the 
public interest, because it would lead to 
the demise of TWA. 

Kerkorian, who has said he is in- 
terested only in purchasing a carrier 
with international routes, now owns a 
small luxury carrier, MGM Grand Air. 

TWA’s supply of cash and securities 
has shrunk to less than $290 million, 
down from the nearly $1 billion Icahn 
said was on hand a year ago. TWA 
defaulted on $99 billion in debt 
repayments and posted a net loss of 
$400-$500 billion for 1990. 





Battle escalates as Bush ignites Mexico trade blitz 


Continued from Page 1 

a similar package is on the way to each 
of the nation’s governors. 

While the AFL-CIO is concerned 
about the potential loss of U.S. jobs 
under a free trade agreement, Donahue 
said, the federation’s most immediate 
concern is the fast-track authority. 

He noted that implementing legisla- 
tion for trade negotiations can be 
developed under normal legislative pro- 
cedure “so that Congress has a chance 
to discuss the issues surrounding a free 
trade agreement, to evaluate the text of 
an agreement and to modify it where 
that is necessary.” 

Meanwhile, AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland asked the nation’s gover- 
nors to contact their congressional 
delegations and ask them to support 
House and Senate resolutions that 
would disapprove fast-track authority. 

“The lure of a low-wage work force, 
lax environmental and safety regula- 
tions has already enticed hundreds of 
American companies to move their pro- 
duction facilities from the U.S. to Mex- 
ico,” Kirkland wrote. “A free trade 
agreement would only accelerate this 
movement and increase the erosion of 
the industrial and tax base. ... At a time 
when many states are facing serious 
economic problems, the loss of in- 
dustries and jobs only exacerbates the 
problems.” 

Donahue told Ways and Means 
Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) 
“your hometown of Chicago is in an 
area that has been hit especially hard,” 
by companies that already have moved 
production facilities to Mexico to take 
advantage of already relaxed tariffs, 
low wages and few regulations. He 
ticked off a dozen of the several dozen 
Chicago area firms now doing business 
in Mexico. 

One of the main reasons the U.S. 
business community is strongly back- 
ing a trade deal is so “that they can 
count on a plentiful supply of cheap 
labor close by,” Donahue said. 

Free trade supporters contend that a 
deal would not cost American jobs, but 
would benefit workers in both nations. 
However, a study by the International 


Trade Commission earlier admitted that 
“unskilled workers” would suffer 
under a deal. But Donahue told the 
committee that the ITC has refused to 
define what it means by “unskilled.” 
“It reportedly included all workers 
with four years of high schools or less,” 
Donahue said. “That would mean a ma- 
jority of the U.S. working population 
would be hurt by a trade accord. The 
ITC is now busily trying to repudiate 
its own report — but has not made 
public one bit of new data that under- 
mines its earlier conclusions.” 

In Canada, which also would be in- 


“We will not support a 
proposal that would 
result in North American 
workers being laid off, 
exploited and poisoned. 
The working men and 
women of this continent 
cannot bear such a 
burden and they should 
not be requested to take 
it on. ” 

— Thomas R. Donahue 


such a burden and they should not be 
requested to take it on.” 

He cited recent articles in the New 
York Times that examined the living 
conditions of workers in maquiladora 
plants owned by U.S. companies in 
Mexico and in the Wall Street Journal 
about a 12-year-old who works in such 
a plant. 

A free trade agreement would see a 
vast expansion of the plants and further 
exploitation, Donahue said. 

The article noted workers earn be- 
tween $27 and $47 for a 49-hour 
workweek. Many live in shacks of card- 



cluded in the deal, Prime Minister Brian 
Mulroney was asked by reporters about 
possible American and Canadian job 
losses under a three-nation free trade 
deal and said, “Only a child would 
think you could get something for 
nothing. ” Mulroney backs a free trade 
agreement. 

The AFL-CIO is willing to work with 
Congress and the administration for a 
stronger North American economy and 
better relations between the United 
States, Mexico and Canada, “But we 
will not support a proposal that would 
result in North American workers be- 
ing laid off, exploited and poisoned,” 
Donahue said. “The working men and 
women of this continent cannot bear 


board and wood scraps. 

“For some, the most common build- 
ing material is a tan cardboard that had 
contained polyvinyl chloride. On the 
walls of the card are warnings that the 
former contents could release hazardous 
fumes,” Donahue said. 

Rep. Donald J. Pease (D-Ohio) told 
a congressional news service that a re- 
cent trip to Matamoros, Mexico, showed 
that the rundown communities where 
maquiladora workers and their families 
live are “deplorable,” with serious air 
and water pollution problems. 

“There is no question that the ma- 
quiladoras have created an environmen- 
tal inferno for their workers,” Donahue 
told the committee. “As the New York 


Times said, ‘The contamination along 
the border runs the gamut from raw 
sewage to wood smoke to highly toxic 
industrial chemicals.’ In Nuevo Laredo 
alone, about 25 million gallons of raw 
sewage are dumped into the Rio Grande 
everyday.” 

An investigation by the National Tox- 
ics Campaign Fund recently said that 
the maquiladoras are “turning the 
border into a 2,000-mile long Love 
Canal,” Donahue said. 

He also cited a study by California 
economist Joseph Grunwald in the 
Brookings Review that concluded the 
maquiladoras “have contributed little or 
nothing to advancing Mexican in- 
dustrialization, technological growth or 
international competitiveness.” 

The maquiladora program has grown 
tremendously in the past two decades, 
with some 1,900 plants now on the 
border. “Why have they done so much 
bad and so little good for those Mex- 
icans that have been affected by them?” 
Donahue asked. “It is no mystery. The 
entire purpose of the maquiladoras is 
providing multinational corporations 
with a work force that is poor, desperate 
and easily exploited.” 

The Democratic National Committee 
joined in the call for Congress to reject 
Bush’s attempt to ram through the trade 
measure under a fast-track rule. 

The DNC warned in a resolution that 
“An unrestricted U.S. -Mexico free 
trade agreement would be a disaster for 
workers in both countries. It would 
destroy jobs in the United States while 
perpetuating exploitation of workers 
and inflicting widespread damage to the 
environment in Mexico. The bene- 
ficiaries would be multinational cor- 
porations and large banks.” 

The resolution was submitted by 
DNC at-large member Evelyn Dubrow, 
who is the legislative representative of 
the Ladies’ Garment Workers. 

“As for U.S. workers, hundreds of 
thousands have already lost their jobs 
to the maquiladoras,” the resolution 
noted. “Hundreds of thousands more 
would see their jobs exported to plants 
throughout Mexico with the advent of 
the free trade agreement.” 


Kirkland calls for allied halt to Saddam’s massacre of Kurds 


A FL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
urged the United States and allied 
forces in the Persian Gulf to “issue a 
stern warning to the Iraqi dictator and 
those who still cling to his mantle to im- 
mediately cease the killing of innocent 
children, women and men.” 

“The AFL-CIO is appalled at the 
brutal suppression of the Kurdish peo- 
ple,” Kirkland said. “Iraq’s dictator- 
ship continues to violate basic human 
and national rights of all its citizens.” 


Kirkland said in an April 2 statement 
that the coalition forces should be 
prepared to enforce its warning by in- 
terdicting any Iraqi plane or helicopter 
that is used “against citizens responding 
to President Bush’s invitation to rise up 
and overthrow Saddam’s brutal 
regime.” 

“We strongly support the aspirations 
of the democratic forces of Iraq, whose 
leaders have proven their ability to 
work together on the basis of respect for 


their country’s religious and ethnic 
diversity,” Kirkland said. 

“The AFL-CIO also supports the 
Kurdish struggle for autonomy within 
Iraq. In contributing to enhanced 
respect for human rights, such 
autonomy would strengthen stability in 
the region,” he added. 

With the U.S. and allied victory 
declared in the cease-fire Feb. 28, “it 
would be a tragedy if the hopes for 
peace and democracy were now to be 


drowned in the blood of brutality and 
genocide,” Kirkland declared. 

He said, “Every effort must be made 
to ensure that the defeated and dis- 
credited Iraqi regime is replaced by 
leaders who respect human rights and 
the democratic process. 

“The first step in such an outcome,” 
the AFL-CIO president said in his April 
statement, “would be to protect the 
Kurds and other innocent civilians of 
Saddam Hussein’s barbarity.” 


Unions wheel out new three-year accords with Harley-Davidson 


T he Machinists and the Allied In- 
dustrial Workers have approved new 
three-year settlements at Harley- 
Davidson Inc. plants in Milwaukee and 
Tomahawk, Wis., and York, Pa. The 
York settlement followed a two- week 
strike by IAM members. 

At Harley-Davidson ’s two Mil- 
waukee plants, AIW Local 209 
represents about 720 workers, while 
IAM Local 78 has about 60 skilled 
trades workers at those plants. AIW 
Local 460 has 164 members at the 
Tomahawk plant. 

The units ratified new accords pro- 
viding a one-time special payment of 
$2,500 on April 19 to all active and 
1990-91 retirees. An additional $1,000 


payment will be made upon implemen- 
tation of a new profit-sharing plan. 

There will be a 1 percent general pay 
increase in the first year and 3 percent 
increases in the following two years. 
The cost-of-living adjustment from the 
previous accord, capped at 40 cents an- 
nually, will continue. It produced an 
$1.08 hourly increase in the last 
contract. 

The pension multiplier was raised $2 
to $26 per month per year of service, 
and life and accidental death/dismem- 
berment insurance was increased to 
$23,000. Sickness/accident benefits 
were raised $15 each year to a max- 
imum of $270 a week. Dental coverage 
was raised to $2,000 annually and or- 


thodontic lifetime coverage to $1,500. 

The strike by the 1 ,400 IAM 
members in York helped to gain a three- 
year agreement raising wages 6 percent 
immediately, with an additional 4 per- 
cent on Feb. 2, 1992, and another 4 per- 
cent a year later. The contract also pro- 
vides for the union and company to 
develop and implement a “pay for per- 
formance” plan that could increase 
wages an additional 4 percent, the IAM 
said. 

Improvements were made in the med- 
ical, dental and vision insurance plans, 
the sickness/accident programs and 
pension benefits. Language gains were 
made in the areas of job bidding/pro- 
motions, shift premiums, severance 


pay, subcontracting, and new tech- 
nology. 

IAM District 98 Representative Clark 
Ruppert in York credited solidarity of 
the membership with keeping the strike 
short. After a strike vote of 1,242-65, 
more than 1 ,000 members held a two- 
hour rally outside the plant gates on the 
first day of the strike. 

The company held captive audience 
meetings to try and circumvent the 
negotiating process, Ruppert said. The 
stewards and executive board explained 
what the company was trying to do. 

At the meetings, the members asked 
such good questions that company of- 
ficials became confused and stopped the 
meetings, Ruppert said. 





Misery for the jobless 


Unemployment insurance fails millions of workers 


By John Oravec 

S ome 4.6 million jobless workers know 
firsthand what is wrong with the unemploy- 
ment insurance system: it doesn’t work. 

Although counted as officially unemployed 
in March by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 
as 4 million others were, the majority of jobless 
workers were not able to collect a dime’s worth 
of unemployment benefits. 

Many of the uncompensated jobless are vic- 
tims of federal and state modifications in the 
unemployment insurance system made during 
the Reagan presidency. 

Millions of long-term jobless workers have 
exhausted their benefits without finding a job. 
Millions of others did not qualify in the first 
place because of severe limitations imposed by 
some states. And more than a million dis- 
couraged workers are no longer counted as 
unemployed because they gave up looking for 
a job. 

According to a study by the Center on Budget 
and Policy Priorities, 2.3 million jobless ex- 
hausted their benefits last year before they 
could find work. And in the first two months 
of 1991, nearly 500,000 workers exhausted 
benefits, an increase of 30 percent over the one- 
year period. 

Only 37 percent of America’s jobless re- 
ceived benefits last year, said the study’s 
authors, Isaac Shapiro and Marion Nichols. 
They noted that 1990 marked the seventh 
straight year that unemployment insurance pro- 
tection was below 40 percent. 

Long-term impact 

While the percentage has increased in recent 
months because of new filings for claims in the 
wake of massive layoffs as the recession 
spreads, the coverage may shrink as millions 
of the jobless exhaust benefits after 26 weeks. 

The United States entered the Bush recession 
with a weaker benefits system than at anytime 
since the mid- 1940s, the study said. In the 38 
years from 1946 to 1983, the percentage of 
jobless workers receiving benefits dipped below 
40 percent only once, in 1946. 

The level of protection was about 75 percent 
in the 1975 Ford recession, about 50 percent 
in 1980 Carter recession, and about 45 percent 
during the 1982 Reagan recession. 


If the proportion of jobless workers receiv- 
ing benefits in 1990 had been the same as a 
decade earlier, at least a half-million more 
would have been drawing compensation in an 
average month last year, Shapiro said. 

“For some previously middle-class workers, 
this deterioration in unemployment protection 
may mean not only a further decline in their 
standard of living but also that they sink into 
poverty,” Nichols said. 

“Many of those whose benefits are running 
out, or who are unable to receive benefits in 
the first place, are people who worked for many 
years and paid taxes,” Nichols said. “Now 
when they face hardships due to circumstances 
beyond their control, the insurance protection 
they thought they’d earned isn’t there.” 

Fallout from Reagan 

Much of the problem stems from a 1981 
federal law that Congress adopted under a push 
from President Reagan. That measure increased 
unemployment levels a state must reach for 
workers to receive extended benefits beyond the 
normal 26 weeks. 

As a result, only six states currently qualify 
to provide extended benefits — Alaska, Rhode 
Island, Maine, Vermont, Michigan and 
Massachusetts. In some states, unemployment 
would have to reach depression levels of 15 
percent to trigger extended benefits. 

Despite raising unemployment last year, 
fewer than 33 percent of the unemployed were 
drawing benefits in 23 states. In 8 states, less 
than 25 percent of the jobless were compen- 
sated. They are: Florida, 20.6 percent; Indiana, 
22.8 percent; New Mexico, 24.9 percent; 
Oklahoma, 21.6 percent; South Dakota, 16.8 
percent; Texas, 22.8 percent, Virginia, 20.4 
percent, and Wyoming, 24.6 percent. 

The AFL-CIO is supporting legislation in- 
troduced by Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.) 
that would replace the combined state-federal 
system with a federally funded extended benefit 
program, limit state restrictions on eligibility 
and change employer financing. 

The federation has urged the House to boost 
the level of benefits proposed in the legislation 
(H.R. 1367), and to make other improvements 
to patch the unemployment insurance safety 
net. 


Who is getting unemployment benefits 

Here is the situation in the 50 states and the District of Colum- 
bia on jobless workers receiving unemployment benefits, ac- 
cording to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy 
Priorities. Figures are based on 1990. 


State 

Percent job- 
less getting 
benefits 

State 

rank 

Jobless not 
getting 
benefits 

1990 

jobless 

rate 

Alabama 

28.3% 

16 

91,700 

6.8% 

Alaska 

68.1% 

51 

5,700 

6.9% 

Arizona 

28.6% 

17 

65,700 

5.3% 

Arkansas 

34.3% 

26 

51,200 

6.9% 

California 

47.0% 

41 

435,900 

5.6% 

Colorado 

26.5% 

11 

63,900 

4.9% 

Connecticut 

50.0% 

44 

45,500 

5.1o/o 

Delaware 

27.4% 

15 

13,800 

5.1% 

Dist. of Columbia 

44.4% 

39 

11,100 

6.6% 

Florida 

20.6% 

3 

300,300 

5.9o/o 

Georgia 

26.7% 

14 

128,200 

5 . 40/0 

Hawaii 

37.4% 

32 

9,400 

2.80/o 

Idaho 

40.6% 

35 

17,200 

5.8o/o 

Illinois 

33.1% 

22 

248,300 

6 . 20/0 

Indiana 

22.80/0 

5 

115,800 

5.3o/o 

Iowa 

33.80/q 

25 

41,700 

4 . 20/0 

Kansas 

34.40/o 

27 

37,400 

4.4% 

Kentucky 

29.7o/o 

18 

72,400 

5.80/o 

Louisiana 

25.2o/o 

9 

87,500 

6 . 20/0 

Maine 

52.5% 

47 

15,700 

5.1o/o 

Maryland 

32.2o/o 

20 

80,000 

4 . 60/0 

Massachusetts 

59.6o/o 

50 

76,400 

6 .O 0/0 

Michigan 

35.3% 

29 

222,700 

7.5% 

Minnesota 

36.7o/o 

31 

73,400 

4.8% 

Mississippi 

26.50/o 

11 

64,600 

7.5% 

Missouri 

35.3% 

29 

97,700 

5.7% 

Montana 

34.60/o 

28 

15,000 

5.8% 

Nebraska 

40.8% 

36 

10,600 

2.20/o 

Nevada 

38.5% 

33 

19,100 

4.9% 

New Hampshire 

31.1o/o 

19 

24,800 

5.6o/o 

New Jersey 

51.80/o 

46 

97,300 

5.00/o 

New Mexico 

24.9o/o 

8 

33,000 

6.3% 

New York 

48.60/q 

43 

231,700 

5.20/o 

North Carolina 

39.6% 

34 

84,000 

4.1% 

North Dakota 

33.6o/o 

24 

8,600 

3.9o/o 

Ohio 

33.1o/o 

22 

205,400 

5.7% 

Oklahoma 

21.6% 

4 

67,500 

5.6% 

Oregon 

46.5o/o 

40 

43,900 

5.50/o 

Pennsylvania 

48.20/0 

42 

1 64,700 

5 . 40/0 

Rhode Island 

58.8% 

49 

14,400 

6 . 70/0 

South Carolina 

32.40/o 

21 

54,700 

4.7% 

South Dakota 

16.8% 

1 

10,800 

3.7% 

Tennessee 

41.20/o 

37 

73,400 

5.2o/o 

Texas 

22.8% 

5 

402,300 

6 . 20/0 

Utah 

26.5o/o 

11 

25,000 

4.30/o 

Vermont 

53.2o/o 

48 

7,000 

5.00/o 

Virginia 

20.4% 

2 

109,000 

4 . 30/0 

Washington 

51.3o/o 

45 

59,400 

4.9% 

West Virginia 

26.4% 

10 

47,100 

8.3% 

Wisconsin 

44.3% 

38 

62,900 

4 . 40/0 

Wyoming 

24.6o/o 

7 

9,800 

5.40/o 


Signals of sputtering economy point to prolonged recession 


T he nation’s economy continued to 
muddle along during the first quarter 
of 1991 as some key government 
reports pointed to a prolonged 
recession. 

While the government’s index of 
leading economic indicators pointed up 
and there was a pickup in housing 
starts, construction spending and fac- 
tory orders continued to decline. 
Unemployment surged again in March 
to 6.8 percent, the highest level since 
1986. 

• The Commerce Department 
reported that its index of future 
economic activity rose 1 . 1 percent in 
February, the best showing since a 
1.6-percent gain in June 1988. Three 
components made up the bulk of the 
gain: consumer expectations, stock 
prices and building permits. On the 
downside of the index were increased 
unemployment claims, a shorter 
workweek and sagging factory orders. 
The overall index has been on the 


slide for six months before the February 
gain. But some analysts warned that the 
rise may be a mere anomaly, citing the 
index’s advance last May and June, just 
before the recession began to take hold. 

• In a separate report, the Com- 
merce Department said factory orders 
dropped 0.5 percent in February, the 
fourth straight monthly decline, despite 
a gain in orders for military goods dur- 
ing the Persian Gulf war. After peak- 
ing at $255 billion last October, factory 
orders plunged 5.8 percent in Novem- 
ber and continued to slide 0.4 percent 
in December and 1.6 percent in Jan- 
uary. 

Durable goods, a key component of 
factory orders, fell 0.3 percent in 
February after skidding 2 percent in 
January. Durable goods include autos, 
refrigerators and other big-ticket items 
that last at least three years. 

Military orders during the height of 
the Persian Gulf crisis rose 2.5 percent 
in February after surging 12.3 percent 


in January. But excluding military hard- 
ware, factory orders fell 0.6 percent in 
both months. 

Meanwhile, the National Association 
of Purchasing Management said its in- 
dex for manufacturing orders edged up 
to a sluggish 40 percent in March. The 
association noted that any number 
below 50 percent indicates the manufac- 
turing economy is shrinking, and any 
number below 44 percent indicates the 
entire economy is contracting. 

• Housing starts rose 16.4 percent 
in February to an annual rate of 
989,000 units, but were still 32 percent 
below the rate of February 1990, the 
Commerce Department reported. Ex- 
cept for last November, housing starts 
have dropped for the last 12 months. 
Applications for building permits rose 
8.5 percent in February. 

• Construction spending dropped 
again in February by 0.1 percent, the 
1 1th monthly decline in succession. The 
Commerce Department said the 


construction outlays at an annual rate 
of $395.1 billion were the lowest since 
the $395 billion rate in April 1986. 
Spending, which fell 2.8 percent in 
January and 2.2 percent in December, 
has fallen every months since March 
1990. 

• At the end of March, sales of ma- 
jor U.S. automakers were down from 
year-ago levels while the Japanese 
grabbed a bigger share of the American 
market with an upturn in sales. For the 
last 10 days of the month, General 
Motors sales fell 10.7 percent from the 
1990 level; Ford was down 15 percent 
and Chrysler 19.5 percent. Meanwhile, 
Honda sales picked up 12 percent, 
Nissan 21.8 percent and Mazda 12.6 
percent. 

• The Conference Board’s help- 
wanted advertising index fell 4 percen- 
tage points in February to 96. The index 
is 46 points below its level of 142 in 
February 1990 — another signal that 
job opportunities are evaporating. 





AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue was named to 
Irish America magazine’s annual Top 
100 list, which called him “an 
outspoken defender of Irish causes.” 
The magazine noted that in 1982 
Donahue and former Longshoremen’s 
President Teddy Gleason founded the 
Irish American Labor Coalition, which 
has been a “great success” in putting 
Ireland on the agenda of the American 
labor movement. It pointed out that 
Donahue led an AFL-CIO delegation to 
Ireland in July 1990, which in its report 
reiterated labor’s support for the Mac- 
Bride Principles. 

Dr. Dorothy I. Height, who served 
33 years as president of the National 
Council of Negro Women, was honored 
March 12 at a “Tribute to a Living 
Legend Dinner” in New York City that 
was emceed by entertainer Bill Cosby 
and attended by first lady Barbara 
Bush, AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland was a co-chair of the dinner. 
The NCNW, a principal advocacy 
group for African-American women 
with an outreach to 4 million women, 
has aided unions at Eastern Airlines, 
Delta Pride and other companies. Pro- 
ceeds from the dinner went to the 
NCNW’s Fund for the Future cam- 
paign. 


Howard D. Samuel, president of the 
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Depart- 
ment, has been appointed a member of 
the Defense Science Board by Deputy 
Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood. 
Samuel is the first union representative 
to serve on the board since it was 
established in 1956. The Defense 
Science Board provides the Secretary of 
Defense with independent, objective adr 
vice that assists in assuring a sound 
defense program. 

Joel Ronald Ax has been named 
general counsel of the Clothing and 
Textile Workers. Ax served as the 
union’s associate general counsel from 
1970 until 1973 when he became deputy 
general counsel. He has also worked as 
an attorney and associate general 
counsel for the two predecessor unions 
of ACTWU - the Clothing Workers 
and the Textile Workers. Ax, who has 
worked on the Farah strike and boycott 
and the J.P. Stevens boycott, currently 
is directing the legal campaign against 
S. Lichtenberg and Co., a Georgia 
drapery manufacturer that refuses to 
sign a union contract three years after 
workers voted 3-1 for ACTWU. 

Agnes Sheppard of Linton, Ind., 
was greeted on her 100th birthday 
March 16 by a letter from AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland. “It is a 
source of pleasure and pride to know 
that you hold membership in the United 
Mine Workers of America in recogni- 
tion of your years of dedicated service 
to that great union and of the vital and 
rightful role women workers continue 
to play in the growth and strengthening 
of the American labor movement,” 
Kirkland wrote. 

Sheppard was made an honorary 
Mine Workers member in 1987 by 


UMWA President Richard Trumka, 
who said he was honored to issue her 
instatement. “For too long, we have not 
fully recognized the important role 
women played in building this union,” 
he said. 

In 1950, Sheppard had worked as a 
clerk at the Linton mine and became 
one of the first women to hold UMWA 
membership. But 11 months after she 
began paying dues, her card was revok- 
ed by the District 1 1 president who told 
her President John L. Lewis objected 
to women working in the coal mines. 
“Today, that wouldn’t happen,” Shep- 
pard told the UMWA Journal. “But 
those were different times and there was 
no bitterness or anything like that.” 

DEATHS 

Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.), 52, who 
died April 4 when his small plane col- 
lided with a helicopter in Merion, Pa., 
was a brave battler for working people, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said 
in a letter to his widow, Teresa. 

Heinz “constantly belied the notion 
that someone of his background and 
political affiliation could never be a 
staunch friend and advocate of workers, 
the elderly and the less fortunate,” 
Kirkland wrote. “Often standing alone 
among his colleagues, he fought many 
a valiant battle on behalf of working 
families in Pennsylvania and throughout 
the nation.” 

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President 
William George said Heinz was a 
statesman and a friend who was com- 
mitted to workers’ rights and the 
achievement of better living standards 
and safer jobs for all citizens. 

Heinz was elected to the House in a 
special election in 1971 and re-elected 



Sen. John Heinz 


in 1972 and 1974. He was elected to the 
Senate in 1976 and two subsequent 
terms. 

James Larry Owens, a former 
representative with the AFL-CIO ’s 
Human Resources Development In- 
stitute, died of cancer at his home 
March 29 in Washington, D.C. He was 
49. At the time of his death, Owens was 
executive director of Service Employ- 
ees Local 82. 

He began his union career as a 
business agent for Local 82 in 1965. He 
worked for HRDI from 1969 to 1984. 
After spending two years at the Census 
Bureau, he returned to Local 82. He 
was active in many community groups, 
including a senior-youth project spon- 
sored by his local. 

Survivors include his wife, Arlene, 
and a daughter. 


Chick Chaikin, 
former ILGWU 
president, dies 

S ol Chick Chaikin, president of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers from 1975 
to 1986 and former AFL-CIO vice 
president, died April 1 of heart failure 
at Long Island Jewish Medical Center 
in New York. He was 73. 

Chaikin crusaded against the loss of 
jobs to foreign competition and led the 
fight against sweatshops in New York 
City and elsewhere. He also played a 
prominent role in the fight against 
legalizing homework in the needle 
trades. 

During his tenure on the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council, Chaikin represented 
labor in the international arena during 
assignments to Egypt, Chile, Argentina, 
Brazil, Portugal and Spain. He also 
represented the AFL-CIO at labor sum- 
mits in London and Tokyo and served 
as a member of the U.S. delegation ex- 
amining the Helsinki Accord on Human 
Rights during meetings in Belgrade, 
Yugoslavia, and Madrid, Spain. In 
1983, he led the first official AFL-CIO 
visit to South Africa. 

“Chick served his union, and this 
federation, long and diligently,” said 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland in 
a letter to Chaikin’s widow, Rosalind. 
“His deep and tireless commitment to 
the cause of justice for workers and 
their families and his eloquence as a 
spokesman for dignity, fairness and 
human rights won him the respect and 
admiration of unionists around the 
world.” 

Chaikin began his union career as an 
organizer for ILGWU Local 178 in Fall 
River, Mass., in 1940. He went on to 
serve in locals in Boston, Lowell and 
Springfield, Mass., before becoming 
director of the Lower Southwest Region 



Sol Chick Chaikin 

and then assistant director for the 
Northeast Department. 

Trained as a lawyer, Chaikin often 
drew laughter from union audiences by 
acknowledging that fact and quickly ad- 
ding, “but I never practiced law a day 
in my life.” 

In 1965, Chaikin became an ILGWU 
vice president and in 1973 was elected 
secretary-treasurer of the union. 

He was named to fill Louis Stulberg’s 
unexpired term as ILGWU president in 
1975, and was elected in 1977 to his 
first of three full terms. He retired in 
1986. 

His interest in education was evi- 
denced by his service as the first chair- 
man of the AFL-CIO American Council 
of Education, a joint project to facilitate 
greater interaction between the labor 
and academic communities. He also 
was a trustee of Brandeis University. 

Chaikin also served on the boards of 
hospitals, political groups, Jewish, 
Hispanic and civil rights organizations 
and veterans’ associations, and was ac- 
ting president of the Jacob K. Javits 
Convention Center of New York. 

In addition to his widow, Chaikin is 
survived by three sons, Robert, Eric 
and David; a daughter, Karen, and 11 
grandchildren. 


Union-Industries Show gears up 
for big welcome in Minneapolis 


O rganizers expect this year’s AFL- 
CIO Union-Industries Show, set for 
May 3-6 at the Minneapolis Convention 
Center, to be the largest ever, said Den- 
nis L. Kivikko, the show manager. 

The annual show, which is produced 
and managed by the AFL-CIO Union 
Label and Service Trades Department, 
spotlights the quality of union-made 
goods and services and will include ex- 
hibits by 300 unions and companies. 

More than $150,000 in prizes will be 
given away, including a $10,000 
Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a 
$6,900 Coleman camper. Those at- 
tending the show also will have a 
chance to win a $1,600 General Elec- 
tric refrigerator; Northwest Airline 
tickets to anywhere in the continental 
United States; Lenox china; television 
sets; and a $1,000 Samsonite patio set. 

Kivikko credited the cooperation of 
area labor leaders, including Don Early 


lilil\ 

Resources 


PUBLICATIONS 
Is Your Job Making You sick? is a 
handbook on workplace hazards pub- 
lished by the Coalition of Labor Union 
Women. The publication provides the 
latest information on reproductive 
health, indoor air quality, video display 
terminals, ergonomics, physical 
hazards and bloodbome and infectious 
diseases. The cost is $4 per copy or $3 
for orders of 20 or more, and is 
available from National CLUW, 15 


of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union 
Council and Steve Dress of the St. Paul 
AFL-CIO Trades and Labor Assembly, 
in making the show a high-profile event 
in Minneapolis. 

As so often in the past, a unique 
feature of the show will be the hands- 
on displays of old-fashioned glass blow- 
ing by members of the Glass, Molders 
and Pottery Workers. 

And the Food and Commercial 
Workers will conduct a two-day, judged 
competition featuring some of the na- 
tion’s top hair fashion designers. 

The Machinists, major supporters of 
the International Guiding Eyes, will 
feature a demonstration of seeing-eye 
dogs at work. 

The show hours are 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. 
on May 3-5, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on 
May 6. For more information contact 
Marilyn Toro at 202/628-2131 or 
Kivikko at 612/333-5024. 


Union Square, New York, N.Y. 10003. 

Alternative Approaches is the sec- 
ond part of a tax policy study entitled 
“Taxes We Can Live With — 
Designing A System to Meet Future 
Needs,” released by the New York 
State AFL-CIO. The study makes 
recommendations for addressing the 
state’s current fiscal crisis and to pre- 
vent recurring deficits. Copies available 
by calling 518/436-8516. 

Exploiting Both Sides: U.S. Mex- 
ico Free Trade is a pamphlet that ex- 
plains the social and economic effects 
of President Bush’s proposal for a free 
trade agreement with Mexico. Pamphlet 
No. 220. The first copy is free, $1 for 
2 to 99 copies, 90 cents for 100 to 999, 
and 75 cents for 1,000 or more. Con- 
tact the AFL-CIO Pamphlet Division, 
Room 209, 815 16th Street, N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20006. 







Actions urged 
to ease plight 
of unemployed 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith the worsening recession cutting 
across most major job sectors, 
bumping the nation’s jobless rate to 6.8 
percent, the AFL-CIO called for im- 
mediate action to ease the plight of 
unemployed workers and to generate 
job programs. 

The unemployment rate surged by 
0.3 percentage points the second 
straight month in March with 8.6 
million workers on the jobless rolls — 

414,00 more than in February. Since 
the onset of the recession last June, the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, the 
number of unemployed workers has 
risen by 2 million and the jobless rate 
has climbed 1 .5 percentage points to the 
highest level in four-and-a-half years. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the “unemployment figures show 
that those who say this is a mild reces- 
sion and that it’s almost over are dead 
wrong. Last month, while working 
families were told that ‘prosperity is just 
around the corner,’ more than 400,000 
Americans became unemployed.” 
When some 1 million discouraged 
workers and 6.2 million in part-time 
jobs because they can’t find full-time 
work are counted with the officially 
unemployed, Kirkland noted, there are 
nearly 16 million people out of work or 
underemployed. 

“This is a serious recession and the 
Bush administration and Congress 
ought to face up to that fact,” Kirkland 
stressed. 

“Our government leaders should act 
now to help the jobless immediately by 
extending unemployment benefits. And 
they should develop programs that will 
put people to work at jobs that will meet 
the nation’s critical needs in areas such 
as housing, education and public in- 
frastructure.” 


Thousands packed the Convention Center in Washington during a recent 


Kirkland also noted that “our presi- 
dent promised that if elected, he would 
create 30 million new jobs. But the total 
number of jobs in this country has 
dropped by 1.5 million since last sum- 
mer.” 

In March, only 4.2 million of the 8.8 
million jobless before seasonal adjust- 
ment were drawing unemployment in- 
surance benefits. That left 4.6 million 
unemployed workers without benefits 
because of severe limitations in the 
federal-state UI system. 

Layoffs last month continued to take 
their toll on jobs in manufacturing, con- 
struction and retail and wholesale trade. 
BLS said industry payrolls dropped by 

205,000 to 109.3 million in March after 
declining by 290,000 in February. 

Factory job losses of 90,000 in 
March, following a drop of 150,000 in 
February, were concentrated in the 
durable goods sector, which has been 
hard-hit by imports. The nation has lost 
1.2 million factory jobs since January 
1989, BLS said. 

Construction employment plunged by 


70.000 last month, adding to the 
downturn since last May for a loss of 

500.000 jobs. 

Employment in retail trade fell by 

50.000 in March, following a sharp 
decline of 1 10,000 in February. Whole- 
sale trade jobs were down by 20,000 for 
the second month in succession. 
Workers in the trade industries have lost 

460.000 jobs since last summer, BLS 
said. 

AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy 
Oswald pointed out that the jobless rate 
for adult men rose to 6.5 percent from 
4.6 percent a year ago, including a loss 
of 150,000 jobs in March. Adult 
women also lost 150,000 jobs last 
month while their jobless rate increased 
from 4.7 percent to 5.7 percent over the 
year. 

Teenage unemployment rose 4 per- 
centage points over the year to 18.7 per- 
cent as the 16- to 19-year-olds lost 

785.000 jobs, including 120,000 last 
month. 

The jobless rate for white workers in 
March was 6.2 percent; black workers, 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Federal Jobs Fair. 

12.3 percent, and Hispanics, 10.3 
percent. 

Oswald noted that the shrinking 
average workweek, which fell by a 
tenth of an hour to 34.2 hours, reflected 
a basic weakness in the economy. 

Several large states reported jobless 
rates of more than 7 percent, including 
Michigan at 10.7 percent and Massa- 
chusetts at 9.7 percent. The others are 
California, 7.7 percent; Florida, 7.5 
percent; Pennsylvania, 7.4 percent, and 
Ohio, 7.3 percent. 

Meanwhile, computer giant Interna- 
tional Business Machines Corp. an- 
nounced plans to slash its worldwide 
work force by 10,000 this year, with 
about 6,000 of the job cuts coming in 
its U.S. operations primarily through 
early retirements, incentives and 
attrition. 

Grumman Corp., a largely non-union 
manufacturer of military aircraft and 
aerospace systems, said it would cut 
1,900 jobs by the end of 1991 because 
of reductions in federal defense con- 
tracts. 



Workers demonstrate 
for OSHA reform 

This April 28, the third annual Workers 
Memorial Day and the 20th anniversary 
of OSHA, workers and community 
leaders will press for reform of the 
federal job safety law. 



Consensus seen for 
health care reform 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland tells 
Congress that labor, medicine and much 
of the business community agree on the 
need to improve the nation’s health care 
system. 


Mine industry hides 
coal dust hazards 

0 A nearly two-year investigation by the 
Mine Safety and Health Administration 
found that operators of nearly half the 
nation’s underground coal mines 
tampered with dust samples. 



Rail talks continue 
as deadline nears 

Two of the 10 rail unions bargaining 
since 1988 for new contracts announced 
tentative agreements as the April 17 
strike deadline approaches. 



Replacement ’ issue 
harmful to bargaining 

The use of “permanent replacement” 
workers subverts the collective bargain- 
ing process in the transportation in- 
dustry, union leaders tell Congress. 



Insurance system fails 
millions of jobless 

The majority of jobless workers were 
not able to collect unemployment bene- 
fits due to modifications in the laws 
made during the Reagan years. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


4 / 15/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 





VOLUME 36, NUMBER9 APRIL 29, 1991 


Unions free to organize 8 hospital units 


By James B. Parks 

T he U.S. Supreme Court has unani- 
mously upheld the National Labor 
Relations Board’s ruling creating eight 
appropriate bargaining units in acute 
care hospitals — a long-awaited deci- 
sion unions hope will break a logjam in 
hospital organizing cases. 

The decision “is a major victory for 
private-sector hospital employees,” said 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. 
“This rule allows each distinct group 
of hospital workers to decide for itself 
whether to form a union. And the 
court’s decision should stop one form 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith the clock ticking down to a 
June 1 deadline in Congress, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland called on 
all unions to muster every available 
resource in the fight to derail “fast- 
track’’ authority on a proposed U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement. 

“We all must come together on this 
fight’’ to head off the erosion of more 
American jobs, Kirkland wrote the 
presidents of federation affiliates. 

Unless either chamber of Congress 
acts by the end of May, fast-track 
authority would be extended auto- 
matically to Bush administration trade 
negotiators. With that leverage, Con- 
gress could not amend any international 
trade agreement the administration sub- 
mits for ratification. 


of management delay: haggling over 
bargain unit determinations. 

“Fair and timely elections are essen- 
tial for the law to fulfill its promise of 
freedom of choice on union represen- 
tation,’’ Kirkland said. “The court 
decision is a step in the right direction. ’ ’ 

The Supreme Court ruling follows 17 
years of struggle and litigation, in- 
cluding two previous court rulings, 
known as St. Francis I and St. Francis 
II. 

The new rule provides eight cate- 
gories for union units — registered 
nurses, physicians, all other profes- 


“Many of our unions have lost tens 
of thousands of jobs to U.S. -owned 
plants in Mexico,’’ Kirkland said. 
“This is reason enough to redouble our 
efforts to stop the fast-track procedure 
for Mexico.” 

Administration negotiators are 
unlikely to address the wide wage 
disparity between U.S. and Mexican 
workers, which would result in more 
job losses in the United States, he said. 

The impact would extend beyond 
members of industrial unions, Kirkland 
cautioned. Members of the building 
trades, service sector unions and even 
state and local employees “would be af- 
fected as industrial plants are closed, 
workers lose their jobs, the ability to 
raise tax revenues is diminished.” 

Kirkland said labor’s campaign to 


sionals, technical employees, skilled 
maintenance workers, office and cleri- 
cal employees, all other non-profes- 
sionals and guards. 

Also hailing the union court victory 
was AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee, who noted that “hospital 
workers’ desires for a union have been 
frequently thwarted by a hospital in- 
dustry determined to block unionization 
at all costs.” 

“The hospital industry has delayed 
workers’ right to be represented by a 
union through nit-picking litigation over 
the shape of bargaining units,” 


halt fast track must involve all levels of 
the labor movement from the local 
unions to the top — pressing gover- 
nors, congressional representatives and 
senators into the fight. 

“Clearly,” Kirkland stressed, “the 
fast-track procedure for the U.S.- 
Mexico free trade agreement would 
prevent full debate on the issues that 
threaten U.S. workers with jobs loss 
and Mexican workers with further ex- 
ploitation and social degradation.” 

Earlier, Kirkland alerted the nation’s 
governors that the lure of low wages has 
enticed hundreds of U.S. companies in- 
to moving production to maquiladora 
plants in Mexico, resulting in the fur- 
ther erosion of the industrial footing and 
tax base in many states. 

Continued on Page 8 


McEntee said. “All that is behind us 
now.” 

John J. Sweeney, president of the 
Service Employees, said that “for the 
first time ever, the playing field is level 
for union organizing in hospitals.” 
“There’s a tremendous shortage of 
hospital workers across this country 
because of poor wages, benefits and 
working conditions — a shortage 
created by the shortsightedness of the 
hospital industry, which workers and 
their unions can now fight to correct,” 
Sweeney said. 

Continued on Page 5 

Strikebreaker 
use shown to 
worsen strikes 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

A new study confirms what labor has 
contended all along: strikes involv- 
ing “permanent” replacement workers 
are longer and more bitter than strikes 
that do not. 

The report by the Economic Policy 
Institute, based on a symposium of 
economic and legal experts, also found 
that the practice of permanent replace- 
ment workers undermines U.S. com- 
petitiveness and productivity. 

The EPI report, “Employee Rights 
in a Changing Economy,” provides ad- 
ditional impetus to the campaign for 
federal legislation to ban permanent 
replacement workers. The House bill, 
H.R. 5, now has 207 co-sponsors after 
picking up five more. It recently passed 
two House committees, Public Works 
and Transportation and Education and 
Labor, and will be heard by the Energy 
and Commerce Committee before go- 
ing before the full House, probably in 
late spring. 

In the Senate, the companion bill is 
S.55 introduced by Sen. Howard Metz- 
enbaum (D-Ohio), which now has 31 
co-sponsors. The House bill was in- 
troduced by Rep. William Clay 
(D-Mo.). 

The EPI sample showed that the 
mean duration of strikes in which “per- 
manent replacements” were hired is 
363 days. The mean duration when 
temporary replacements were hired was 
72 days. When no replacements were 
hired, it was 64 days. 

Statistics based on randomly drawn 
samples of national and state strikes be- 
tween 1984 and 1988 showed that the 
use of “permanent replacements” dur- 
ing the 1980s “probably contributed to 
the increase in the average length of all 
strikes and that the number of unfair 
labor practice cases filed before the 
Continued on Page 3 



Fighting back tears, Elizabeth Macias describes at Senate 
hearings how her 16-year-old son was killed at a Ford 
Motor Co. glass plant in Juarez, Mexico, during his first 
week on the job. The Ford maquiladora was paying him 


AFL-CIO News/Steve Yarmola 

46 cents an hour as a production worker when he was 
hacked to death in an underground waste grinder. Ac- 
companying Mrs. Macias are attorney Gustavo de la 
Rosa Hickerson and interpreter Alicia Edwards. 


Deadline looms on Mexico trade fight 








Rail strike brings new panel 
as dispute near end of line 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Rail workers picket at the Potomac Yards in Alexandria, Va., in the early 
hours of the strike that involved 235,000 union members nationwide. 


By Arlee C. Green 

A nationwide rail freight strike by 
eight unions was quashed by Con- 
gress after 19 hours with emergency 
legislation that put rail workers back on 
the job and pinpointed an end-of-the- 
line for the three-year-old bargaining 
dispute. 

A special review board, soon to be 
appointed by President Bush, will have 
65 days to complete its actions. 

The years of non-productive bargain- 
ing between the unions and the nation’s 
major rail carriers, punctuated by 
Presidential Emergency Board recom- 
mendations last January, had climaxed 
at 7 a.m. on April 17 with the total shut- 
down of the rail freight lines across the 
country. 

Bargaining had continued past the 
deadline for some of the unions. Others 
hadn’t met with the carriers for several 
weeks. In the days prior to the strike, 
the unions announced the job action was 
aimed solely at the freight lines, and not 
the traveling public. The only passenger 
lines affected were those that run on 
freight tracks. 

The issues have remained constant 
throughout — wages, work rules and 
health care coverage. But the impor- 
tance of each issue varies among dif- 
ferent types of railroad workers. 

For some workers, the issue is a 
longer workday, requiring they travel 
130 miles to get a day’s pay rather than 
the current 108 miles. For others, it’s 
an expansion of seniority districts that 
could require them to work thousands 
of miles from home. Still others may 
lose their jobs if the “crew consist’’ is 
reduced. 

Rail union leaders decried the swift- 
ness with which Congress acted. They 


had hoped the strike would last long 
enough to help pressure the carriers 
back to the bargaining table. As Con- 
gress deliberated, Tom DuBose, assis- 
tant to the president of the United 
Transportation Union, said, “We don’t 
want Congress to intervene in collec- 
tive bargaining. That’s not their role. 
We think we can best settle our own 
problems.’’ 

Maintenance of Way Employees 
President Mac Fleming echoed that 
feeling. He noted that “the administra- 
tion and the railroads teamed up to do 
a wonderful selling job. (Industry of- 
ficials made) it seem as if our economy 
was going down the tubes unless the 
strike was immediately settled.’’ 

Fleming added that in its 11th hour 
action, “Congress crafted a narrow 
window for the unions to rebut the most 
destructive recommendations in the 
Presidential Emergency Board’s report. 
We can only hope that this time fairness 
and equity will be part of the decision. ’’ 

The strike-ending legislation requires 
Bush to appoint a special three-member 
review board, with one member from 
the Presidential Emergency Board, and 
the two other chosen from a list com- 
piled by the National Mediation Board. 

Under the law, the review panel will 
have the authority to modify “in whole 
or in part’’ the emergency board recom- 
mendations that it agrees to review. 

Those recommendations are granted 
a “presumption of validity,’’ and the 
parties seeking changes will bear the 
burden of convincing the panel that the 
emergency board’s recommendation 
was “demonstrably inequitable or was 
based on a material error or material 
misunderstanding. ’ ’ 

The new board’s actions will not be 


subject to judicial review. Once its find- 
ings are issued, they will have the status 
of contracts negotiated under the ’ 
Railway Labor Act. 

Since the emergency board made its 
recommendations last January, three 
unions — the Train Dispatchers, 
Railroad Signalmen and the Transpor- 
tation Communications Union — have 
reached tentative agreements that have 


been sent to their memberships for 
ratification. 

The bargaining talks cover 235,000 
workers represented by 10 unions — 
TCU, Railroad Signalmen, Train 
Dispatchers, UTU, BMWE, Locomo- 
tive Engineers, Firemen and Oilers, 
Sheet Metal Workers and Boiler- 
makers. Talks began prior to the August 
1988 expiration of the last contract. 


URW molds master accord with Bridgestone-Firestone 


Akron, Ohio 

T he Rubber Workers reached a ten- 
tative three-year master agreement 
with Bridgestone-Firestone Inc. that 
would improve wages and benefits for 
5,000 employees by about 18 percent 
over the term and set the pattern for the 
industry. 

The proposed accord, reached two 
hours before the old agreement expired 
on April 20, was approved by the URW 
Big Three Advisory Committee as a 
pattern for the tire and rubber industry. 
Bridgestone-Firestone was chosen in 
early April to set the pattern. 

A ratification vote will be held within 
the next few weeks, the URW said. 

The master package now will be 
presented by URW negotiators to 


Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and 
Uniroyal/Goodrich, both of which 
began bargaining March 1 1 . Goodyear, 
negotiating in Cincinnati, has 12,235 
workers in 11 plants. Uniroyal/Good- 
rich, meeting in Columbus, has 5,542 
workers at four locations. URW con- 
tracts with both companies expired 
April 20 and are being extended on day- 
to-day basis. 

URW President Kenneth L. Coss, in 
a joint statement with Bridgestone- 
Firestone Vice President Samuel L. 
Torrence, said the accord “addresses 
mutual concerns in a constructive man- 
ner and is an example of improved com- 
munications between the parties.” 

Coss added the agreement “certain- 
ly includes one of the premier pension 


benefit increases in the industry.” 

While details of the proposed package 
are being withheld pending ratification, 
the union said highlights include: 

• A pension increase from $23.50 
to $30 a month per year of service. The 
cost of a portion of the pension increase 
for the second and third year of the 
agreement will be shared with employ- 
ees through temporary reduction in the 
cost-of-living adjustment. 

• A new health incentive plan — 
utilizing managed care — which is 
designed to improve medical benefits 
while reducing costs, both for the 
workers and the company. 

• An enhanced commitment to 
health, safety and environmental con- 
cerns in the workplace and a commit- 


ment to education, cross-training and 
strengthening of the partnership for 
involvement. 

• A 25-cent, one-time advance on 
COLAs to be recovered in increments 
of 10 cents, 10 cents and 5 cents from 
future quarterly COLA payments. 

The COLA formula from the pre- 
vious contract — a 1 cent hourly in- 
crease for each 0.26 percent rise in the 
Consumer Price Index — was retained 
in the agreement. 

• A one-time $200 bonus for 
retirees. 

Other contract improvements were 
negotiated in the employee savings 
plan, life insurance coverage and the 
supplemental unemployment benefit 
plan, the URW reported. 


Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 9 MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00I-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington. D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


.rtORCOMMt inic*> 

‘AFL-CIOIClZ^ 



Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 







House panels endorse striker bill 


Continued from Page 1 

National Labor Relations Board has 
doubled” during that time, EPI said. 

The study underscores the point made 
by union leaders in congressional 
testimony on the striker replacement 
legislation. 

‘ ‘The parties may within the first days 
or weeks of the strike settle all the terms 
and conditions for a proposed labor 
agreement,” said UAW President 
Owen Bieber. “But they remain apart 
on the question of whether the strikers 
will be allowed to return to their jobs. 

“Obviously, few unions will agree to 
a new agreement which leaves the 
strikers out in the cold. Permanent 
replacement strikes are always long, 
bitter wars of attrition.” 

Besides exacerbating labor-manage- 
ment conflicts, the practice of “perma- 
nent replacements” weakens the abili- 
ty of U.S. industry to compete on a 
global scale, the report said. 

“A key factor in success is the abil- 
ity of labor and management to cooper- 
ate,” the study noted. “Where workers 
are alienated and the workplace is per- 
vaded with an ‘us vs. them’ atmos- 
phere, competitiveness will suffer.” 
Symposium participant Charles 
Craypo describes the use of “perma- 
nent replacements” as an attempt to 
keep wages low instead of using 
technology and productivity strategies 
to capture a competitive edge. 

“Using replacements has wider eco- 
nomic and social implications; it affects 
wage levels, income inequalities and 
polarization,” he said. “I think a strong 
case can be made for this rather modest 
legislative proposal.” 

The legislation is a “very modest 
move back toward equity,” said Rep. 
William D. Ford (D-Mich.), chairman 
of the House Education and Labor 
Committee, in disputing Bush ad- 
ministration claims that it would un- 
balance the collective bargaining 
system. The legislation is designed to 


By Mike Hall 

I n some parts of the country, service 
“franchisers” are taking advantage of 
people’s desperation for work, induc- 
ing them to pay more than $10,000 for 
jobs as building janitors — at less than 
minimum wage. 

In the construction industry, some 
unscrupulous contractors classify 
workers as so-called “independent con- 
tractors” to save up to 25 percent in 
labor costs. 

These are examples of a growing 
employment scam by non-union em- 
ployers detailed by the Service 
Employees and Carpenters during 
testimony before the House Govern- 
ment Operations subcommittee on 
employment and housing. 

The scam leaves workers without 
basic benefits, such as health care and 
pensions, and allows employers to 
dodge unemployment insurance taxes, 
workers’ compensation and Social 
Security taxes. The IRS estimates that 
up to 38 percent of all employers are 
misclassifying their workers as indepen- 
dent contractors. 

The schemes also put honest employ- 


eliminate “one of the most egregious 
and successful forms of union-busting” 
in American history, he said. 

H.R. 5 and S. 55 would overturn the 
Supreme Court’s 1938 Mackay Radio 
decision, which created the anomaly in 
the law that states that it is illegal to fire 
striking workers but OK to “per- 
manently replace” them. 

In recent years, employers have 
rushed to use that ruling to “perma- 
nently” replace their unionized work 
forces. In some cases, the prolonged 
strikes that followed contributed to the 
financial failures of such high-profile 
companies as Eastern Airlines and 
Greyhound. 

Unfair strategy backfires 

More recently, the highly profitable 
Chicago Tribune Co. eventually was 
forced to virtually give away the New 
York Daily News, along with $60 mil- 
lion, when its “permanent replace- 
ment” tactic failed. 

Smaller companies, such as Ravens- 
wood Aluminum Co. in West Virginia, 
Arvin Industries in Indiana, Potsdam 
Paper Mill in New York and Liberty 
Glass in Oklahoma, have put thousands 
of other employees out of work through 
the “permanent replacement” strategy. 

Ray Marshall, the former U.S. sec- 
retary of labor who now teaches at the 
University of Texas, said the “perma- 
nent replacement” practice runs 
counter to the basic objective of hav- 
ing a just, full-employment, high- 
income country. He noted that the 
Commission on Skills of the American 
Work Force, which he chaired, “found 
that other countries will not let com- 
panies pursue a low- wage strategy.” 

The effect of “permanent replace- 
ments” on workers was noted by EPI 
symposium participant Julius Getman, 
who contrasted the strikes against In- 
ternational Paper at Jay, Maine, and at 
Mobile, Ala. 

“The bargaining positions of the par- 


ers at a disadvantage because com- 
petitors using these tactics can under- 
bid by a large margin. The practice also 
denies the federal treasury of billions of 
dollars a year in taxes, witnesses said. 

The use of these schemes is growing 
in the building service industry where 
workers clean office, industrial and 
apartment buildings, said Tom Bala- 
noff, director of the Service Employees’ 
Building Services Division. 

In the scheme, called “franchising,” 
the contractor offers the worker the 
“opportunity” to “buy” the right to 
service part of a building the contrac- 
tor has agreed to service. The worker 
must pay an up-front investment cost of 
as much as $10,000 and a monthly ad- 
ministrative fee of about $400. 

The contractor promises that the 
“franchise” will generate up to 
$24,000 a year, but the real earnings are 
about $3 an hour, Balanoff said. 

Many of the people who fall victim 
to this scam are recent immigrants who 
do not speak English and are unfamiliar 
with their rights. 

When the worker “buys” the fran- 
chise, he has the right to clean one floor 


ties were very similar, but the Mobile 
company locked out the workers, which 
meant they could only be temporarily 
replaced, and at Jay, they permanently 
replaced the workers,” Getman said. 

‘ ‘The people at Mobile are still work- 
ing, and they’re working under far bet- 
ter conditions than the people at Jay,” 
he continued. In Jay, “those people’s 
lives have been ruined.” 

The rights of workers is paramount 
in the debate, Getman observed. “The 
legislative bills need to be seen, not as 
legislation to help unions, but as legisla- 
tion to protect employees.” 

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO grass-roots 
campaign to explain the issue to the 
public and to urge members of Con- 
gress to sign on to the legislation has 
gained momentum. In Kentucky, for 
example, the Frankfort Central Labor 
Council and the state AFL-CIO have a 
plan for the morning after the Kentucky 
Derby: motorists will be invited by 
highway signs for free coffee and 
doughnuts and an opportunity to sign 
postcards urging passage of the bills. 

Striker replacement legislation also 
continued making headway in state 
legislatures. The Illinois Labor Equity 
Act, introduced by state Rep. Michael 
Curran (D-Springfield), would bar state 
agencies, local governments and school 
districts from doing business with firms 
that hire replacement workers when 
their regular employees are on the 
picket line. 

‘ ‘We want to set a tone across the na- 
tion that taxpayer dollars not be used to 
underwrite this kind of strike-breaking 
activity,” Curran said. 

In Congress, two of the three House 
committees which have jurisdiction 
over the legislation have reported it 
favorably. 

So far, the AFL-CIO’s grassroots 
campaign has generated more than 
13,000 postcards from union members 
to their senators and representatives 
urging them to support the legislation. 


of the building. In addition, the janitor 
must purchase his or her own cleaning 
supplies. Many times the workers are 
forced to buy the supplies from the 
“franchiser.” 

Usually the franchise does not 
generate nearly the promised revenue 
because the company adds new charges, 
such as “inspection charges.” Often the 
area to be cleaned is too large for a 
single worker to clean and many of the 
janitors bring in family members, in- 
cluding underage children, to help out, 
Balanoff said. 

Other witnesses testified that con- 
struction contractors are misclassifying 
their workers more frequently to slash 
their labor costs, which undercuts their 
competitors. This practice leaves work- 
ers unprotected without workers’ com- 
pensation or medical coverage. 

One construction worker testified that 
he knew something was wrong when 
taxes and workers’ compensation were 
not taken from his paycheck. He said 
he was frequently paid in cash. “But the 
economy was bad and I needed steady 
work. I had no other choice but to take 
what was available.” 


i 


Capitol Digest 


T he Senate blocked an AFL-CIO- 
backed Social Security tax cut, ta- 
bling an amendment to the fiscal year 
1992 Budget Resolution. The 60-38 
vote rejected the attempt to lower the 
levels of assumed Social Security 
revenue to reflect the amount of 
revenue generated if the payroll tax was 
cut. 

The amendment was the first step for 
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D- 
N. Y.) in his effort to cut the payroll tax, 
which he planned to introduce later this 
year. 

The AFL-CIO has supported the 
Moynihan tax cut proposal because it 
would give working people real tax 
relief and make Social Security financ- 
ing more progressive. Since the Social 
Security tax is levied only on the first 
$51,300 of earned income, working 
people are paying a disproportionate 
share of the burden to build the Social 
Security trust fund surplus. 

It is unlikely that any other action on 
the tax cut will occur this session, but 
Moynihan vowed to carry on the fight. 

‘ ‘Don’t be surprised if it takes 10 years. 
It will come,” he said. 

In other action on Capitol Hill: 
BENEFITS - The AFL-CIO has 
urged Congress to extend permanently 
the tax-exempt status for employer- 
provided pre-paid legal services and 
education benefits. Robert A. 
Georgine, president of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department, told the House Ways and 
Means Committee that the legal serv- 
ices “have proven their value and cost 
next to nothing.” In a statement, the 
UAW told the committee that the 
education benefits “fit the widespread 
recognition that a skilled, educated 
work force is essential if America is to 
meet the challenges of an increasingly 
global economy. Several bills address- 
ing the benefits, which expire at the end 
of 1991, have been introduced. 

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 
— With the nation’s jobless rate climb- 
ing, the AFL-CIO called for Congress 
to reform the nation’s unemployment 
insurance system to improve eligibility 
standards, raise benefit levels, increase 
the length of extended benefits and pro- 
vide more funding for state unemploy- 
ment compensation and employment 
services. The AFL-CIO supports H.R. 
1367, as a “good first step,” towards 
these goals, legislative representative 
Bill Cunningham told the Senate 
Finance Committee. The House bill is 
awaiting subcommittee markup. 

MOTOR VOTER — In an effort to 
increase voter turnout for federal elec- 
tions, the AFL-CIO is supporting a 
Senate bill, S. 250, which would allow 
officials to automatically register 
citizens as voters when they obtain 
drivers licenses. The bill also would 
allow for mail-in and agency registra- 
tion. The bill was reported by the 
Senate Rules Committee. A similar bill 
passed the House last year, but the 
Senate did not act on it. 


Workers exploited by contractor scams 




BCTD notes successes, legislative challenges 



Anne Martens/Poge One Photography 


Robert A. Georgine, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction 
Trades Department, addresses the BCTD legislative conference as Rep. 
William Ford (D-Mich.) looks on. 


By Candice Johnson 

B uilding trades unions recently have 
won some important victories in 
Congress and the courts, but much re- 
mains to be done. 

That was the message from AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department President Robert A. Geor- 
gine to the 3,000 delegates attending the 
BCTD’s national legislative conference 
in Washington. 

“We’ve gone a very long way toward 
saving the apprenticeship system” in 
the United States, turning back the ef- 
forts of the anti-union Associated 
Builders and Contractors to tear down 
that program, Georgine told the dele- 
gates. 

The Labor Department’s proposed 
changes in federal apprenticeship and 
training rules would destroy the tradi- 
tional apprenticeship system that “has 
served this country long and well by 
producing a continuous supply of 
skilled and trained craftsmen,” 
Georgine said. 

But a groundswell of opposition to the 
changes — more than 60,000 com- 
ments sent to the Labor Department — 
could not be ignored, he added. The 
BCTD also convinced Congress to stop 
the Labor Department from spending 
funds to enforce those regulations. 

Georgine also outlined the BCTD’s 
efforts to ensure that “American 
workers, not just American companies, 
are eligible to help in the rebuilding of 


the nation of Kuwait.” He told dele- 
gates that the Kuwaiti ambassador to the 
United States stated in a recent meeting 
that 70 percent of the reconstruction 
jobs should go to American workers. 

“But we must not lose sight of our 
main mission ... to have a sufficient 
number of good construction jobs here 
in the United States,” Georgine said of 
the current climate of recession and 
unemployment. 

The BCTD’s legislative priorities in- 
clude passage of a construction safety 
bill, health care reform and a national 


program to repair the nation’s crum- 
bling highways, bridges, water and 
sewer systems and buildings. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
called enactment of the construction 
safety bill, sponsored by Sen. Chris 
Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Joseph 
Gaydos (D-Pa.), “our first order of 
business,” pointing out that a full 
quarter of all workplace-related deaths 
in this country occur in the construction 
industry. “It’s time our laws recognize 
the special hazards your members face 
everyday,” he said. 


Kirkland outlined other items on the 
federation’s legislative agenda, in- 
cluding legislation to end the “perma- 
nent replacement” of strikers and 
labor’s effort to block the Bush ad- 
ministration’s plan for “fast-track” 
trade negotiations with Mexico. 

The conference was interrupted by 
protests from the New Jersey delega- 
tion about a jurisdictional dispute in that 
state. The dispute, between the building 
trades and District 50 of the Steel- 
workers, is the subject of ongoing 
mediation under the auspices of the 
AFL-CIO. 

Delegates heard from key congres- 
sional leaders, including Senate Major- 
ity Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine) 
and House Speaker Tom Foley (D- 
Wash.), Sens. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), 
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Tom 
Harkin (D-Iowa), and Reps. William 
Ford (D-Mich.), Vic Fazio (D-Calif.), 
Robert Roe (D-N.J.), Gaydos and Steny 
Hoyer (D-Md.). 

Following the Tuesday session, the 
building trades delegates took their 
legislative program to Capitol Hill, rais- 
ing health care, job safety and employ- 
ment concerns in meetings with their 
congressional representatives. 

The conference also heard an update 
on the BCTD’s “DAD Day” cam- 
paign — Dollars Against Diabetes — 
which is raising funds for the construc- 
tion of a diabetes research center at the 
University of Miami. 


Grass-roots effort boosts family and medical leave bill 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

A n AFL-CIO associate member pro- 
gram has boosted labor’s campaign 
for family and medical leave legislation 
by blanketing the Cincinnati area with 
petitions calling for passage of the bills, 
which now are pending in Congress. 

“No worker should have to choose 
between their family and their job,” 
said Sally Krisel, director of the Na- 
tional Association of Working Amer- 
icans, which is sponsored by the Cin- 
cinnati AFL-CIO. 

Cincinnati AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Dan Radford said a dozen 
area civic, women’s, parents’ and civil 


rights organizations have joined NAWA 
in the campaign. 

The legislation, H.R. 2 and S. 5, 
would guarantee workers up to 12 
weeks of unpaid leave — without threat 
of loss of job — after the birth or adop- 
tion of a child or in the event of a 
serious illness of an immediate family 
member or the worker. 

The Senate bill was passed out of the 
Labor and Human Resources Commit- 
tee April 24 and sent to the full Senate 
for debate. The full House received its 
bill in early April, and was tentatively 
slated to take it up in mid-May. 

The AFL-CIO and its affiliates have 


urged members to contact their 
lawmakers to support the legislation. 
“We need a good showing of back- 
home interest in these bills,” said 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. 

NAWA was distributing petitions to 
approximately 60,000 households in the 
Cincinnati area, Krisel said. A postage- 
paid card could be returned to NAWA, 
which will use them to lobby local 
members of Congress, she said. 

“Polls have consistently shown 70 to 
80 percent of American voters support 
family and medical leave rights,” 
NAWA pointed out, “but President 


Bush vetoed a virtually identical bill last 
summer after it was passed by both 
houses of Congress.” 

Under the legislation, workers would 
continue to receive pre-existing 
employer-furnished health benefits dur- 
ing the leave. The bill would affect 
employees who have worked at least 12 
months and 1 ,000 hours for a public or 
private employer. It would require the 
employee to give reasonable notice and, 
when possible, schedule the leave to ac- 
commodate the employer. 

Smaller businesses — those with 
fewer than 50 workers — would be 
excluded. 


IAFF targets pension, safety, 
public employee bargaining 



IAFF photo 


IAFF President Al Whitehead addresses the union's legislative conference. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

M ore than 450 Fire Fighters from 
across the country converged on 
Capitol Hill to review legislative and 
political issues and lobby Congress as 
part of the IAFF Ninth Annual 
Legislative Conference. 

Noting an ambitious legislative 
agenda, IAFF President Al Whitehead 
said “it will take a lot for us to succeed, 
given the current economic climate and 
the many other issues that will occupy 
Congress for the next two years.” 
Topping the IAFF’s legislative 
agenda are changes in tax and banking 
laws to protect the pensions of Fire 
Fighters and other public employees, 
revisions in the Occupational Safety and 
Health Act to extend coverage to all 
state and municipal employees, a na- 
tional collective bargaining bill, Hatch 
Act reform and legislation outlawing 
“permanent replacements” for striking 
workers. 

Mine Workers President Richard 
Trumka praised the Fire Fighters and 
other public employee unions for tak- 
ing up the banner against private 


employers who seek to “permanently 
replace” striking workers. 

“It’s that kind of thinking that really 
sets union people apart from manage- 
ment,” Trumka said. “What makes 
unions strong isn’t the extent we let the 
differences we have keep us apart, it’s 
how we come to understand what we 
have in common.” 

Al Bilik, president of the AFL-CIO ’s 
Public Employees Department, urged 
the Fire Fighters to demand that Con- 
gress approve bargaining rights for 
public employees. “You’ve got nearly 
4 million public employees who are 
denied any rights because they are 
barred from collective bargaining,” he 
said. 

Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.), who has 
introduced national collective bargain- 
ing legislation, issued a challenge to the 
IAFF members to find co-sponsors for 
the bill. 

David Millano, a legislative special- 
ist, warned that the battle to extend 
OSHA protections to all state and 
municipal employees “is going to be a 
major dogfight. This is not just the 


union movement trying to pass another 
bill. We have people who are dying and 
there are people getting away with cor- 
porate murder.” 

Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.) told 
the delegates that Congress faces budget 
constraints as well as an administration 
that is less than receptive to workers. 

In appreciation for their work on im- 


portant legislation, the IAFF presented 
awards to Reps. Douglas Applegate (D- 
Ohio), Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) 
and Dennis Eckart (D-Ohio). 

Others speakers included Reps. 
William Ford (D-Mich.), Robert Mat- 
sui (D-Calif.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and 

Thomas Ridge (R-Pa.) and Letter Car- 
riers Legislative Director George Gould. 




Kirkland: Put health care reform on a ‘fast track’ 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland talks with Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), left, 
prior to testifying before a House committee. Also present are Karen Ig- 
nagni, director of the federation's Department of Employee Benefits, and 
AFL-CIO legislative representative Calvin Johnson. 


Issue most pressing, 
burdening to society 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

I f there is an issue on which this na- 
tion needs a fast track, then health 
care is it, AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland told the House Ways and 
Means Committee. 

“May I suggest to you that the 
eagerness and intensity with which the 
case for fast track is argued on a much 
less pressing issue” is misplaced, 
Kirkland said of the “fast-track” trade 
negotiations with Mexico. “There is 
really no issue more pressing and more 
burdensome on a society than this.” 
Kirkland told the panel the U.S. 
health care system no longer is work- 
ing. “It has failed a vast portion of 
working Americans who have done the 
best they can to maintain coverage at 
a reasonable cost. The American health 
care system operates on the principle of 
Social Darwinism and we have paid 
dearly for it.” 

He reminded lawmakers of the grow- 
ing alliance between organized labor, 
organized medicine and the business 
community, all of whom are working 
toward a solution to the crisis. 

Closer to solution 

“We’ve been at this health insurance 
issue for at least 40 years, and I’ve seen 
it wax and wane,” Kirkland said. “I do 
believe that we are closer to the kind 
of broad understanding that we need of 
the nature and seriousness of the prob- 
lem. More and more sectors of society 
are recognizing the problem because 
they are feeling it and experiencing it.” 
In his testimony, Kirkland empha- 
sized the AFL-CIO’s essential goals of 
containing the growth in health care 
costs; providing access to medical care 
for all Americans; reducing waste, red 
tape and paperwork, and solving the 
retiree health care crisis. 


He also pointed out the com- 
petitiveness problems posed by the 
status quo. “(The system) punishes 
employers who provide health in- 
surance to their workers by forcing 
them, in effect, to subsidize the health 
care of those who are employed by 
firms that seek a competitive advantage 
by refusing to provide such coverage. 

“Moreover, the system rewards pur- 
chasers with large groups or relatively 
young workers with short-term dis- 
counts,” he said, “and it penalizes 
small employers and those with older, 
more experienced workers by forcing 
them to pay more for coverage.” 

Kirkland told the committee “a na- 
tion that wants to be competitive in the 
21st century cannot continue to give 
these kinds of incentives to employers 
who place such a low value on main- 
taining a healthy and productive work 
force.” 


The hearing was the fourth in a series 
of five scheduled by the House panel 
over nine days. Among other witnesses 
who appeared before the committee 
were William L. Roper, M.D., direc- 
tor of the Centers for Disease Control, 
and George J. Schieber, director of the 
Office of Research of the Health Care 
Financing Administration of the U.S. 
Department of Health and Human 
Services. 

White House plan 

Other congressional panels have 
begun to focus on health care. The 
Senate Finance Committee held its sec- 
ond hearing in a week on the subject, 
listening to Richard G. Darman, the 
director of the Office of Management 
and Budget, among others. Kirkland 
had testified before the committee the 
previous week. 

In his testimony, Darman said that the 


Bush administration was continuing 
work on a comprehensive health care 
reform plan to be proposed within 18 
months. 

He also said the administration would 
announce within several weeks the 
establishment of a program of malprac- 
tice reforms. The proposal would be 
promoted through federal funding of 
state health programs such as Medicaid, 
Darman said. 

Others testifying at the Senate panel’s 
hearing were the chairmen and chief ex- 
ecutive officers of Allied-Signal Inc., 
Dayton Hudson Corp. and Bethlehem 
Steel Corp.; the executive director of 
Consumers Union, and the president of 
the Employee Benefits Research In- 
stitute. 

Walter F. Williams of Bethlehem 
Steel told senators that “our health care 
system is in crisis. We have a systemic 
problem that requires a systemic solu- 
tion that can only be addressed at the 
national level. If we are to expand ac- 
cess and control costs, then I’m con- 
vinced we must accept the need for a 
stronger federal role in health care.” 

Bethlehem Steel is among five com- 
panies that have agreed to work with the 
Steelworkers in support of legislative 
proposals to ease the health care crisis. 
The joint committee was created as part 
of contract agreements between the 
USWA and the steelmakers. 

Allied-Signal Chairman Edward L. 
Hennessy Jr. echoed Williams’ con- 
cerns, and described his company’s 
national-scale managed health care 
system, which covers more than 50,000 
employees and dependents. Hennessy 
also joined Williams in urging a federal 
solution to the crisis in health care. 

Both Kenneth A. Macke of Dayton 
Hudson Corp. and Rhoda H. Karpatkin 
of Consumers Union spoke of the need 
for guaranteed universal access to 
health care that emphasizes wellness as 
well as cost containment and an end to 
cost shifting and administrative waste. 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 

Thomas R. Donahue testifies 
before a five-member ar- 
bitration panel that will set- 
tle the contract dispute in- 
volving 568,000 Postal 
Workers and Letter Carriers. 
Donahue makes the case for 
improvements in job secur- 
ity, wages and working con- 
ditions, as the U.S. Postal 
Service is seeking to add 
greater numbers of part- 
time workers in the name of 
flexibility. 


Unions free to organize eight separate units in hospitals 


Continued from page 1 

Real wages for hospital service 
workers have decreased 3 percent in the 
past five years, Sweeney noted. “Freed 
from legal bondage, workers can 
now . . . fight back against the poor 
wages and benefits, short staffing and 
lack of protection from infectious 
diseases like AIDS and hepatitis B, 
which are affecting patients as well as 
workers in our nation’s hospitals.” 

The AFL-CIO, which filed a joint 
brief in the case along with the AFL- 
CIO Building and Construction Trades 
Department and the American Nurses 


Association, argued that the NLRB had 
the authority to create the eight units 
rather than considering bargaining unit 
petitions on a case-by-case basis. 

The union election system set up by 
the National Labor Relations Act could 
not work if each petition for bargain- 
ing rights had to be decided individ- 
ually, according to the brief. 

If bargaining units varied from 
employer to employer within a given 
market, the federation argued, 
employees would not be able to 
eliminate wage competition through 
collective bargaining. 


The case, American Hospital Asso- 
ciation vs. National Labor Relations 
Board, went to the Supreme Court 
when the AHA appealed a 7th Circuit 
U.S. Court of Appeals decision up- 
holding the 1989 NLRB rule. 

Concerned that union representation 
of segments of its members’ work force 
could prove contagious, the AHA 
pressed for broader bargaining units 
that include dissimilar job classifica- 
tions. Mixing and rearranging units 
with disparate job descriptions is a well- 
known scheme of managements bent on 
“union avoidance.” 


Under the NLRB rule, a union may 
seek representation rights for any com- 
bined unit among the eight except for 
guards, where a separate unit is re- 
quired by law. 

The decision on the number of bar- 
gaining units, within the parameters of 
the NLRB rule, will be made by the 
workers and the unions. 

The health care industry is the fastest 
growing employment field in the nation. 
Labor Department statistics indicate 
that the number of jobs in health serv- 
ices grew from 2.7 million to 3.6 
million in the 1980s. 





Labor urged to organize to promote civil rights 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue addresses the federation's Civil Rights Institute. 


AFL-CIO blasts White House 
for sabotaging negotiations 


By James B. Parks 

rganize. Organize. Organize. 

That was the watchword for the 
AFL-CIO’ s Civil Rights Institute: 
organize to build up the ranks of union 
members and supporters; organize to 
push for effective legislation; organize 
to help individual workers know what 
their rights and responsibilities are. 

Members of civil rights committees 
and other local union officers are the 
key, said AFL-CIO Vice President 
Lenore Miller, who is president of the 
Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union and chair of the federa- 
tion’s Civil Rights Committee. 

The anti-civil rights attitude in the 
White House is not going to change 
soon, she warned. Organized labor has 
to make sure that it makes a difference 
in Congress by pushing for the Civil 
Rights Act of 1991. 

That legislation is the ‘ ‘primary piece 
of legislation from which all else 
follows,” Miller said, “and it is crucial 
that we expose those who oppose it.” 

Lobbying Congress 

Heeding Miller’s call, about 50 of the 
participants lobbied members of Con- 
gress to support the civil rights bill and 
other key labor priorities, such as re- 
jecting “fast-track” authority for the 
U.S. -Mexico trade agreement and sup- 
porting legislation to ban “permanent 
replacements” for strikers. 

Civil rights is at the heart of what the 
labor movement is about, several 
speakers said. 

“We’re not here to accumulate prof- 
its and make millions of dollars,” said 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas 
R. Donahue. “Our cause is fairness, 
and equality, and a decent living for 
average working people and recognition 
of their dignity.” 

The labor unions’ struggle has 
“never been about civil rights or 
workers’ rights; there’s only human 
rights,” said Richard Trumka, presi- 
dent of the Mine Workers. 

“Equal opportunity is a basic 
American principle . . . and everyone, 
including white men, needs legal pro- 
tection,” said Richard Womack, direc- 
tor of the AFL-CIO’s Civil Rights De- 
partment. 

While noting successes in bringing 
more minorities and women into the 
labor movement, Donahue said, “we 
still have a long way to go. We need 
to encourage and assist minorities, 
women and those with disabilities to be 


activists in their unions — and to help 
them through that activism to leadership 
roles and leadership rank.” 

The numbers of African-Americans, 
Hispanic and female workers will grow 
significantly in the next 10 years, 
Donahue said, and the trade union 
movement will have to respond to these 
changes if it is to thrive. 

On the disabled, Miller and other 
speakers said the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, enacted last year, is at 
a critical juncture because regulations 
guiding the employment of the disabled 
are being formulated. 

Keeping labor united 

Miller, who is vice-chairman of the 
President’s Committee on Employment 
of Persons with Disabilities, said the 
key for labor is to make sure the issues 
involved do not become “contentious.” 
The issues that will come up can be ad- 
dressed as civil rights issues, she said, 
and decided through collective bargain- 
ing. Womack also is a committee 
member. 

A special highlight of the institute was 
the participation of representatives from 
Frontlash and the South Africa Railway 
Harbor Workers Union. 

The participants also heard from 
Service Employees President John J. 
Sweeney and Electronic Workers Presi- 
dent William Bywater. 

Special sessions were held on AIDS 
and substance abuse in the workplace, 
the state of American politics, sexual 
harassment, the AFL-CIO legislative 
agenda, the state of civil rights law, 
political strategies for minorities and 
women and affirmative action. 


T he AFL-CIO, pushing a national 
grass-roots campaign to gain support 
for the Civil Rights Act of 1991 , joined 
its civil rights allies in deploring the 
Bush administration’s sabotage of talks 
between business and civil rights lead- 
ers on a possible compromise bill. 

The business leaders called off the 
negotiations after pressure was exerted 
by top White House officials, prompt- 
ing charges that the administration was 
more interested in manufacturing a 
political issue of racial quotas than in 
achieving just civil rights laws. 

“The behavior of the White House 
on this very important and sensitive 
issue, at a time when the country needs 
pulling together, is deplorable,” AFL- 
CIO Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten said. 

“Rather than showing leadership and 
working to achieve the unity necessary 
for us to be a strong nation, the Bush 
administration played on the fears that 
exist because of unemployment and the 
decay of the infrastructure of our inner 
cities,” McGlotten said. 

Ralph Neas, executive director of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 
called the White House actions “repre- 
hensible.” 

“There’s no question, especially in 
light of recent events, that the White 
House does not want a strong civil 
rights bill enacted into law,” Neas said. 
“What the White House wants is a po- 


litical issue around which to dema- 
gogue.” 

House Speaker Thomas Foley CD- 
Wash.) and Majority Leader Richard 
Gephardt (D-Mo.) both telephoned 
Robert Allen, AT&T’s chief executive 
officer, to urge him not to halt the talks, 
as did a representative of Senate 
Majority Leader George Mitchell 
(D-Maine.) 

Allen has led discussions since last 
December by members of the Business 
Roundtable, which voted to seek mid- 
dle ground on a civil rights bill. 

AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said 
Allen was hopeful that a compromise 
was still possible, though he had not 
agreed to resume negotiations. 

The AFL-CIO pledged to continue its 
efforts to get an equitable civil rights 
bill. The grass-roots campaign focused 
on several key states, where state AFL- 
CIOs were intensifying efforts, Legis- 
lative Representative Jane O’ Grady 
said. 

The bill would clarify the intent of the 
law following several Supreme Court 
decisions that made it more difficult for 
individual workers to sue employers 
who discriminate in the workplace. The 
bill would allow women and the dis- 
abled to sue employers for damages for 
intentional job bias. 

The bill has passed two committees 
and is tentatively scheduled to go to the 
House floor the week of April 29. 



Unions plan to keep Acme buyout bid alive, just in case 


By James B. Parks 

A bid by eight Food and Commercial 
Workers locals in the Philadelphia 
area to buy out the Acme grocery chain 
will not be abandoned because the 
parent company pulled the chain off the 
market, union officials said. 

“I don’t believe this, by any means, 
to be an end ... it marks the beginning 
of all kinds of negotiations,” said 
Wendell W. Young III, president of 
UFCW Local 1776 and chairman of the 
multiunion committee that developed 
the employee stock ownership plan. 

American Stores, Acme’s parent 
company, announced it was taking the 
270-store chain off the market, effec- 
tively ending the unions’ $1 billion bid 
to buy the stores through an ESOP. 

The ESOP proposal is still viable if 
American Stores decides in the future 
to sell the Acme chain. 

The company will need more capital 
over the next three to five years, Young 
said. That’s why the ESOP bid included 


a $250 million to $500 million capital 
investment plan, he said. 

The ESOP experience left the locals 
convinced that unions need to be on top 
of issues like market share, financial 
analysis and marketing, Young said. 
‘ ‘We have to know as much as the other 
side,” he said. 

“We should negotiate to put money 
back into the company, not just in our 
pocketbooks,” Young said. And the 
union should let the stockholders know 
what the management’s not doing, he 
said. 

Employees of the Pennsylvania-based 
chain had proposed a “wage invest- 
ment” to buy the supermarket chain. 
The employee buyout would have saved 
jobs and prevented an anti-union buyer 
from acquiring the company. 

Under the proposal, the unions would 
have had seats on the Acme board. 
Although they would not have had 
majority control, they would have had 
a major impact, Young said. 


Members of eight UFCW locals rep- 
resenting 22,000 of Acme’s 25,000 
employees would have bought 40 per- 
cent of the company from American 
Stores, based in Salt Lake City. 

Freeman Spogli, a Los Angeles in- 
vestment firm, along with its financial 
partners, lenders and Acme top man- 
agement, would have bought the re- 
maining 60 percent. Freeman Spogli 
has purchased other grocery chains. 

Under the proposal, the employees 
would have given up their raises for 
three years and used the money to pur- 
chase the stock. The unions’ contracts 
would have been extended five years 
from the date of the sale, and the 
workers would have received raises in 
the fourth and fifth years, which would 
be doubled. 

The current contracts would have re- 
mained in effect except for new caps on 
health and welfare benefits and em- 
ployee participation in the ESOP. 

Health and welfare benefit contribu- 


tions would have been capped at 1 1 per- 
cent in each of the first two years, 12 
percent in the third year and 13 percent 
in each of the last two years. 

The proposal would have put three 
employees on the seven-member board 
of directors and given the locals 90 
days’ notice of any plans to sell or close 
stores. 

It also called for a $3 million fund to 
aid workers who are laid off. 

The plan also gave the locals veto 
power over the sale of the company for 
three years and guaranteed that em- 
ployees would have the first opportunity 
to buy out Freeman Spogli. 

Young’s co-chairs on the Acme mul- 
tiunion strategy committee that drafted 
the plan were Leo Cinaglia of UFCW 
Local 56 and Tom Russow of Local 27. 
Other UFCW locals represented on the 
committee were Locals 72, 1360, 1358, 
and 1245. 

UFCW Local 1 joined the ESOP after 
it was drafted. 




FOCUS 


Talking union conies easy to Institute grad 



Dan Olah 


Bob Gorman, right, is organizing for the Steelworkers he talks union with railroad shop craft workers at Burl- 
since graduating from the Organizing Institute. Here ington and Northern's Interbay roundhouse in Seattle. 


By Candice Johnson 

B ob Gorman traded his calm, predict- 
able life as a union electrician in 
Seattle for hectic 14-hour days, endless 
trips crisscrossing the country and 
weeks spent away from his family. But 
he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Union organizing is in his blood, he 
says, and all the hardship and stress that 
goes with his job as a Steelworkers 
organizer is worth it. 

After a six-month apprenticeship with 
the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, 
Gorman went to work for the USWA 
last year. Between the two jobs, he has 
traveled to nearly every region of the 
country — from Salt Lake City to 
Troy, Ala., from Delevan, Wis., to 
Albuquerque, N.M. 

Learning from people 

The institute’s apprenticeship pro- 
gram was “some of the most valuable 
time I’ve spent. It isn’t book learning, 
it’s the rough-and-tumble stuff,’’ Gor- 
man said. 

Each campaign and assignment 
taught him something about organizing, 
whether it was honing his techniques or 
finding out more about human nature. 
He learned something in every cam- 
paign, whether or not the union won. 

But he was most impressed with the 
people he helped organize. “I’ve met 
such wonderful people traveling the 
country, people willing to put a lot on 
the line to get themselves a union,” he 
said. 

“Even though I’d been in the labor 
movement since I was 18, in two dif- 
ferent countries, the things I learned 
were . . . tremendous,” said Gorman, 
who is a native of Scotland. “You 
realize how much there is to do when 
you see other unions and organizers in 
action, and in different parts of the 
country.” 

A drive to organize 

A member of the Electrical Workers 
for 16 years and chief steward for six 
(he still holds that union card), Gorman 
worked at his Seattle local for a few 
years as a business representative and 
organizer. But even after returning to 
the shipyards as an electrician and 
working through the hiring hall, Gor- 
man knew that “all he wanted to do was 
organize.” 

The intensity of the institute’s pro- 
gram, however, came as a surprise. “I 
got to the three-day class and was flab- 
bergasted, because I really had no idea 
that they expected us to go through the 
months of internship and appren- 
ticeship.” 

On his first day, Gorman told In- 
stitute Executive Director Richard Ben- 
singer that “I was only there for three 
days — I had a family and needed to go 
back home. ’ ’ But by the end of the ses- 
sion, he was sold. 

“I was so impressed with the people, 
because the program is run by organ- 
izers. It turned me on, it made me ex- 
cited, it made me realize I had a chance 
to learn new things. I did a quick change 
around.” 

The three-day session challenged 
him. “We were asked: here’s a cam- 
paign, what would you do in this situa- 
tion?” Gorman recalled. He also noted 
that institute instructors are “people 


who’ve actually been in the trenches 
and knocked on doors before and that 
impressed me.” 

Bensinger said the institute has ex- 
panded its recruiting program, to draw 
not only more union members, but 
black, Hispanic and Asian candidates as 
well. Some participants are sponsored 
by a union, which offers a job when the 
organizer graduates. 

Personal sacrifice 

His commitment to organizing carries 
a high personal price and causes hard- 
ships, Gorman said. The decision to 
join the institute, knowing he would be 
away from home for long periods of 
time, “took of lot of soul-searching by 
my wife and me. I have an 8-year-old 
son who I would like to see every day, 
and I can’t. But I feel so strongly that 
we need to organize and my wife 
understands that.” 

Gorman joined the institute program 
in March 1990 and graduated about six 
months later, working on campaigns for 
several different unions. He now works 
for the USWA, which sponsored him 
in the program. Since then, “I’ve been 
doing a lot of surveys, basically going 
and knocking on people’s doors and 
finding out if they’re interested in the 
union,” in addition to work on organiz- 
ing campaigns and other USWA 
projects. 

As a longtime union member — and 
one with some prior organizing experi- 
ence before joining the institute — Gor- 
man, 38, was given more responsibil- 
ity during his apprenticeship than were 
most of the other participants, who had 
little or no union background. 

One of his last apprenticeship 
assignments was a hospital organizing 
campaign in Scottsdale, Ariz., where 
the United Nurses Association of 
California, an AFSCME affiliate, was 
working to organize a large unit of 
medical care professionals. It was a dif- 
ferent sort of campaign for someone 
used to industrial organizing. 

“There was a lot of legal wrangling, 
the kind that happens in every hospital 
campaign, and this was probably more 


complicated than most,” he said. Gor- 
man’s experience came before the 
unanimous April 23 Supreme Court rul- 
ing upholding the NLRB ruling on unit 
determination for union elections in 
private hospitals. 

“I met some great people, and on this 
campaign, one of the organizers said 
something I’ll never forget as long as 
I live — that in this job you meet the 
cream of America. 

“But, of course, you also meet the 
dregs of humanity in this job, in some 
of the consultants and anti-union peo- 
ple,” he added. 

Another assignment took Gorman to 
Troy, Ala., where, working with the 
Clothing and Textile Workers, he 
helped set up a rally supporting a group 
of ACTWU members who had been 
struggling to gain a contract for two 
years. 

In tiny Troy, with a population of just 
over 12,000, Gorman’s assignment was 
advance work, so common to political 
campaigns, to help fill a 1,200-seat 
auditorium for ACTWU rally. “With 
about two weeks to go, we distributed 
leaflets at shopping malls, community 
centers, in communities all over the 
area,” he recalled 

Going door to door 

Workers from the plant — mostly 
black women — went door to door, to 
every community around Troy to tell 
people of the rally and of their fight for 
a contract. The AFL-CIO ’s labor and 
religion coordinator, Michael Szpak, 
worked with local churches, and the 
rally was a tremendous success. The 
auditorium was filled. 

A Steelworkers campaign in Delevan, 
Wis. , was “another good campaign for 
learning,” even though the organizing 
drive was not successful. “It was a 
well-run campaign, and I learned a 
tremendous amount.” 

Each campaign has its own identity, 
its own plan. On the Delevan campaign, 
a typical day would start with an early 
morning meeting, a kind of “debrief- 
ing,” to talk about what happened the 
day before, how the house calls pro- 


gressed and how committed workers 
were to the campaign, Gorman said. 

Then there might be fliers or mailings 
to prepare, or a response to some em- 
ployer tactic. “You’re always talking 
about what to do next, you’re always 
thinking ahead.” 

House calling would begin around 
noon, with organizers finally stopping 
about 9 p.m. “Then you’d come in, eat 
and talk about what happened during the 
day,” he said. 

“Being away from home, all your 
time is concentrated on the campaign. 
You don’t have time to go home and 
worry about cutting the grass — al- 
though maybe you should be. Instead, 
you’re constantly thinking about the 
campaign. The majority of your day is 
spent knocking on people’s doors.” 

People are receptive 

Surprisingly, Gorman found that 
most people are willing to talk when the 
union organizer calls. Organizers often 
hear that “you can’t make house calls,” 
because people just won’t open the 
door, but that’s usually not the case. 

“Sometimes you get the people who 
are anti-every thing, but for the most 
part, people will talk to you.” After 
hundreds and hundreds of house calls, 
“I’ve only been thrown off one porch. ” 

Gorman completed his apprenticeship 
during a “bruising” ACTWU cam- 
paign in Missouri. An active anti-union 
committee raised the fear of plant clos- 
ings and blamed the union for every- 
thing it possibly could, he recalled. 
“Again I learned an incredible amount, 
but I hope I don’t have another one like 
that soon,” he added. 

Gorman had high praise for the 
ACTWU organizing staff, noting that 
the union cares about a potential organi- 
zer’s ability and also about the indi- 
vidual organizer’s development of skills 
and work habits. 

“You must be willing to make house 
calls from noon until 9 p.m., to get in 
those extra hours, to get that bit to push 
you over the hill to win. Campaigns are 
difficult to win; sometimes it takes that 
bit of extra effort.” 






MYTH # A free-trade agreement “will 


unite 360 million people into the 
world’s largest market with output of $6 
trillion.” 


IT A AT # While the historic strength of the 
In V I • U.S. economy has led to a high 
standard of living fueled by the buying power 
of the U.S. worker-consumer, only about 10 
million people are able to buy much of anything 
in Mexico. The extreme poverty of the other 75 
million means they are merely trying to sur- 
vive — to provide themselves and their families 
with food and shelter. The promise of a free- 
trade agreement is a further erosion of U.S. buy- 
ing power as more jobs are exported while Mex- 
ican wages remain under $1 an hour, as has oc- 
curred in the maquiladora “Twin Plant” pro- 
gram. This destruction of one market without 
building an alternative in the other is to exploit 
the work force in both countries. 


ers) will be phased in over a long 
transition and can be addressed through the 
safeguards in a $527 million Economic Disloca- 
tion and Worker Adjustment Assistance Act.” 


MYTH # “Since Mexico began opening 


its markets in 1986, U.S. exports 
have more than doubled and our trade deficit 
with Mexico has shrunk by 65 percent. . .” 


FACT 


A massive devaluation of the 


• Mexico peso did improve the U.S. 
trade status with Mexico, but the fact remains 
that the United States has a continuing trade 
deficit with Mexico because imports from Mex- 
ico have increased 59 percent since 1985, reach- 
ing $30.2 billion in 1990. 


MYTH # The free-trade agreement “will 


lower or eliminate Mexico’s bar- 
riers, increasing opportunities for U.S. firms to 
export goods and create jobs.” 


F A AT # The extreme poverty of the major- 
Irlvl • ity of Mexican citizens casts doubt 
on future purchases, unless buying power is in- 
creased substantially — and that was promised 
but didn’t happen in the maquiladora process, 
the “mini-free trade agreement” for the U.S. - 
Mexico border. The experience was just the op- 
posite: wages for the border plant workers are 
LOWER than the average hourly earning for the 
rest of Mexico. Mexico previously loosened its 
historic strict trade rules and it’s likely that the 
buying binge by Mexico’s small middle class — 
about 10 percent of its 85 million population — 
has already met pent-up demand for foreign- 
made consumer goods. 


MYTH # “Denial of fast-track authority 


would send the wrong message 
to the Mexican people.” 


P A AT # Economic development in Mexico 
Invl • is indeed a worthy goal. But the use 
of “fast track” seriously limits both public and 


The AFL-CIO is 
making its case in 
every forum on trade 
negotiations with 
Mexico: Congress 
should reject 
fast-track . . . it’s a 
shortcut to disaster. 


congressional involvement in discussions with 
Mexico, dilutes the lawmaking authority of the 
Congress. The relationship between the United 
States and Mexico is too important to be ad- 
dressed in “fast-track” fasion. The trade pro- 
posal has far-reaching consequences for the two 
countries, and particularly for the workers of 
both countries. 


MYTH: “The free-trade agreement 


would stem the flow of illegal 
immigration from Mexico into the United 
States.” 


P A AT # Certainly the creation of good jobs 
Invl • at wages that provide food, hous- 
ing and a decent standard of living would en- 
courage people to stay in their communities. Jobs 
at less than $1 an hour, however, can only be 
expected to make jobs on the U.S. side of the 
border and the U.S. standard of living more at- 
tractive. Immigration into the United States did 
not decline during the recent years of rapid ex- 
pansion of the maquiladora program. Quite the 
contrary, Mexico will be seeking, as it has in the 
Uruguay round of multilateral trade talks, to have 
easier access for its population to enter the U.S. 
market on a “temporary” basis in order to work 
in the service trades, since services will certainly 
be part of the negotiations. 


P A AT # The broken promises to American 
I Hv I • workers in the Trade Adjustment 
Assistance (TAA) program, which has no fund- 
ing whatsoever in the Bush administration’s cur- 
rent budget proposal, points up the hollowness 
of such a promise. And workers can’t look to 
the Job Training Partnership Act; that program’s 
budget has been halved by the Bush adminis- 
tration. 


MYTH 


“The 


# U.S. -Mexico trade 

• agreement will increase U.S. in- 


■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ V Ugi WllXVlil VT 111 lilVl vuuv w ^ 

dustry’s competitiveness and raise workers 
comes.” 


m- 


P A AT # Productivity gains — achieved 
Invl • through a well-trained, efficient 
work force — are what increases industry com- 
petitiveness in this country. American workers 
are still the most productive in the world. 
Multinational companies are seeking to improve 
competitiveness by reliance on cheap wages, not 
improvements in production. And the govern- 
ment’s own International Trade Commission 
report says unskilled U.S. workers will suffer 
a “slight” decline in real income. “Unskilled 
workers” are understood to mean persons with 
a high-school education or less — about 70 per- 
cent of the U.S. work force. That leaves the 
richest one-third of Americans — and share- 
holders of financial interests — to benefit from 
the agreement; the bottom two-thirds of the work 
force will be hurt. 


MYTH # Free trade produces jobs and 


higher incomes for all parties. 


P A AT # Economists know that’s only true 
I V I • in textbooks, and when certain 
assumptions — like full employment, no inter- 
national investment and other factors — are in 
place. That’s not the case in the U.S. and Mex- 
ico arrangement. With a deepening recession, 
and unemployment at 6.8 percent, we are far- 
ther than ever from full employment. The heart 
of the agreement is to encourage the further in- 
vestment of U.S. capital in Mexico. The ma- 
quiladora program began 20 years ago, prom- 
ising that an equal number of jobs would be 
created for workers on both sides of the border. 
Now, the Mexican maquiladora work force has 
mushroomed from 19,000 to 500,000 low- 
paying jobs, while hundreds of thousands of 
well-paid U.S. factory workers have lost their 
jobs. 


IUI YJIJ # Those jobs woulc 
111 I I M • way; companies 


overseas. 


F A AT # Actually, no. Wages 
I AvI • countries in Asiaalre 
higher — an average $3.57 per h 
$3.53 in Taiwan and $3.09 in Sin 
cents in the Mexican maquilado 
transportation, communications a 
costs in nearby Mexico will tern 
runaways. And nations like Kore 
still control their domestic markets 
side competition, controlling inves 
fering government subsidies. I 
can’t sell many goods there; the ma 
is the United States, and that’s u 
a free hand in Mexico. There a 
Japanese production sites in the i 
with 50 more in the planni 
access to the U.S. market. 


MYTH # But that expansion 


will benefit consi 


F A AT # The unemployed 
Invl • used to build Ho< 
cleaners or Zenith appliances be 
closed and moved to Mexico is a < 
she won’t be buying much. Multi] 
hundreds of thousands of worker 
families — who will lose their j 
large pool of consumers who \ 
Compare a shirt or vacuum cleam 
United States with one made in h 
same company. Does the Mexicar 
a lower price tag? 


IUI WTII # The trade agreem 
111 I I M • Mexican workers 


jobs, increasing wages and enabli 
to enforce labor and environmen 


P A AT # A nice thought, but 
■ Hv I • the experience .. m 
quiladoras. Real wages have acti 
the maquila zones while prices foi 
clothing and necessities far exceed 
can buy earning average wages o 
an hour. Child labor is very c< 
though illegal — and maquila h 
sinkhole of environmental degradai 
ing to the Wall Street Journal, 
agreement with Mexico would b< 
than if we proposed to draw a circ 
city of Chicago, declaring that ii 
cle, minimum wage and chile 
wouldn’t apply, occupational saft 
regulations need not be observed, 
clean water or other environmei 
waste laws can be ignored. 


Maquiladora model shows bankruptcy of U.S.-Mexico free trade p 


Continued from Page 1 

In testimony to congressional panels, union 
witnesses noted that some 1,900 maquiladora 
operations employ about 500,000 workers. At 
the same time, hundreds of thousands of U.S. 
workers — including employees of Zenith, 
Westinghouse, General Electric, Electrolux, 
Trico, AT&T, General Motors, Ford and 
Chrysler — have seen their job opportunities 
vanish in their home states and suddenly appear 
in Mexico. 

At House hearings, President William H. 
By water of the Electronic Workers told the Small 
Business Committee that “the stakes are simply 
too high for this agreement to be subject to a con- 
gressional ‘gag order.’ ” Too many IUE mem- 
bers have lost their jobs because of the exodus 
of U.S. firms to Mexico, he said. 

President Jack Sheinkman of the Clothing and 
Textile Workers challenged the administration’s 
insistence on the need for the fast-track pro- 
cedure. He pointed out in testimony to the Senate 
Finance Committee that the United States has 
negotiated a number of trade agreements without 
the “benefit” of fast track. 

“If the agreement is in the nation’s best in- 
terest, the administration should be able to 
demonstrate this simply on its merits,” 
Sheinkman said. “Congress needs to retain the 


fundamental Constitutional right to ask for 
changes if one or several parts are thought to be 
especially harmful.” 

AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy Oswald ad- 
vised the U.S. International Trade Commision 
of a 564-page list of American-owned companies 
that now have maquiladora operations in Mexico. 

In the electronics industry alone, Oswald 
observed, the United States lost 440,000 jobs in 
the last two years while 50 percent of the ma- 
quiladora employment is in this sector — much 
of the expansion coming in recent years. And 
U.S. auto workers lost 140,000 jobs since March 
1989, during which time Mexico’s auto parts in- 
dustry has picked up to represent about 25 per- 
cent of all maquiladora employment. 

Real people and real communities are affected 
by the industrial shift, Oswald pointed out. He 
cited these examples: 

• Dale Electronics, which had been produc- 
ing computer components in El Paso, Texas, per- 
manently laid off 400 workers and moved to 
Juarez, Mexico. 

• Rheem Manufacturing, a water heater 
maker, permanently laid off 1,100 workers in 
Chicago and moved production operations to 
Piedras Negras, Mexico. 

• Williamson-Dickie, which manufactures 
uniforms, laid off 100 workers in Vernon, 


Texas, and now has a shop in Piedras Negras 
that employs 800 workers who earn as little as 
$27 a week. 

• Eureka, a manufacturer of vacuum 
cleaners, has been transferring production from 
Bloomington, 111., where workers earn $11 an 
hour, to Juarez, where wages average just $32 
a week. 

Hearings before a Senate Labor and Human 
Resources subcommittee focused on hazardous 
working conditions in maquiladoras near the 
U.S. border. Witnesses told subcommittee 
Chairman Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) 
they feared such conditions would spread 
throughout Mexico under the proposed agreement. 

One witness, Elizabeth Macias of Juarez, 
fought back tears as she described how her 
16-year-old son, Julio Cesar, had been killed last 
October. It was his first week on the job. 

He was hired as a production operator for 46 
cents an hour at a Ford glass plant, but he died 
before he could collect his first paycheck. Mrs. 
Macias said her son had planned to spend a part 
of his earnings “to buy himself some shoes, and 
another part to help with family expenses. He 
was never able to carry out that plan, since two 
days later ... a revolving belt dragged him into 
a factory grinder.” 

“My son didn’t return alive from there. 


Nobody knows how it was that he < 
Julio Cesar ... It was only possibl 
his comrades found him 15 mini] 
he had been trapped in the grinder 
arm, thorax and head destroyed. 

Company management offered 
life insurance claim, Maciss saic 
She also told the panel about a: 
month when a tanker truck from th 
quiladora sprayed a group of Juar 
a bus stop with sulfuric acid. One 
hospitalized from the chemical b 
Metzenbaum was appalled. “If 
agreement is at all based on th( 
model, and will simply expand th 
conditions throughout Mexico, th 
tance of this agreement would be 
of immoral,” he said. 

In reviewing the testimony of ot 
Metzenbaum noted that more than 
Mexicans, some as young as 12 
working for companies that dump 
in open canals. Families live in car 
with no running water or sewag< 
He wants the administration “t< 
it plans to cope with economic d: 
surely will occur when American c 
down U.S. operations and move 
wage factories in Mexico. ” 




r ould be lost any- 
inies will move 

ages in developing 
i already are much 
>er hour in Korea, 
i Singapore vs. 98 
ladoras. Reduced 
>ns and scheduling 
tempt even more 
Corea and Taiwan 
rkets, limiting out- 
investment and of- 
s. Multinationals 
e market they want 
t’s why they want 
re are already 24 
the maquiladoras, 
all seeking 

- < 

ision of production 
onsumers. 

ed worker who 
Hoover vacuum 
s before her plant 
is a consumer, but 
lultiply that by the 
irkers — and their 
eir jobs. That’s a 
ho won’t benefit, 
leaner made in the 
in Mexico for the 
rican product have 


reement will help 
*kers by creating 
labling authorities 
mental standards. 

but again look at 
‘ . Jgiih the ma- 
actually fallen in 
is forjnilk, shoes, 
:eed what a worker 
;es of less than $1 
•y common — al- 
ia towns are “a 
radation,” accord- 
lal. The proposed 
Id be no different 
i circle around the 
lat inside that cir- 
child labor laws 
safety and health 
yed, and clean air, 
imental and toxic 


plan 

t he died, my small 
ssible to learn that 
ninutes later after 
nder with his right 
yed. 

^red her $650 in a 
said.— 

ut an incident last 
m the Fluorex ma- 
Juarez residents at 
One person is still 
;al burns. 

“If this free-trade 
i the maquiladora 
id these inhumane 
o, then our accep- 
d be nothing short 

of other witnesses, 
than a half-million 
12 years old, are 
imp factory wastes 
n cardboard shacks 
wage systems, 
n “to explain how 
dc dislocation that 
:an companies shut 
love them to low- 



The current “maquiladora" 
program already has lured many 
manufacturers to take advantage of low wages 
and lax environmental and safety laws in Mexico . 

Here ’s a sampling of the U. S. communities affected: 


1 Watsonville, Calif. — Since 1983, 
approximately 1,000 workers, 
mostly Hispanic women, have lost their 
food processing jobs paying $7.56 to 
$12 an hour as Green Giant has 
transferred the work to Gigante Verde, 
S.A. de C.V., in Irapuato, Guanajuato. 
There, 1,199 employees were earning 
$3.76 per day in March 1991, packag- 
ing food irrigated with water from an 
incredibly polluted stream carrying 
human waste and blood from a 
slaughterhouse upstream. 

2 Troy, 111. — There were 220 
workers who made $7.50 an hour 
at Basler Electronics before that entire 
magnetics assembly operation was 
relocated to plants in Reynosa and 
Matamoros. 

3 Kankakee, 111. — Employees at 
A.O. Smith’s plant made hot water 
heaters until 60 working employees and 
another 250 on layoff lost their jobs 
when the plant closed in February 1988, 
three years after Smith opened a ma- 
quiladora, Productos de Agua, S.A. de 
C.V., in Juarez, Chihuahua. 

4 Evansville, Ind. — Zenith closed 
two plants here in 1986, wiping out 
the jobs of 1,400 workers paid between 
$6 and $7 per hour. Zenith now 
operates seven maquiladoras plants with 
more than 17,000 workers making 
television and electronic components. 

5 Reading, Mich. — Wagner In- 
dustries, owned by Essex Wire/ 
United Technologies, closed its auto 
wire harnesses plant and laid off its last 
63 U.S. employees in October of 1979. 
By 1988, nine plants in Mexico owned 
by United Technologies had more than 
4,500 employees making auto wire 
harnesses. 

6 Utica, Mich. — The Ford Motor 
Co. has been moving seat cover 
sewing jobs from this plant to Juarez, 
Mexico, for almost a decade and is ex- 
pected to close out the last sewing job 
in late 1991. 

7 Mound, Minn. — Toy manufac- 
turer Tonka Corp. closed its plant 
in March 1984, with a final loss of 29 
jobs. Tonka has 150 employees at Ertl 
de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., in Tijuana, 
Baja California Norte, and 900 employ- 


ees in three shifts at Jugetrenes, S.A. 
de C.V., in Baja California Norte. 

8 Milwaukee — Over a five-month 
period beginning in September 
1988, 140 jobs were sent to Mexico by 
Allen-Bradley Manufacturing, a part of 
Rockwell International, whose ma- 
quiladoras — Tecate Electromecanica, 
S.A., in Baja California Norte, and 
Allen-Bradley Electronica, S.A. de 
C.V., in Juarez, Chihuahua — make 
similar components. 

9 Milwaukee — Johnson Controls 
laid off 200 people after 
establishing a maquiladora, Controles 
Reynosa, S.A. de C.V., in 1982 to 
make similar heat devices in Reynosa, 
Tamaulipas, where 249 were employed 
in 1988. 

Milwaukee — The auto locks- 
and-keys manufacturing arm of 
Briggs & Stratton Technologies has sent 
at least 600 of 7,000 jobs paying $12 
an hour to Mexico, beginning in 1989. 
The Mexican plant, with average wages 
of about $5 a day, is Tecnologia Briggs 
y Stratton, S.A. de C.V., in Juarez, 
Chihuahua. 

1 1 Toledo, Ohio — Starting in 
I 1975, Libby-Owens-Ford Glass 
Co. has cut back what was once a 
5,000-person plant manufacturing car 
windshields and flat glass, until only 
700 jobs haven’t gone to Mexico; 
another cutback of 300 is expected this 
year. 

Warren, Ohio — General 
Motors’ Packard Electric divi- 
sion lost 5,000 jobs over recent years. 
In 1974, GM began building three 
plants in Juarez. By 1975, the Mexican- 
plants employed 7,000. Today GM has 
24 manufacturing plants in Mexico, 
with 11,100 work stations and 23,700 
workers. The Warren plant has shrunk 
from 13,000 jobs in 1973 to 8,200. 
Galion, Ohio — ITT closed its 
plant manufacturing power 
elements for telephones in April 1990, 
ending the jobs of 65 working 
employees and 50 on layoff. ITT Power 
has a maquiladora in Nogales, Sonora. 

M North Canton, Ohio — Over 
the past six years, workers at 
Maytag Corp.’s Hoover subsidiary 


have lost their jobs as the manufacture 
of Maytag ’s floor care machines has 
been transferred to Mexico, eliminating 
the jobs of 200 employees making $12 
to $13 an hour. The company also has 
laid off another 200 workers in the past 
year. 

Lancaster, Ohio — Hordes 
Brothers, an auto glass manufac- 
turer, will close its plant next year. The 
company is to relocate manufacturing 
operations to Mexico in 1992. 

Bellefontaine, Ohio — In 1986, 
Westinghouse moved electric 
motor manufacturing from this plant, 
leaving 400 people without jobs. West- 
inghouse ’s Manufacture de Bobinas In- 
dustrials in Juarez employs 369 peo- 
ple earning less than $1 an hour. 

Beaver, Pa. — A year after the 
Bellefontaine move, 30 West- 
inghouse workers lost their jobs mak- 
ing safety switches, as those jobs moved 
to Mexico. 

Brooklyn, N.Y. — Parker Han- 
nifan closed its Ideal Clamp 
plant in 1986, putting 300 persons out 
of work. The Auto Industrial de Partes 
in Matamoros employs 244 people 
making automatic turn indicators, 
flasher systems and clamps. 

Pittsfield, Mass. — In the latest 
wave of layoffs at a General 
Electric plant that produces wiring for 
Aegis Director missile systems, 60 
workers lost their jobs. Those workers, 
who made $12 an hour, are only a few 
of the U.S. workers displaced in GE’s 
shift to its 1 1 maquiladora plants, where 
more than 7,000 people earn less than 
$1 an hour. The employment at the 
Pittsfield plant has dropped from 
15,000 in 1976 to just under 1,000. 
Memphis, Tenn. — GE also 
moved its Memphis automobile 
light production jobs to Mexico in 1989, 
displacing 44 women making between 
$10 and $17 an hour. The company an- 
nounced more jobs will be moved this 
year. Aparatos Electricos de Acuna, in 
Acuna, opened in 1980 and employs 
150 making wiring devices. 

Jefferson City, Tenn. — North 
American Phillips closed its con- 
sumer products plant here in 1982, after 


shifting production of the Odyssey 
video game to Mexico. Of the 1,900 
employees at the plant, 950 were laid 
off, 800 jobs were shifted to Mexico 
and 150 relocated in the United States. 
The company, which paid $5.40 an 
hour to its U.S. workers, pays its Mex- 
ican workers 65 cents an hour. 

Knoxville, Tenn. — TRW Carr 
Division closed its electronic 
auto parts plant in 1990, with a loss of 
more than 300 jobs paying $9 an hour 
to a largely female work force. About 
half of those jobs turned up at a ma- 
quiladora in Reynosa, Mexico. 

Blytheville, Ark. — Approxi- 
mately 600 employees at 
Magnatek’s Universal Manufacturing, 
who made $7.50 an hour, were laid off 
after the company moved their jobs 
making fluorescent ballasts to Magnatek 
Matamoros, which opened in 1988 with 
300 workers making 60 to 70 cents an 
hour. The other 400 employees at the 
Blytheville Plant were forced to take 
pay cuts of $1 .50 to $2 an hour to keep 
their jobs. 

Mendenhall, Miss. — Another 
600 workers were let go at 
Magnatek’s Mendenhall plant, and 
another 150 to 200 workers were placed 
on temporary layoff while their jobs 
were exported to Mexico. Magnatek 
has four other maquiladora facilities 
making hydroelectric generator coils, 
fiberglass insulation tape, automotive 
trim and seat covers, as well as elec- 
tric motors. 

Radford, Va. — Approximate- 
ly 2,400 employees earning $9 
an hour at the AT&T plant lost their 
jobs during a phased shutdown that 
ended in December 1990. Those jobs 
were exported to the AT&T Microelec- 
tronica de Mexico plant in Matamoros, 
which opened in 1987 with 650 work- 
ers. AT&T now has two plants in Mata- 
moros employing 6,500 workers earn- 
ing about 90 cents an hour, and plans 
to build a third. 

Durham, N.C. — NCA/Burl- 
ington, a subsidiary of Alphabet, 
Inc., closed its plant here in 1987 and 
moved the jobs of 150 employees to 
Mexico. 


















Kirkland decries China’s forced labor for exports 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland testifies before a Senate the federation's representative on the Tripartite Ad- 
hearing on forced labor. Also testifying was Ed Hickey, visory Panel on International Labor Standards. 


By Michael Byrne 

T he Chinese government is exploiting 
the labor of prisoners in the vast 
Chinese gulag to produce cheap prod- 
ucts for export, according to official 
Chinese documents released by Asia 
Watch, a human rights organization. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
referring to the Asia Watch report in 
congressional testimony urging the 
ratification of the International Labor 
Organization convention on forced 
labor, criticized the current political and 
trade relationship that grants China 
“most- favored-nation” trading status. 

“I am worried not just about forced 
labor in the abstract but about the fate 
of specific human beings whom we all 
once watched as they demonstrated on 
Tiananmen Square,” Kirkland told the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

“Thousands of workers and students 
arrested in the military crackdown of 
1989 are still in prison, held without 
trial, barred from having any outside 
contact,” he said. “Among their other 
sufferings, they most likely are now 
working in forced labor factories, farms 
or mines. That is the way the system 
works in China. They may even be 
making products to be sold in American 
stores.” 

The Asia Watch report is based on ar- 
ticles published in a “restricted circula- 
tion” journal for Chinese prison and 
labor camp officials, which detail 
China’s policy of using forced prison 
labor to produce goods for export to the 
West — particularly to the United 
States, Germany and Japan. China has 
denied exporting prison-made products. 

In one example cited by the report, 
an article describes how a prison pro- 
duction unit called the New Life Cot- 
ton Cloth Mill of Nantong County, 
Jiangsu Province, has exported 8.52 
million pieces of knit underwear, 10.37 
million meters of cotton cloth and 85 
tons of knit grey over a six-year period. 
“Since 1987, when production and 


export became integrated, the export 
authorities have energetically helped 
our mill develop into a base for ex- 
port,” the article noted. “In 1988, they 
helped us obtain a low-interest loan 
from Japan to be repaid from our ex- 
port surplus.” 

The Asia Watch report is certain to 
fuel the debate on China’s MFN status, 
which must be addressed by President 
Bush by June 3. “Right now MFN is 
conditioned only on emigration stan- 
dards, but if China is restricting emigra- 
tion, intensifying repression and using 
forced labor in its prisons, it should be 
disqualified from receiving MFN,” 
said Sidney Jones, executive director of 
Asia Watch. 

Kirkland pointed out to the Senate 
committee that the AFL-CIO last Oc- 
tober published a brochure detailing 
forced labor in China. He quoted the 
author, Wu Hongda, who wrote: 

“Never before has there been a na- 
tion with a prison system so extensive 


that it pervades all aspects of national 
production,. . .and composes such an 
integral part of a nation’s economic and 
production system.” 

Kirkland voiced concern for workers 
such as Han Dongfang, a young railway 
worker who was arrested after founding 
the independent Workers’ Autonomous 
Federation of Beijing. Han has disap- 
peared into China’s prison gulag. 

“It should be emphasized that forced 
labor is not the only gross human rights 
violation committed in the course of 
China’s export production,” Kirkland 
said. “Of course, genuine trade unions 
are outlawed. Furthermore, a huge ex- 
pansion of full-time factory employ- 
ment of school-age children in China is 
now occurring in the coastal provinces 
where export production is concen- 
trated. 

“In fact, forced labor and child labor 
are so common in export production 
that almost anything you touch with a 
‘made in China’ label could have been 


made by prisoners or by children,” he 
said. 

In urging ratification of ILO Conven- 
tion 105, Kirkland noted that the pro- 
hibitions against forced labor were first 
submitted to the Senate and endorsed by 
President Kennedy in 1963. Since that 
time, “there is unanimity of support not 
only from the government and labor but 
also from the business commun- 
ity. . .and I know of no opposition.” 

The convention on forced labor has 
been ratified by 107 nations. The 
United States stands with the Soviet 
Union and China in not ratifying the 
convention. The United States has 
ratified only eight of the 168 ILO 
Conventions. 

“Convention 105, with its prohibi- 
tions against forced labor, is a key con- 
vention in the ILO’s arsenal of protec- 
tion of fundamental worker rights and 
one of the most important steps it has 
taken in its continuing quest for ‘peace 
through social justice,’ ” Kirkland said. 



Multinational 
corporations 
pose troubles 


Jim Baker, the AFL-CIO's international representative, 
tells a federation conference on confronting multina- 
tional corporations that International Trade Secretariats 
promise international solidarity. Also speaking were 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Tom Kahn, director of the International Affairs Depart- 
ment; Rudy Oswald, director of the Economic Research 
Department, and Joseph Shantz, director of the 
Organization and Field Services Department. 


W hen Carrefour, a union company 
in France, decided the set up a 
massive “hypermarket” in Philadel- 
phia, it figured to strongarm the Food 
and Commercial Workers out of the 
picture. 

By keeping out the union, the com- 
pany figured to use a “predator pric- 
ing” strategy to undercut the Phila- 
delphia competition with its enormous 
marketplace that sells a variety of 
goods, ranging from clothing to ap- 
pliances and groceries, and features as 
many as 100 cashiers. 

But Carrefour did not figure on the 
UFCW’s vigorous corporate campaign 
nor the ability of the union to reach 
across the Atlantic for support, focus- 
ing labor’s international solidarity on 
forcing the company to recognize and 
to talk with the union. 

The Carrefour example is but one of 
a growing number of instances in recent 
years in which multinational corpora- 
tions — even those with good relations 
with union workers in their home coun- 
try — have sought to avoid unions 
when they set up shop in the United 
States, which they understand as the 
“American way.” 

The list of such foreign employers 
goes on: Sweden’s Electrolux fought off 
the Steelworkers in Springfield, Tenn.; 


Japanese Air Lines skirted the Hotel 
Employees and Restaurant Employees 
in its hotel venture in Chicago and Den- 
mark’s ISS cleaning contractors battled 
the Service Employees janitors in Los 
Angeles’s Century City. 

These examples and many others 
were explored by approximately 100 
trade unionists during the AFL-CIO 
Conference on Confronting Multina- 
tionals in Washington. Federation ex*- 
perts described how to develop strate- 
gies to counteract the anti-union tactics 


of these powerful supranational entities. 

First and foremost, AFL-CIO Inter- 
national Representative James Baker 
told the gathering, is to involve the In- 
ternational Trade Secretariats, whose 
member unions are usually eager to as- 
sist once they understand the situations. 

“We have to remember that unions 
in other countries have little concept of 
how labor relations work here,” Baker 
explained. “Union-busting is often an 
alien concept to unions that have little 
trouble gaining recognition.” 


Baker urged constant and consistent 
contact with the ITSs and sister unions 
so as to “sensitize” them to the needs 
and concerns of American labor. 

Among the conference speakers was 
Mark Anderson, the AFL-CIO foreign 
trade specialist who outlined how 
unions could file complaints under in- 
ternational codes of conduct. While 
these international rules carry no force 
of law, publicizing violations can be an 
effective weapon against image- 
conscious multinationals, he said. 




WMtKPLACE 

INNOVATION 


Partnership sweetens work at Nabisco bakeries 



Nabisco photo 

BCT members are now working closely with Nabisco the union. A reorganization brought new high-tech 
management since the company dropped its combative methods and computer equipment to bakeries and 
stance and entered into a cooperative partnership with distribution facilities. 


By Candice Johnson 

R elations between the Bakery, Con- 
fectionery and Tobacco Workers 
and Nabisco Inc. once were so rocky 
the parties couldn’t agree on where to 
hold contract talks. 

But times changed, and a new com- 
mitment by both sides to cooperate 
helped turn that often adversarial rela- 
tionship into a working partnership. 

And in looking for common ground, 
labor and management found that 
what’s good for the workers is good for 
the company, and vice versa. 

Their effort has been recognized by 
the Federal Mediation and Conciliation 
Service, which presented the BCT and 
Nabisco with its first “Director’s 
Award for Excellence in Industrial 
Relations.’’ 

The award was presented to BCT 
President John DeConcini, Nabisco 
Vice President John Butler and other 
union and company representatives by 
FMCS Director Bernard E. DeLury at 
a ceremony in Washington. 

In making the award, DeLury called 
the partnership “a vivid example of 
what management and labor can ac- 
complish through cooperation, respect 
and a commitment to common goals.’’ 

Changing times 

A series of strikes in the 1960s, 
strained bargaining relations through 
the 1970s, and Nabisco’s need to 
modernize its facilities prompted top 
union and company leaders to reassess 
their relationship. 

The BCT also was concerned about 
the company’s stability. In 1981, 
Nabisco merged with Standard Brands 
and in 1985 was taken over by R.J. 
Reynolds, an anti-union company. In 
1988, Nabisco was taken over in a 
leveraged buyout by Kohlberg, Kravis, 
Roberts and Co. 

DeConcini called the award a tribute 
to “each of our 130,000 mem- 
bers . . . showing their desire to learn 
and their ability to adapt to changing 
times.’’ 

For Nabisco, the advantages of 
cooperation became clear when it 
planned a major plant modernization 
program in 1987. It was then the com- 
pany realized that the “we vs. them ap- 
proach wouldn’t work any more,’’ said 
Nabisco’s Butler. 

“We recognized that production 
employees really were the people who 
affected productivity and quality. To 
improve, we had to give them the 
knowledge and training to understand 
decision options and the resources to ac- 
complish what was required,’’ he said. 

But many union workers remained 
skeptical. 

A slow process 

“We had to convince workers at the 
local level that the company was 
sincere,’’ recalled Patrick D’Angelo, a 
BCT vice president who headed the 
program. But once the company 
demonstrated that it was willing to 
change, workers’ interest in the pro- 
gram grew. 

Federal mediators played a key role 
in smoothing out the bumps along the 
way, DeConcini said. 

The process began with the first of 
three national labor-management con- 
ferences in 1987. Later that year, a con- 


tract settlement included a $5 million 
jointly administered fund to help 
workers train for the computer and 
high-tech jobs the modernized bakeries 
would need. 

A second national conference in 
1988, arranged with the help of federal 
mediators, looked at local level union- 
management teams. At the third joint 
conference, held last year, the BCT and 
Nabisco were ready to sign a Par- 
ticipative Work Agreement, the first of 
its kind in the industry. 

Working commitment 

The agreement commits both sides to 
work together to assure both the suc- 
cess of Nabisco and the individual 
growth and well-being of the BCT 
workers. 

It calls for the establishment of labor- 
management steering committees, at the 
plant and national levels, to develop 
employee involvement programs and 
head off potential problems. The agree- 
ment also added a review by the joint 
committee as the last step prior to ar- 
bitration of a dispute, a program that’s 
been successful in reducing the number 
of arbitration cases, D’Angelo said. 

Modernizing the production process 
required a shift to flexible production 
schedules, and a need for management 


to learn to share decision-making with 
workers, D’Angelo said. Responsibil- 
ity for work assignments, scheduling, 
training and problem-solving were 
shifted to workers and managers on the 
bakery floor, instead of at the top of the 
organization. 

The joint steering committees have 
been set up in each of the 12 bakeries 
and at distribution sites. Those commit- 
tees, in turn, are establishing team 
design programs to streamline produc- 
tion processes, handle safety and health 
concerns, look at ergonomic work sta- 
tions and solve problems in the plants. 

Nabisco managers also began sharing 
information on finances and business 
operations with union representatives 
on a plant basis, as well as on the na- 
tional level. 

A voice for workers 

In Pittsburgh, several joint commit- 
tees have been formed to look at safety 
issues and quality concerns, to study 
ways to reduce breakage and control 
waste, and to review suggestions from 
workers on ways to improve production 
and save money, BCT Local 12 Presi- 
dent Sam Papa said. 

Before the cooperative partnership, 
Papa said, supervisors often thought 
workers should just do what they’re 


told, and wouldn’t give worker con- 
cerns a hearing. 

“Now, it’s not like that,’’ he said. 
“Workers’ ideas are considered, 
especially those about product quality. 
Everyone feels more a part of the proc- 

_ n 

ess. 

The Pittsburgh team has been work- 
ing with the Three Rivers Area Labor 
Management Committee, which has 
helped to build trust and participation. 

“The mistrust was built up over the 
years, and couldn’t be eliminated over- 
night. But as workers begin to see 
results, to see that the company is listen- 
ing to their ideas and implementing 
them, they come to believe there is 
something to it,” Papa said. 

The Pittsburgh bakery, where BCT 
members turn out Ritz Crackers and 
Chips Ahoy cookies, was slated to be 
shut down in 1982, after Nabisco was 
bought by Standard Brands. Then, Papa 
organized a community coalition to con- 
vince the company to keep the plant 
running 

Safety and quality 

Today, the 500-person bakery has in- 
stalled new equipment and production 
lines and has won several awards for 
safety and quality performance. The 
steering committee approach also has 
reduced grievances, Papa said. 

“We’ve come through the years of 
turmoil,” Papa said. “The company is 
as glad as we are that the plant was not 
closed. Things have really changed 
since the early 1980s.” 

Andrew Lashendock, who heads 
BCT Local 719 in Fairlawn, N.J., said 
a steering committee keeps the program 
going in the right direction. 

At meetings attended by local union 
representatives, the plant manager and 
other company officials, “we air our 
views and work to resolve problems.” 

With 900 BCT members at the spe- 
cial bakery turning out the Oreos, Fig 
Newtons, Animal Crackers and other 
treats, the local and company officials 
are working to maintain the consistent 
production levels that lead to a stabi- 
lized workforce. 



BCT President John DeConcini speaks at FMCS award ceremony. At left is 
Nabisco Vice President John Butler. 





Unions call for action to ease pain of base closings 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith tens of thousands of federal 
and civilian employees facing per- 
manent layoffs in the planned shutdown 
of military installations around the 
country, union leaders underlined the 
need for immediate steps to soften the 
impact on affected workers and their 
communities. 

Some 55,000 Defense Department 
jobs would be eliminated or shifted by 
1997 with the closing of 31 major bases 
and realigning of personnel at 28 other 
facilities, under recommendations by 
Defense Secretary Richard Cheney. 

Government Employees President 
John N. Sturdivant, whose members 
will feel the brunt of the shutdowns, 
called on the White House and Con- 
gress “to set their sights on easing the 
difficult transition faced by federal 
workers” in the DOD reductions. 

“These proposed base closings will 
be extremely disruptive not only to the 
lives of the civilian and military work 
forces, but also the economic vitality of 
each surrounding community,” Sturdi- 
vant said. 

He outlined the need for measures to 
assist the affected workers with retrain- 
ing placement programs, early retire- 
ment incentives, supplemental 
severance pay, relocation expenses and 
continuing health care coverage. 

President A1 Bilik of the AFL-CIO 
Public Employee Department called on 


Cheney to release $200 million ap- 
propriated by Congress last year to 
assist workers and communities af- 
fected by cuts in defense procurement 
and bases. 

Pentagon holding funds 

Bilik noted that the Pentagon has not 
released to the Labor Department $150 
million for its Job Partnership Training 
Act program, which assists displaced 
defense workers to learn new skills and 
find jobs. 

The remaining $50 million that the 
Pentagon is sequestering was designated 
for the Commerce Department to help 
communities with such efforts as con- 
verting closed military bases into in- 
dustrial parks, Bilik added. 

It was the intent of Congress in ap- 
propriating the funds, he said, the labor 
and management work together with 
community representatives to ease the 
transition with new skills training and 
job programs. 

PED Secretary-Treasurer John 
Leyden urged Congress to shape 
follow-up legislation to deal with the 
impact of layoffs, including extended 
unemployment insurance benefits for 
the displaced workers. 

A labor-backed measure has been in- 
troduce in the House by Rep. Paul E. 
Kanjorski (D-Pa.) that would give 
federal workers a minimum of 60 days’ 
advance notice before layoff in re- 


duction-of-force situations. Current law 
provides for a 30-day RIF notice. 

While Cheney does not have the final 
word on the closings, the size of the 
Pentagon rollbacks is fairly certain with 
the winding down of the Cold War and 
easing of hostilities in the Middle East. 

The shutdown plan now goes to the 
Defense Base Closure and Realignment 
Commission for further review and ac- 
tion. It then must be approved by Presi- 
dent Bush and Congress before taking 
effect. 

On the Pentagon’s chopping block are 
seven Army posts, nine Navy installa- 
tions, 14 Air Force bases and one 
Marine Corps station. In addition to the 
31 major shutdowns, Cheney will ask 
the commission to close 12 minor in- 
stallations and reduce or realign forces 
at 28 others. A total of 70,000 civilian 
and military positions would be 
involved. 

One of the hardest blows for skilled 
federal employees on the proposed clos- 
ing list are the Philadelphia Naval 
Shipyard and the Philadelphia Naval 
Station, which employ more than 8,900 
civilian workers. 

Metal Trades Department President 
Paul J. Bumsky said the proposed clos- 
ings in Philadelphia would not only hurt 
the thousands of highly skilled crafts 
members of MTD affiliates, but would 
be devasting to the Navy’s overall ship 
maintenance program. 


He pointed out that Philadelphia is the 
only East Coast facility capable of 
handling a wide range of aircraft car- 
rier servicing, along with its specialized 
propeller-making operation. 

It would be costly to the Navy to 
replace these skilled workers, Burnsky 
warned. 

California hard hit 

Eleven installations in California are 
slated to close for a combined loss of 

19.000 military and 7,800 civilian posi- 
tions. Included on the hit list is Fort Ord 
near Monterey, where cutbacks and 
relocations would affect 13,600 military 
personnel and 2,800 civilian workers. 

Indiana would lose more than 8,000 
military and civilian jobs with the clos- 
ings of Fort Benjamin Harrison and 
Grissom Air Force Base. Another 

7.000 military and civilian positions are 
at stake in Arkansas with the threatened 
closings of Eaker Air Force Base and 
Fort Chafee. 

Leyden said regional training con- 
ferences for displaced federal workers 
would resume in coming months under 
the cosponsorship of the PED, the 
AFL-CIO Human Resources Develop- 
ment Institute, Metal Trades Depart- 
ment and the Labor Department. 

A series of joint assistance and 
retraining workshops were conducted in 
January near federal installations in Los 
Angeles, Atlanta and Tampa, Fla. 


Union Privilege drops rate 
on MasterCard a 2nd time 


F or the second time in 1991, the an- 
nual percentage rate for the Union 
Privilege MasterCard has been lowered. 

As of April 15, the rate is 13.88 per- 
cent. The average credit card interest 
rate is close to 19 percent. 

“The reason our rate continues to go 
down is simple,” said David Silber- 
man, Union Privilege president. “When 
the cost of funds drop, banks reap the 
savings — not the credit card holders. 
We pass the savings along to union 
members.” 

The interest rate for the “grace 
period” union MasterCard also has 
been cut, from 17 percent to 16. 13 per- 
cent. That card, unlike the “true” 
union MasterCard, offers a 25 -day 
grace period on all purchases before in- 
terest accrues, and the possibility of an 


annual fee. With the lower interest rate 
card, interest accrues from the purchase 
date. 

Union Privilege officials estimate that 
AFL-CIO union members have saved 
approximately $250 million in interest 
and fees through the credit card pro- 
gram since it was begun in August 
1986. The cards are issued through the 
Bank of New York (Delaware). 

Silberman said more than 2 million 
union members and their families from 
approximately 73 unions participate in 
the program, which includes free addi- 
tional cards, a custom design, no check 
fees, no ATM fees and no liability for 
stolen cards. The program includes a 
provision for skipping payments for up 
to two months during union-sanctioned - 
strikes of longer than 30 days’ duration. 


Coordinated bargaining pays off 
for Bay State Gas employees 


T he final link in a round of coor- 
dinated bargaining with the Bay State 
Gas Co. was locked in when a new 
three-year agreement was ratified at the 
company’s Brockton, Mass., facility. 

The accord is similar to the pattern 
of agreements at Bay State’s other loca- 
tions that cover 1,500 workers. The 
coordinated bargaining, conducted 
under the auspices of the AFL-CIO In- 
dustrial Union Department, includes the 
Utility Workers, Electrical Workers, 
Steelworkers, Oil, Chemical and Atomic 
Workers and the Professional and 
Technical Engineers. 


The new contract raises wages 4.5 
percent each year, and improves the 
pension package by $1 per year of ser- 
vice, bringing the range to $27 to $34 
a month per year of service by 1994. 
Increases were won in shift premium 
pay and in stand-by pay rates, while 
avoiding any increases in medical 
co-payments. 

A 401(k) program will be started with 
the company matching employee con- 
tributions up to 2.5 percent of wages 
beginning in 1994, and matching 50 
percent of contributions up to 5 percent 
of wages beginning in 1997. 



AFSCME photo 

About 30,000 union members and representatives of religious and com- 
munity groups rally in Boston against budget cuts and furloughs of state 
workers, proposed by Republican Gov. William Weld. 






Term limits battleground shifts to two states 


By James B. Parks 

E fforts to limit congressional and state 
legislative terms, denounced by the 
AFL-CIO as an attempt to limit demo- 
cratic choice, is being fought in various 
state legislatures by a coalition of 
political action groups. 

Term limits initiatives were enacted 
in three states during the 1990 elections, 
and are expected to be on the ballot this 
year in Ohio and Washington. 

“The same people who tried to fast- 
talk us into a federal constitutional con- 
vention are now trying to deny us our 
right to vote for whom we choose, for 
as long as we choose,” said Linda 
Rogers-Kingsbury, executive director 
of Let the People Decide, a national 


coalition that includes the AFL-CIO. 

Groups in about 11 states have in- 
itiatives under way to limit state 
legislative terms. In Ohio and 
Washington, the question could be on 
the ballot in November, since both 
states have elections this year, said 
Rachel Dale, a spokeswomen for Let 
The People Decide. 

Petitions already are being circulated 
in Washington, which has a July 1 
deadline for collecting enough signa- 
tures to get on the ballot, and the pro- 
cess is about to begin in Ohio, which 
has an Aug. 7 deadline. 

Groups in some states are pushing 
legislation calling for a constitutional 
convention to limit congressional terms. 


Such efforts were defeated this year in 
the legislatures of Arkansas, Florida, 
Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. 
Legislation is pending in Arizona, 
Missouri, South Carolina and Texas. 

Efforts to limit state and federal 
legislative terms were defeated by the 
legislatures in New Hampshire, North 
Dakota, South Dakota and Washington. 
The current initiative drive in Washing- 
ton would reverse the legislature’s 
decision. 

Similar legislation still is pending in 
Alaska, Massachusetts and Oregon. 

“The so-called ‘term limits’ cam- 
paign is a limit on our rights as voters,” 
said Rogers-Kingsbury. “We already 
have the right to vote no and limit a per- 


son ’s time in office, but they want to 
control how many times we can vote 
yes,” she said. 

“The constant turnover would guar- 
antee full employment for the fancy ad 
men, pollsters and buzz-word artists all 
trying to sell us a new candidate because 
a time clock says we can’t keep the one 
we’ve got,” she said. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council has 
urged affiliates and state and local cen- 
tral bodies to support efforts opposing 
limits on congressional and state leg- 
islative terms. AFL-CIO Vice President 
Gerald McEntee of AFSCME heads a 
federation committee that will work 
with the coalition and monitor its 
efforts. 


Job fair stresses education 
as vital to teens’ careers 



Michael K. Osborn/Colorado Labor Advocate 


Sylvia Baca of the Teamsters explains how a motor works to two high 
school students at a Denver area job fair. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

S ome 7,600 Denver-area high school 
students descended on the third an- 
nual Career Awareness Fair in all 
their individual flair — arriving in 
their jams or genie pants, flat tops and 
spike haircuts, green and magenta 
high tops, their multicolored, elevated 
hair, and even some laid-back prep- 
pie looks. 

But one common reality arose as the 
students perused the union displays at 
the Colorado AFL-CIO-sponsored 
event March 13-14 at the Old Cur- 
rigan Convention Center in Denver: 
a high school education is essential in 
today’s job market. 

“We have to prepare our youth for 
what’s out there in the world of 
work,” said Bob Greene, Colorado 
AFL-CIO director of employment and 
training and fair chairman. “The need 
for a young person to obtain a high 
school education is imperative.” 

Earning power 

As the students entered Currigan 
Hall, one of the first things they saw 
was a sign that reminded them that 
high school graduates will earn from 
$199,000 to $266,000 more during 
their lifetimes than dropouts, and that 
a college graduate will earn about 
$30,000 a year, while a high school 
grad will earn about $19,000. 

“The betterment of our youth is the 
name of the game in all fields of 
endeavor,” said Luis Sepulveda, 
regional administrator of the U.S. 
Labor Department’s Employment and 
Training Administration, one of the 
sponsors. 


The students, who were from 58 
schools in Denver and surrounding 
counties, visited 63 display booths 
staffed by union members. The 
workers introduced the students to the 
products, services, and skills needed 
or produced by their employers, 
which included such industries as con- 
struction, industrial, service, retail, 
government, and health care. 

Schoolwork connection 

To pique the students’ interest and 
curiosity, some unions offered pre- 
employment training. For example, 
the Screen Actors Guild let students 
do commercials; the Bakery, Confec- 
tionery and Tobacco Workers let the 
students decorate cakes, and the 
Carpenters showed the students the 
best way to hammer a nail. 

“Kids finally have a chance to see 
a good all-around picture of the dif- 
ferent opportunities available to 
them,” said Clifford Hilton, president 
of the Sheet Metal Workers Local 9. 

All students were required by their 
schools to visit at least five displays 
and report on them at school. 

David Douglas, a student at South 
High School in Denver, said, “The 
career fair was pretty fun. I got some 
pamphlets here I thought I’d never 
get.” 

Ken Stark added, “I’d like to see 
more of this. It gives us an opportunity 
to see what we want to do in the 
future.” 

Greene emphasized that young peo- 
ple who are interested in a trade ap- 
prenticeship need to have at least a 
high school education and usually 


have to be strong in math. They also 
need essential reading and writing 
skills which the nation’s educational 
system is concerned about improving 
for all students. 

Schoolwork connection 

Frank C. Lay, COPE regional 
director, conceived the idea of the fair 
three years ago after discussions with 
people from the U.S. Department of 
Labor and Denver Public School 
System. 

Since the first year, the attendance 
at the fair has more than doubled. In 
addition, a Career Explorer Post Pro- 
gram has been developed so that 
students can gain knowledge on trade 
unions beyond what is given them at 
the fair. 

The Career Explorer Post Program 


directs students toward building trade 
careers through tours of Appren- 
ticeship Training Centers and provides 
for presentations from trade union 
members who will speak at schools 
and meetings held twice monthly at 
local union halls, as well as hands-on 
projects. 

Since the 1990 Fair, administrators 
have been more willing, through such 
programs as the Explorer Post, to help 
guide potential dropouts into voca- 
tional trades, Lay said. 

Besides the state federation and the 
building trades unions, sponsors in- 
clude the Boy Scouts of America, the 
Denver school system, the Governor’s 
Job Training Office, the Denver Area 
Council, the Mayor’s Office of Em- 
ployment and Training, the Hispanic 
Agenda and KMGH-TV. 


Industry incapable of policing coal dust, unions say 


By Arlee C. Green 

R esponsibility for coal dust sampling 
should be taken from the industry 
and returned to the Mine Safety and 
Health Administration, the Mine 
Workers told Congress. 

The current dust sampling program 
is “riddled with fraud,” the union said, 
and the Labor Department’s recent ac- 
tion against more than 500 mine opera- 
tors for tampering with dust collection 
cassettes is “just the tip of the iceberg.” 
Joe Main, administrator of the 
UMWA’s department of occupational 
safety and health, told a House Educa- 
tion and Labor subcommittee that “if 
we are to clean up the problem, MSHA 
must take over the dust sampling pro- 
gram and miners must be given an in- 
creased role to monitor all phases of 
sampling.” 


The “failure to control dust has led 
to a social travesty” as hundreds of 
thousands of miners have contracted 
black lung during the past 50 years, 
Main said. Black lung is the common 
term for a collection of lung diseases 
caused by inhaling coal dust. 

Instances of tampering with dust col- 
lection samples are not new, he said. 
In 1978, miners testified at six different 
hearings on how mine operators altered 
dust collection samples, including tak- 
ing samples in idle areas of the mine, 
in dinner holes, in intake airways or 
outside the mine. If a collection casette 
looked as if it had too much dust, it 
sometimes was simply discarded and 
another sample taken. 

Those practices persist to this day, 
Main said, noting that Peabody Coal 
Co. was fined $500,000 last January for 


tampering with sample casettes and also 
for taking samples outside the mine. 

On April 4, MSHA announced that 
mine operators had tampered with 
4,710 dust samples collected from 847 
mines. The agency proposed a $1,000 
fine for each violation, a penalty that 
“is a minor deterrent for companies 
whose gross income can approach $1 
million a day,” Main testified. 

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, testi- 
fying before the subcommittee, charged 
the industry with “widespread cheat- 
ing” on dust sample collection. She said 
1 1 of the violations cited by MSHA on 
April 4 are so egregious that the pro- 
posed penalty will be raised to $10,000 
per violation. 

Main called for sampling devices 
“that constantly sample the mine at- 
mosphere, record the results and pro- 


vide an instantaneous readout of the 
dust levels — devices that are as 
tamper-proof as possible and installed 
in the right places where the 
documented results can be removed by 
MSHA and only by MSHA.” 

Martin said on April 17 that new 
tamper-resistant sampling cassettes 
soon will be available. Further, an 
MSHA task force will study options for 
improving sampling techniques, in- 
cluding expanding the role of individual 
miners in the sampling program, hav- 
ing MSHA conduct all the sampling, 
and working with the Bureau of Mines 
and the National Institute for Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health. 

Martin added that the agency would 
decertify 60 operators who each submit- 
ted at least 15 samples that showed signs 
of tampering. 





Factory goods deficit 
outstrips trade gap 


By John R. Oravec 

F or the third time in less than a year, 
the monthly trade deficit in manufac- 
tured goods has exceeded the overall 
U.S. imbalance in merchandise trade. 

In what could become a disturbing 
trend, the Commerce Department 
reported that February’s deficit in 
worker-intensive manufactured goods 
amounted to $5.7 billion, which was 
$1.2 billion more than the total trade 
deficit before seasonal adjustment. That 
same situation occurred last June and 
July, government analysts said. 

The U.S. deficit in manufactured 
goods rose sharply during the 1980s, 
and accounted for about 90 percent of 
the overall annual merchandise trade 
deficits at the end of the decade. 

After seasonal adjustment, the 
February trade deficit was $5.3 billion, 
declining $1.8 billion from January 
largely because of lower volume and 
prices of petroleum imports. 

AFL-CIO economist Mark A. An- 
derson linked the narrower trade gap to 
the recession, as overall imports 
dropped $2.5 billion from January to 
$38.8 billion, while exports slid by $0.8 
billion to $33.5 billion. 

But the reduction of imports brought 
on by the sputtering economy still will 
be a costly factor in the long run, 
Anderson warned. He noted that Amer- 
ican workers continue to lose factory 
jobs as U.S. firms shift production to 
maquiladora plants in Mexico. 

Anderson predicted that the recession 
likely will keep the monthly trade 
deficits below the $10 billion level in 
the short term. 

The import tab for energy-related 
petroleum products declined 31 percent 
from January to $3.7 billion, the Com- 
merce Department data showed. Crude 


oil imports eased by 17 million barrels 
from January to 153 million and the 
price per barrel was $4.40 less at 
$18.58 in February. 

Imports of manufactured goods eased 
by only 3.3 percent to $29.9 billion in 
February, while exports of factory pro- 
ducts declined by about the same rate 
to $24.2 billion — leaving the $5.7 
billion deficit. 

In key industries, the February deficit 
amounted to $3.2 billion in auto and 
trucks; $1.8 billion in clothing and tex- 
tiles; $725 million in footwear, and 
$333 million in electrical machinery. 

Meanwhile, increased exports of 
agricultural products brought a $1.6 
billion surplus and aerospace firms ran 
up a $1.1 billion trade advantage on 
airplanes and $380 million on airplane 
parts. 

Overall, exports of capital goods 
declined by $800 million and shipments 
of autos, trucks and parts dropped by 
$600 million. 

The United States widened its trade 
surplus with Western Europe to $1.3 
billion from $1 . 1 billion in January. But 
that was more than offset by the contin- 
uing high deficit with Japan of $3.2 
billion, despite a drop of $300 million 
over the month. The trading shortfall 
with developing countries declined 
from $3.7 billion in January to $2.1 
billion in February. The deficit with oil 
producing countries dropped $2 billion 
to $1.3 billion. 

Meanwhile, Japan’s Finance Ministry 
reported the country’s trade surplus 
swelled by 24 percent in March to $8.7 
billion, up $1.7 billion over March 
1990. 

Japan posted a surplus of $3.8 billion 
with the United States with exports of 
$8.2 billion and imports of $4.4 billion. 


Study calls for partnership 
to provide skilled training 


T o offset the economic turbulence that 
has hit workers since the mid-1970s, 
the United States must develop a public- 
private partnership to provide skill 
training in a high-technology economy, 
according to a National Planning Asso- 
ciation report. 

Workers in all sectors of the economy 
have been hit by plant closings and cor- 
porate downsizing. Many often cannot 
find replacement jobs at comparable 
salaries, the NPA study said. While this 
“turbulence” puts all workers at risk, 
those facing the greatest hardship are 
minorities, youth, older workers and 
those without a post-secondary school 
education, it said. 

The NPA’s Committee on New 
American Realities has called for a 
broad public-private training system to 
provide workers with needed skills, in- 
crease productivity, promote effective 
change by both managers and workers 
and allow greater mobility for workers 
without the threat of job or other 
economic loss. 

Skill development and training is 
necessary to meet the changing job re- 
quirements of a high-technology econ- 


omy and to protect workers’ income 
and living standards, the committee 
noted. Workplace training should be a 
lifelong process, with participation by 
workers and programs jointly designed 
and administered by unions and 
employers. 

Training should not be limited to par- 
ticular segments of the labor force, but 
should be made available “to the cross- 
section of workers who are at risk,” the 
report added. 

The committee pointed to shortcom- 
ings in the nation’s unemployment in- 
surance system, noting that it “has 
become an inadequate safety net . . . for 
workers between jobs.” The report 
recommended that states adopt more 
uniform eligibility conditions and ex- 
tend benefits to aid long-term jobless 
workers. 

Increased job security, advance 
notice of layoffs, job referral and other 
employment transition aid also is 
needed, the report said. 

The report is part of “Turbulence in 
the American Workplace,” an analysis 
prepared for the NPA — a policy group 
of labor, business and academia. 



m 

- 

Percent of people who have 1 Great Confidence’ 
or ‘Fair Confidence’ in union leaders 


65% 

60% 

55% 

50% 

45% 


/ 






6: 

2% 

¥ 

1 




/ 

V 

5( 

M 

,% 4f 

»% 51 

)% 5( 

W 



1975 1977 1981 1984 1991 


Source: The Roper Poll 


The American public's confidence in union leaders jumped 12 percentage 
points over the past seven years, a Roper Organization poll found. Dur- 
ing the same period, the public's rating of business leaders declined 2 
points, while, those without much confidence in labor officials declined 
from 42 percent to 27 percent. The survey was conducted Feb. 9-23. 


Gas price hike may signal 
rough economic road ahead 


R etail prices moderated in February 
and March, but that honeymoon for 
consumers may soon be sweet 
memories: gasoline prices have started 
to climb again. 

And although the consumer price 
index declined 0. 1 percent in March — 
the first time in five years — average 
weekly earnings edged up only 0.2 per- 
cent from February, the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics reported. 

Over the past 12 months, real earn- 
ings actually dropped 2.1 percent as a 
4.6-percent increase in prices more than 
wiped out the 2.4-percent gain in 
weekly pay while the average work- 
week shrank by 0.9 percent. 

The rare drop in the consumer price 
index for urban wage earners came 
from a further decline in energy prices. 
Heating oil prices fell 6 percent and 
were down 5.9 percent from March 
1990. Prices at the gas pumps eased by 
4.7 percent last month, although they 
were still up 5.8 percent from a year 
ago. 

Gasoline prices rose 4 cents a gallon 
on a national average two weeks after 
BLS issued the March index, the 
American Automobile Association 
reported. 

Petroleum industry analysts said gas 
pump prices are likely to climb 10 to 
15 cents a gallon by mid-May because 
a sharp drop in inventories is pushing 
up demand. They noted that gasoline 
stocks dropped to a 16-year low of 204 
million barrels in mid- April. 

Food prices edged up 0.2 percent in 
March and were 3.4 percent ahead of 
the year-ago month. Clothing prices 
declined 0.8 percent in March after 
posting sharp increases in the previous 
two months and cable television charges 
rose 0.5 percent last month. 

Miscellaneous goods and services 
rose 0.7 percent in March, led by price 
increases of 1 percent for tobacco and 
0.8 percent for personal and education 
expenses. The miscellaneous goods in- 
dex rose 8.4 percent over the year. 


But medical care charges, rising 9. 1 
percent from March 1990, continued to 
lead the over-the-year increase of ma- 
jor index components. They rose 0.6 
percent last month. 

In other economic reports: 

• The Commerce Department said 
retail sales fell 0.8 percent in March 
even though indicators of consumer 
confidence had picked up earlier. Sales, 
at $149.6 billion, were slightly below 
the March 1990 level. 

• Industrial production dropped 0.3 
percent in March, the sixth monthly 
decline in succession, the Federal 
Reserve Board reported. In the manu- 
facturing sector, the output of durable 
goods slipped 0.5 percent. The nation’s 
factories, mines and utilities were 
operating at 78.7 percent of capacity 
last month, down from 79.1 percent in 
February. 

• Housing starts fell 9.3 percent in 
March to an annual rate of 901,000 
units, the Commerce Departments said. 
Home construction had been in a year- 
long decline except for a slight upturn 
in February. Starts for single-family 
homes dropped 5.9 percent in March, 
while multi-family starts plunged 21.4 
percent. Applications for building per- 
mits rose 2.4 percent. 

• Factory orders for durable goods 
plunged 6.2 percent in March, under- 
cutting Bush administration economists 
who predicted the recession was bot- 
toming out. 

Commerce Department data showed 
that the $7. 3 -billion decline in new 
orders marked the fourth monthly drop 
in the last five months. At $110.3 
billion, the orders are at their lowest 
level since August 1987. 

New orders for nondefense capital 
goods fell 10.3 percent, or $3.5 billion, 
in March. Bookings for military goods 
plummeted 16.9 percent, or $1.3 bil- 
lion. 

Orders for durable goods are an in- 
dicator of factory production and jobs 
in coming months. 






Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Heidi Evans, winner of the Newspaper Guild's 1 990 Heywood Broun Award, 
is congratulated by Heywood Hale Broun, son of the Guild's founder for 
whom the award is named. Looking on are Guild President Charles Dale 
(right) and Guild International Chairperson Peter McLaughlin. 



Rick Bender is the new executive 
secretary-treasurer of the King Coun- 
ty, Wash. Labor Council. Bender, a 
former state senator succeeds Dan 
Bickford, who has been named special 
assistant to Marine Engineers President 
Gene DeFries. 

Vinnie O’Brien has joined the AFL- 
CIO Department of Organization and 
Field Services as an assistant director. 
O’Brien, former executive assistant to 
AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee, will work closely with the 
national organizing committee and 
assist affiliates in organizing drives. He 
will handle transportation for Solidar- 
ity Day 1991. 

Bruce Stine, executive director of the 
Michigan State AFL-CIO Human Re- 
sources Development Institute, has been 
named to the board of directors of the 
National Association of Private Industry 
Councils. The NAPIC is responsible for 
designing many of the training pro- 
grams funded under the Jobs Training 
Partnership Act. 

AWARDS 

The Florida AFL-CIO United Labor 
Agency won the 1991 Labor Award of 
the President’s Committee on Employ- 
ment of People with Disabilities. The 
award will be presented by the Presi- 
dent’s Committee Chairman Justin 
Dart at the opening session of the Com- 
mittee ’s annual meeting on May 22, 
1991, in Dallas. 

The Cincinnati AFL-CIO Building 
Trades Council and the UAW CAP 
Council of Cincinnati are co-winners of 
the 1991 President’s Volunteer Action 
Awards. The two groups volunteered 
and offered financing for the renovation 


JS> 


VIDEOS 

The Labor Institute of Public Affairs 
is offering five videotapes, available ex- 
cept where indicated by contacting 
LIPA, 815 16th St. NW, Washington, 
D.C. 20006. Phone 202/637-5334. 

U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agree- 
ment: No Fast Track! illustrates the 
negative impact of the proposed agree- 


of at least 50 units of transitional hous- 
ing for families over the next five years. 
Receiving citations (same as runners- 
up) were: Cincinnati BTC President 
Bob Salvatore, who marshaled 
volunteers from the Carpenters, Elec- 
trical Workers, IronWorkers, Laborers, 
Operating Engineers, Plumbers and 
Pipefitters and AFSCME to renovate a 
new facility for babies born with AIDs; 
and the Monroe, Mich. AFL-CIO 
which built residential access ramps at 
the rate of two per day and 80 percent 
under cost. 

New York State AFL-CIO President 
Edward J. Cleary presented the Spirit 
of Freedom Award to Rep. Thomas 
Manton (D-N. Y.) at a ceremony in the 
U.S. Capitol to celebrate the 75th An- 
niversary of the Irish Rebellion. 

Vermont AFL-CIO President Ralph 
Crippen received a plaque from the 
Vermont-New Hampshire Red Cross 
for donating 25 gallons of blood. 

The Committee on Educational Pro- 
grams of the District of Columbia 
Board of Education recently approved 
the school system’s first observance of 
Labor History Week, Sept. 1-7. 


ment, as AFL-CIO Secretary -Treasurer 
Tom Donahue explains why the AFL- 
CIO opposes the “fast track” process. 
$7.50 each. 

Solidarity Day ’91 includes testi- 
monials from AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland and is designed for viewing at 
planning meetings for Solidarity Day 
’91. $7.50 each. 

Battles Won, Battles Begun ex- 
amines the impact of the trade union 
movement abroad and the real work that 
begins after democracy is won. $10.00 
each. 

Union Organizer: The Best Job in 
America highlights the hard work, 
training and dedication of the new 
recruits in the AFL-CIO Organizing In- 
stitute. $7.50 each. 


DEATHS 

Former Steelworkers Treasurer 
James N. McGeehan died April 24 at 
his home in Warminster, Pa., of the 
liver ailment that caused him to step 
down as treasurer at the USWA con- 
vention last September. 

A Steelworker for 44 years, 
McGeehan ’s moving farewell to the 
union was presented to the Toronto con- 
vention by video tape. He directed the 
union’s historic 1987 negotiations with 
USX in which a new contract was won 
after a six-month lockout. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
and Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue paid tribute to McGeehan ’s 
service to his union, which saw him rise 
through the ranks to become director of 
USW District 7 before being elected 
treasurer in 1985. 

Former Rep. Richard Bolling, a 
Missouri Democrat who was a good 
friend of the AFL-CIO, died April 21 . 
In a letter to his widow, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland noted the 
“labor movement was privileged” to be 
among his allies in the struggle for 
social and economic justice. 


Changing Attitudes: Union 

Members Talk About AIDS is part of 
a multimedia educational campaign ex- 
plaining why AIDS is a workplace 
issue. Union men and women speak on 
their concerns for safety in the 
workplace and situations where AIDS 
is a concern. Contact the AFL-CIO Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Depart- 
ment at 202-637-5210. 

PUBLICATIONS 

The Twentieth Century: An Epic of 
America and World Events, by Bob 
Garrity, officer of the Electrical 
Workers. Each copy is $9.00 or two for 
$14.00. The book may be ordered by 
contacting K-G Books, Dept. L, P.O. 
Box 4947, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 
91359. 


30,000 SEIU 
N.Y. apartment 
workers strike 

New York 

D oormen, elevator operators, janitors 
and superintendents who normally 
work inside apartment buildings here 
are now outside walking picket lines. 

The workers, approximately 30,000 
members of Service Employees Local 
32B-32J, struck April 23 for a fair con- 
tract with managers of approximately 
4,000 apartment houses in the city. 

The union represents members work- 
ing in commercial and residential 
buildings in Manhatten, Brooklyn, 
Statin Island, Queens and Long Island. 
The strike is the local’s first citywide 
strike in more than a decade. 

However, Local 32B-32J President 
Gus Bevona said several building 
owners, co-operative boards of direc- 
tors and managing agents have taken 
quick action to end the strike, offering 
what he described as a fair and reason- 
able contract to union members. 

Union offers contract 

The three-year contract, which the 
union is making available to any 
employer who chooses to sign it, in- 
cludes a 5 percent wage increase per 
year. 

Bevona pointed out, however, that 
employers could opt for the terms of an 
agreement later reached with the Real- 
ty Advisory Board on Labor Relations 
Inc., if those terms are more favorable 
to the employer. 

“Buildings opting for coverage under 
the new contract have everything to 
gain and nothing to lose but their picket 
lines,” explained Bevona. 

The union originally rejected man- 
agement’s offer of a 2 percent per year 
wage increase with no improvements in 
other areas of the contract. 

Bevona said employers were de- 
manding 29 givebacks, including elimi- 
nating consecutive days off, reducing 
pay by $138 a week for members who 
change jobs and for newly hired 
employees, changing the holiday 
schedule, reducing wages and even 
eliminating time off to vote on Election 
Day. 

Bevona described the RAB 2 percent 
offer as “an insult to the people who 
clean and maintain apartment houses, 
and unconscionable when most build- 
ings apparently are prepared to pay 5 
percent, which is all we are seeking.” 
“We see absolutely no logical justi- 
fication for the outrageous position 
taken by the employer negotiators,” 
Bevona said. “They have the money 
they need for the modest advances we 
proposed. They have overdramatized 
their case and are simply taking advan- 
tage of an opportunity to put more pro- 
fits into their pockets.” 


Unions ask court to end OSHA’s formaldehyde rule delay 


T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration has engaged in 
“unreasonable delay” in revising its 
1987 formaldehyde standard, the UAW 
and the Carpenters said in asking a 
federal appeals court to enforce its 
previous order against the agency, 
issued in June 1989. 

The two unions’ request to the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the District of Col- 
umbia Circuit seeks an order requiring 
OSHA to publish proposed revisions to 
the standard within 30 days and a final 
rule within 90 days. 

In asking for enforcement of the 
court’s previous order, the unions 


stressed that delay has plagued OSHA’s 
promulgation of an adequate formal- 
dehyde standard for a decade and that 
would likely not change without 
‘ ‘judicial intervention . ’ ’ 

“Worker health should not be al- 
lowed to suffer, and industry respon- 
sibilities left in doubt, while the in- 
ternecine struggles between OSHA and 
OMB (Office of Management and Bud- 
get) are resolved,” the unions said. 

Acting on a union petition in 1989, 
the court determined OSHA had not 
sufficiently explained its finding that 
formaldehyde would present no signifi- 
cant risk to workers exposed at the 1 


ppm (part formaldehyde per million 
parts of air) limit. It further questioned 
the agency’s decision not to seek a 
lower exposure limit or include medical 
removal protection for workers exposed 
to the chemical. 

The unions’ return to court follows 
action by the OMB to stall the revision 
process. In attempting to comply with 
the court order, OSHA submitted to 
OMB in August 1990 its proposed revi- 
sions, based on a compromise between 
the unions and representatives of the 
formaldehyde industry. 

After keeping the proposal for more 
than three months, OMB rejected 


OSHA’s revisions, saying the job safe- 
ty agency had not explained its 1987 
rulemaking and had made revisions not 
requested by the court. Besides lower- 
ing the exposure limit to 0.75 ppm and 
providing medical removal protection, 
the agency revised the hazard com- 
munication provisions and required an- 
nual training for workers. 

In their court petition, the unions said 
“OMB’s response leaves OSHA with 
an impossible task. OMB is openly 
hostile to revisions in OSHA’s analysis 
. . . The difficulty of obeying this 
court’s order while also heeding OMB’s 
instructions has paralyzed OSHA.” 





Workers rally nationwide for safety law reform 



Steelworkers Vice President Leon Lynch addresses a crowd of approximately 
500 union members and their allies at a Workers Memorial Day rally in 
Lansing, Mich. — one of many labor-backed events around the country. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

afe Jobs. It’s Our Right.” The cry 

Jrang through assemblies across the 
nation April 28, the third annual 
Workers Memorial Day, as trade 
unionists were joined by elected of- 
ficials and clergy in rallies, marches, 
memorial services, candlelight vigils, 
public moments of silence and educa- 
tional workshops. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
addressing reporters around the coun- 
try in a satellite media tour, called for 
action to update worker safety legis- 
lation. 

“With the passage of the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Act, our 
government set forth the policy that 
Americans have a right to a safe job,” 
he said. “Today, 20 years later, it’s 
time to make that promise a reality for 
every American worker.” 

While the official observance of 
Workers Memorial Day fell on a Sun- 
day, many unions scheduled activities 
throughout the previous week to push 
for reform of the basic federal law. 

Armed with the federation’s call for 
OSHA reform and proclamations 
signed by elected officials, and reinforc- 
ed by large crowds, trade unionists ap- 
pealed for support from legislators, em- 
ployers and the general public. 

Among the first events was an April 
23 rally held in the rain on the steps of 
the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., 
where a crowd of some 500 union 
members and their allies braved the 
weather to emphasize the need to stop 
the thousands of injuries and fatalities 
on the job every year. 

“Two-hundred and nineteen Mich- 
igan workers died on the job last year 
and thousands more died from occupa- 
tional diseases,” said Frank Garrison, 
president of the Michigan State AFL- 


CIO. It is imperative that labor “renew 
its commitment to make those 
workplaces safer for present and future 
workers.” 

Steelworkers Vice President Leon 
Lynch told the crowd that, just as the 
environmental protection laws written 
in the 1970s were not sufficient to tackle 
the pollution problems of the 1990s, the 
20-year-old OSHA law has not solved 
the essential problems of workplace 
safety and health in this country. 

Echoing Lynch’s sentiments, UAW 
Vice President Ernest Lofton said the 
large number of persons in the crowd 
on a rainy day is evidence for the urgent 
need for reform of the legislation. 

Bonnie Thornton, a 21 -year-old stu- 
dent at Michigan State University, at- 
tended the rally to pay tribute to her 
father, who was killed Feb. 27 at a 


General Motors plant when a car fell off 
a hoist and crushed him. 

“I don’t want another MSU student 
to have to spend spring break planning 
their father’s funeral,” she said. “We 
never considered his job dangerous. It’s 
something you wouldn’t think of.” 
Michigan’s OSHA program initially 
was scheduled to be handed over to 
federal control, but a compromise 
passed in March shifted state funds to 
keep it alive at least through Oct. 1 . 

“The compromise avoided a train 
wreck,” said Lofton. “But it delayed 
the battle until Oct. 1 . We have to win 
that fight. Our lives depend on it.” 
Peg Seminario, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Occupational Safety 
and Health, said the federation expects 
to have an OSHA reform bill soon. 
“Employers as well as employees are 


mindful of the need for OSHA re- 
form,” she said. “The task is to educate 
Congress on the issues once the legisla- 
tion is introduced.” 

OSHA has 1,000 inspectors to moni- 
tor conditions at the 3.6 million work 
sites covered by the federal pro- 
gram — “far from adequate to cover 
the millions of work sites,” Seminario 
said. “Clearly, the agency’s enforce- 
ment capabilities should be improved. 
We also need tougher criminal penalties 
for violators and improved collection of 
data on occupational injuries.” 

Labor’s fight for safety laws has 
gained workers the right to know about 
hazards on the job, Seminario said, but 
now the need is to extend the law to gain 
the right to act on that knowledge, and 
to refuse work that is hazardous. 

Even with an increase in OSHA’s 
capabilities, it is not feasible for the 
agency to address the range of hazards 
or inspect all of the work sites for which 
it is responsible, Seminario said. 

“The place to start reform is on the 
job site itself, where workers and 
employers know about the hazards they 
face and what must be done to correct 
them,” she said. 

Currently, OSHA does not cover 
state, local and federal employees in 
more than half the states. The AFL-CIO 
is calling for legislation to extend pro- 
tection to all public employees. 

The federation also has endorsed the 
Construction Safety, Health and Educa- 
tion Improvement Act (S. 673), in- 
troduced by Senator Dodd (D-Conn.), 
which would establish an Office of Con- 
struction Safety, Health and Education 
at OSHA. The office would oversee and 
coordinate multi-employer construction 
projects, and require construction 
employers to implement safety and 
health programs. 


INSIDE 

Supreme Court backs 
NLRB hospital rule 

In a unanimous decision — and a big 
victory for health care workers — the 
Supreme Court has upheld the establish- 
ment of eight bargaining units for 
hospital organizing efforts. 

Congressional fiat 
quashes rail strike 

Congress puts the brakes on the nation- 
wide rail strike by authorizing an ad- 
ministration review board to recom- 
mend a settlement within 65 days. 


0 



Kirkland calls for 
health care overhaul 

America’s failing health care system 
needs a fast track to reform, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland told the House 
Ways and Means Committee. 

Unionist learns 
organizing trade 

A trade unionist and graduate of the 
AFL-CIO Organizing Institute loves the 
hard work it takes to put the union 
message on the road. 




U.S. job loss shows 
folly of trade deal 

Employment in the maquiladoras 
already has mushroomed to 500,000 
undercutting the arguments of pro- 
ponents of a U.S. -Mexico “fast-track” 
trade deal. 

Kirkland outlines 
forced labor horrors 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
urged a Senate panel to ratify the ILO 
Convention on forced labor, pointing to 
China’s exploitation of prisoners. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


4 / 29/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






VOLUME 36, NUMBER 10 


MAY 13, 1991 




Council: Stop shortcut to trade disaster 


Unions gearing up for massive Washington demonstration 


Standing near a display of U.S. products now made in Mex- CIO President Lane Kirkland denounces fast-track 
ico with tags showing how many jobs were lost, AFL- authority for a U.S. -Mexico trade agreement. 

Voters to White House: No fast track 


By John R. Oravec 

A lthough the White House is hell-bent 
on ramming through a U.S. -Mexico 
free frade agreement at any cost, a ma- 
jority of American voters think it’s a 
bad idea. 

A nationwide public opinion poll 
found that when people have heard the 
pros and cons of the trade issue, 58 per- 
cent are opposed. 

An overwhelming 72 percent are 
against Congress extending “fast- 
track” authority to the Bush administra- 
tion on the trade negotiations. Only 21 
percent favor it. Even among those who 
favor the agreement, 56 percent oppose 
the fast-track process. 

The polling was conducted by the 
Garin-Hart Research Group before 
President Bush announced an “action 


plan” in an attempt to dispel the con- 
cerns of workers and their communities 
about job losses. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
described Bush’s plan “as empty and 
vapid as dishwater.” 

The public opinion survey commis- 
sioned by the federation found that peo- 
ple oppose a free trade agreement 
because it would export U.S. jobs to 
Mexico, bump U.S. workers down the 
economic ladder, exploit Mexican 
workers and damage the environment 
on both sides of the border. 

In interviews with 1,203 adults, the 
pollsters found that 54 percent of the 
respondents said the trade agreement 
would likely help U.S. business be 
more competitive in world markets. But 
at the same time, 78 percent expressed 


concerns that the pact also would have 
the negative tradeoff of eroding wages 
and living standards of U.S. workers by 
forcing them to compete with lower- 
paid Mexican workers. 

Almost two-thirds said the trade 
agreement would benefit big corpora- 
tions and the well-to-do in the United 
States, but would hurt the average 
working person. 

In releasing the results of the survey 
at a Capitol Hill news conference, AFL- 
CIO Secretary -Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue said the poll for the first time 
documents what the average person 
thinks of the trade proposal and the fast- 
track procedure. 

Donahue said the proposal is one of 
the most important issues before Con- 

Continued on Page 4 


By Michael Byrne 

A FL-CIO Executive Council 
members, disturbed at the bland 
congressional response to labor’s 
message on the “fast-track” to a U.S.- 
Mexico trade agreement, fanned out 
over Capitol Hill to personally deliver 
their objections. 

The council adjourned after one day 
to press Congress on an issue that many 
unions believe could define or limit 
work and unionism into the next cen- 
tury, and a congressional process they 
see as a shortcut to disaster. 

Under the fast-track procedure, the 
Bush administration can negotiate any 
agreement and leave Congress with lit- 
tle debate, no amendments and only a 
yes or no vote. Fast-track authority will 
be extended automatically unless Con- 
gress votes to withdraw it by June 1 . 

“We think we have a very strong 
case that this is an issue that, in effect, 
defines a new industrial policy for this 
country,” AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland told a news conference. “It 
will have the most profound conse- 
quences and radically affect the 
livelihoods and the conditions and stan- 
dards of American working people.” 
Kirkland, who along with Secretary - 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue also 
visited Capitol Hill to talk with 
Democratic leaders, allowed that labor 
has “an uphill struggle. . .We have no 
assurances of being able to slow this 
down.” 

After a briefing from AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten, council members planned 
to push Congress for a second vote on 
fast track — splitting the Mexico pro- 
posal from the vote to derail extension 
of the Generalized Agreement on 
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotia- 
tions — if the GATT vote failed. 

McGlotten noted that the Hill had 
been overrun in recent days by chief ex- 
ecutive officers of major corporations, 
who were pushing Congress along the 
fast track. 

Kirkland told the news conference 
that it will be the privileged who stand 
to gain from a hastily drawn “free 
trade” agreement, while the losers will 

Continued on Page 6 


By Candice Johnson 

A FL-CIO affiliates and their members 
are looking past summer to Labor 
Day weekend, lining up planes, trains 
and buses for the trip to Washington and 
Solidarity Day ’91. 

COPE Director John Perkins, who is 
heading the Solidarity Day ’91 event, 
told the Executive Council that more 
than 50 affiliates have named coor- 
dinators to work with AFL-CIO staff on 


transportation and other logistics for the 
Aug. 31 event. 

Already gearing up for the march are 
retirees from the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers in Miami, who will be flying 
in, and union workers from Idaho, who 
have chartered a bus for the two-day 
ride to Washington. 

The St. Louis AFL-CIO has arranged 
for trains, planes and buses to help 
Continued on Page 16 







Pope reaffirms workers’ rights, role of trade unions 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

O rganized labor welcomed the papal 
encyclical “Centesimus Annus” as 
a powerful reaffirmation of the rights 
of workers and their unions. 

Pope John Paul II’s encyclical 
marked the 100th anniversary of the en- 
cyclical “Rerum Novarum,” on the 
condition of the working classes. 

On the subject of trade unions, the 
pope said their role “in negotiating 
minimum salaries and working condi- 
tions is decisive. (Unions) serve the 
development of an authentic culture of 
work and help workers to share in a 
fully human way in the life of their 
place of employment.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said of the encyclical: “The history of 
this century clearly proves that a free 
economy provides the best prospects for 
the well-being of all citizens — but that 
should not obscure the encyclical’s 


powerful point that an unfettered free 
market provides employers as clear an 
avenue to tyranny as any other govern- 
ment-imposed system. 

“For us in the United States, 
‘Centesimus Annus’ provides an expan- 
sive vision of the proper role of trade 
unions. The pope declares that, a cen- 
tury after ‘Rerum Novarum,’ ‘there is 
still need for a broad associated 
workers’ movement, directed towards 
the liberation and promotion of the 
whole person.’ 

“And the role of trade unions is ‘not 
only in negotiating contracts, but also 
to serve as “places” where workers can 
express themselves . . . and share in a 
fully human way in the life of their 
place of employment,”’ Kirkland 
noted. 

Pope John Paul II warned capitalists 
against embracing the collapse of com- 
munism as “a one-sided victory of their 


own economic system, and thereby fail- 
ing to make necessary corrections in the 
system.” 

This parallels Kirkland’s statement of 
last December on “the myth that the 
collapse of communism is the victory 
of capitalism and the final vindication 
of raw market theory.” 

“Yes, communism has lost, its credi- 
bility stands in tatters and it has been 
found before mankind guilty of sins that 
even God cannot forgive,” Kirkland 
said. “But to equate that fact with the 
transfiguration of Western finance and 
commerce, the Harvard Business 
School and the Chicago school of 
economic doctrine is. . .nonsense.” 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue, addressing a 
crowd at the federation’s Union- 
Industries Show, contrasted the world 
view contained in the encyclical with 
that of the Bush administration. 


“What kind of country do we want?” 
he asked. “Which model do we want 
to follow — one that’s built on a low 
wage economy, starves government 
services to control spending and struc- 
tures conflict between groups? Why 
can’t we try the other kind . . . one that 
brings people together?” 

Kirkland acknowledged the en- 
cyclical’s reaffirmation of such fund- 
amental goals of the trade union move- 
ment as the limitation of working hours, 
the right to a just wage and other 
measures to prohibit the exploitation of 
the most vulnerable members of 
society. 

“For all of us who are concerned 
about the current imbalance between 
management and labor in the United 
States and are working for a prohibition 
of permanent replacement of strikers, 
this guidance is very encouraging,” 
Kirkland said. 


Teamsters approve master agreement by 2-1 


ICFTU youth rally 
Aug. 12 in Jamaica 

T he International Confederation 
of Free Trade Unions will hold 
the third World Youth Rally in 
Kingston, Jamaica, Aug. 12-16. 
It is the first time the rally, held 
last in Seville, Spain, in 1981, 
will be held in the Americas. 

Approximately 4,000 young 
trade unionists from ICFTU af- 
filiates throughout the world are 
expected to attend the rally, 
which is organized by the 
ICFTU ’s Committee on Young 
Workers’ Questions. 

The five-day program will in- 
clude trade union, cultural, 
musical and sports activities, with 
seminars, discussion groups and 
workshops focusing on the 
themes of: The World Econ- 
omy — The Situation of Youth; 
A Sound Environment — A Sus- 
tainable Future, and International 
Solidarity for Trade Union and 
Human Rights. 

Each participant will be respon- 
sible for travel costs to and from 
Kingston, and for a $200 fee, 
which will cover accommodation 
and meals for the five days. Most 
of the activities will take place on 
the Kingston campus of the Uni- 
versity of the West Indies. 

Robert Lovelace of the AFL- 
CIO Free Trade Union Institute 
said U.S. union members under 
age 35 are encouraged to attend. 
Further information is available 
from Lovelace at 202/637-5356 
or fax 202/637-5325. 


By Arlee C. Green 

B y better than a 2-1 margin, 
Teamsters ratified a new three-year 
national master freight agreement that 
provides a total $2.50-an-hour increase 
in pay and benefits for 148,000 IBT 
members. 

The master agreement, which is 
retroactive to April 1, was approved 
61 ,903 to 29,305 with 63 percent of the 
ballots returned, the IBT said. Covered 
by the accord are drivers, warehouse, 
office and maintenance employees of 
interstate and local motor carriers. 

Members in 266 locals with freight 
jurisdiction voted on agreements with 
three employer associations — Truck- 
ing Management Inc., Regional Car- 
riers Inc. and the Motor Carriers Labor 
Advisory Council — and with Yellow 
Freight System Inc., one of the nation’s 
largest carriers with 21,000 employees. 

“I am pleased that the freight 
membership has voted its support in 
such a positive way,” said R.V. 
Durham, IBT freight division director 
and co-chairman of the National Master 
Freight Negotiating Committee. “The 
total economic settlement represents a 
$2.50 per hour, or $100 a week, in- 
creased cost to the employer on behalf 
of each Teamster employee.” 

IBT President William J. McCarthy, 
co-chair of the negotiating committee, 
said the committee deserves “recogni- 
tion for the fine work its members have 
done to achieve this agreement. I also 
want to thank the membership for re- 
sponding in such a large number and for 
voting to accept the important gains 
made in this agreement.” 

Wages are increased 50 cents hourly 
the first year, and additional 45 cents- 


an-hour raises, effective April 1 in 1992 
and 1993, will come from guaranteed 
cost-of-living adjustments. 

The mileage rate earned by over-the- 
road, long-haul drivers is raised by 1.25 
cents, with additional 1.125-cent in- 
creases in 1992 and 1993, for a total 
boost of 3.5 cents over the contract 
term. 

Employer contributions to health and 
welfare and pensions rose by 45 cents 
an hour the first year. Thirty-cent-per- 
hour increases will be paid in 1992 and 
1993. These fringe benefit im- 
provements amount to a $42-a-week in- 
crease in employer contribution per 
employee, the union said. 

Improved job security provisions will 
extend recall rights to laid-off workers 
from three years to five, and protect 
seniority for one year for drivers who 
fail to pass the federal commercial 
driver’s license examination. 

Equipment improvements include the 
requirements that vehicles have 
speedometers operating “with 
reasonable accuracy” and that new 
tractors have heated outside mirrors. 


T he Government Employees has been 
elected as the collective bargaining 
representative by the 200 professional 
employees in the Labor Department’s 
Pension and Welfare Benefits Admin- 
istration. 

In the mail ballot, the pension inves- 
tigators and auditors voted 73 percent 
support for AFGE, ousting the National 
Union of Pension Investigators and 
Auditors. 


Local profit-sharing and employee 
stock ownership plans that have been 
adopted in exchange for wage reduc- 
tions will be subject to a new vote 
within 30 days after ratification. The af- 
fected employees with a 75-percent vote 
can approve up to a 15 -percent cut in 
pay in exchange for the profit-sharing 
arrangement. 

On safety, the master agreement pro- 
vides for a moratorium on the purchase 
of new diesel-powered forklifts and a 
strict timetable for their eventual phase 
out. 

Reflecting the recent call-up of 
thousands of reservists, the master con- 
tract guarantees continued health and 
welfare payments for up to one year for 
employees called to active duty in the 
National Guard or military reserves. 

The Yellow Freight accord, the first 
negotiated separately with a nationwide 
firm, mirrors the essential provisions of 
the master contract. In addition, it pro- 
vides for continued discussions of com- 
pany proposals to establish regional 
operations and separate regional pay 
scales. 


“This outpouring of support for 
AFGE proves once again that given the 
opportunity, federal employees will opt 
for the benefits of AFGE and the AFL- 
CIO over non-affiliated labor organiza- 
tions,” said AFGE President John 
Sturdivant. 

Jesse Rios, president of AFGE’s na- 
tional council of field labor locals, 
thanked the workers for their “foresight 
and commitment to unionism.” 


AFGE gains 200 at Labor Department 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 10 



MONDAY, MAY 13, 1991 


m 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






DOTATION 


Support surges for strikebreaker ban 



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'ffcw'RE PERHANfKTLf REPLACED.'.' 



This cartoon 

appears on the 
outside of the 
packages 
mailed to rank 
and file union 
members to 
generate 
support for 
legislation to 
ban permanent 
striker 

replacements. 


Postcard campaign 
‘ right on course * 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he AFL-CIO campaign to pass 
federal legislation to ban the “per- 
manent replacements” of strikers is 
counting heavily on the grass-roots 
response of union members, who are 
sending postcards, letters and 
mailgrams to their congressional 
representatives. 

AFL-CIO Legislative Director 
Robert M. McGlotten, whose depart- 
ment two months ago sent out informa- 
tion packets including postcards to 
union members, state federations and 
central labor councils across the coun- 
try, is tracking the project through 
follow-up postcards to the AFL-CIO 
that were included in the packets. 

As of May 7, 20,000 postcards had 
been returned to the federation, and ap- 
proximately 2,500 union members had 
sent mailgrams. Mailgrams are sent at 
no cost to union members who tele- 
phone the toll-free AFL-CIO hotline at 
1-800-845-6000. 

“The campaign, to date, is right on 
course,” McGlotten told the Executive 
Council. “But we need our members to 
continue making their voices heard 
through this grass-roots campaign. 
These postcards allow us to say to 
members that there are a specific 
number of voters in their districts who 
are urging them to vote yes on this 
issue.” 

Moving in the House 

McGlotten reported that the legisla- 
tion now has 209 House co-sponsors 
and 31 Senate supporters. The House 
bill, H.R. 5, recently cleared the House 
Energy and Commerce subcommittee 
on transportation and hazardous materi- 
als. Passage by the full committee is the 
final step before the measure goes to the 
floor. 

The subcommittee added an amend- 
ment to clarify that the bill applies only 
to union members. The same amend- 
ment already has been approved during 
markups by the House Education and 
Labor and the Public Works and Trans- 
portation committees. A full House vote 
is expected in early summer, perhaps 
late June. 

McGlotten said Sen. Howard Metz- 
enbaum (D-Ohio), the author of the 
Senate bill, S. 55, was working on a 
timetable for committee hearings but 
that he did not expect any action in the 
Senate before late July. 

The legislation would amend the 
Railway Labor Act and the National 
Labor Relations Act to reverse the 1938 
Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. 
Mackay Radio Co., which found that 
although it is illegal to fire striking 
workers, it is permissible to “per- 
manently replace” them. 

Since the legislative department 
began its grass-roots campaign, two ad- 
ditional representatives, Chris Smith 
(R-N.J.) and Tom Bevill (D-Ala.), have 
added their names as co-sponsors. 
Grass-roots activities continue in 73 
districts in 21 states. 

Statistics underscore problem 

McGlotten said the campaign is 
focusing on any representative likely to 


listen to their constituents on this issue. 
And statistics compiled by the Electrical 
Workers suggest that there is good rea- 
son for constituents to be concerned 
about the potential of the use of replace- 
ment workers to undermine the collec- 
tive bargaining process. 

The IBEW found, in data compiled 
on the use of “permanent replace- 
ments” in units of less than 1,000 
workers, that three states — Alabama, 
Florida and Louisiana — are home to 
34 companies that have used “perma- 
nent replacements” over the past 12 
years, throwing 274 IBEW members 
out of work. 

Other states where IBEW workers 
have lost their jobs to “permanent 
replacements” include Texas, Ohio, 
Maine, Mississippi, Georgia and 
Kentucky. 

The IBEW statistics also show that 
California was home to 23 companies 
that “permanently replaced” 440 strik- 
ing IBEW members over the past 12 
years. 

California is trying to reverse that 
trend, however. Last year, the state 
assembly passed legislation calling for 
the banning of “permanent replace- 
ment” workers. 

“Passage of AJR69 (the California 
legislation) is an important step in the 
fight for labor law reform,” said Bill 
Robertson, executive secretary-treas- 
urer of the Los Angeles County Federa- 
tion of Labor. “Now we must help 
mobilize support from union leaders 
and elected officials in other states and 
nationally to show Congress that work- 
ing people from coast to coast want 
labor law reform now.” 

States take the lead 

Other states are now taking the baton 
with legislation that would address the 
problem to varying degrees: 

• In Delaware, legislation has been 
introduced to put a six-month ban on the 
hiring of replacement workers. All 
advertisements must state that a strike 
is in progress and health and insurance 
for the replaced workers must be con- 
tinued. 

• Illinois’ “Labor Equity Act” 
would prohibit the state, units of local 
government and school districts from 
doing business with employers who hire 
permanent replacements. 

• In Indiana, a four-bill package in- 
cludes provisions to continue health 


care benefits for replaced workers, 
define a replacement worker, disallow 
hiring replacements during a lockout 
and restrict the use of injunctions when 
replacement workers have been hired. 
The House-passed bill also asks the 
department of state revenue to publish 
a yearly report detailing the fiscal im- 
pact on tax revenues and state services 
that are related directly to the use of 
replacement workers and to identify 
employers who hire “permanent re- 
placements.” 

• Minnesota’s “picket line peace 
bill” would make it an unfair labor 
practice to hire “permanent replace- 
ment” workers during a strike or 
lockout. Employers would be able to 
hire replacement workers only on a 
temporary basis. 

• Montana lawmakers are consider- 
ing a measure that would restore 
unemployment insurance benefits to 
strikers when employers continue to 
operate struck businesses. 

• A Pennsylvania bill expands the 
definition of strikebreaker to include 
replacement workers; continues health 
benefits to striking employers when 
replacements are hired; provides work- 
ers’ compensation to an employee in- 
jured on the job while participating in 
strike activity; provides that replace- 
ments be temporarary during the first 
month of the strike, and bars employ- 
ment agencies from referring job ap- 
plications to a struck company. 

• New York legislators are con- 
templating a bill to allow the state at- 
torney general to seek an injunction bar- 
ring replacement workers “upon find- 
ing such use creates a threat to the 
public order and safety.” 

• In Oregon, unemployment com- 
pensation would be offered to striking 
workers who were replaced. 

• West Virginia is considering 
legislation that would totally ban the use 
of “permanent replacements” during a 
strike or lockout. 

• In Rhode Island, an anti- 
strikebreaker package would end Medi- 
caid payments to providers who hire 
strikebreakers, increase unemployment 
benefits, prevent employers from pay- 
ing workers recruited from temporary 
employment agencies more than the 
average wage of the strikers and end the 
tax deduction for operating cost losses 
for employers involved in labor dis- 
putes. 


i 


Capitol Digest 


T he AFL-CIO has endorsed a bill that 
would reform the Davis-Bacon Act 
for the first time since 1935 and, by 
reducing the amount of paperwork con- 
tractors must file, would go a long way 
toward silencing critics who have tried 
unsuccessfully to gut the act during the 
past several congressional sessions. 

Davis-Bacon, which requires that all 
federally funded or assisted construc- 
tion projects pay locally prevailing 
wages, currently applies to projects of 
more than $2,000. H.R. 1987, intro- 
duced by Reps. Austin J. Murphy (D- 
Pa.) and William Ford (D-Mich.), 
would raise that threshold to any new 
federally funded or assisted construc- 
tion project worth $100,000 or more 
and any repair or rehabilitation project 
of $15,000 or more. 

The legislation also would reduce 
payroll reporting requirements from 
weekly to monthly, cutting 75 percent 
of the current paperwork load. 

In other congressional action: 

DEFENSE WORKERS -Gov- 
ernment Employees President John 
Sturdivant told the House Appropria- 
tions defense subcommittee that budget 
cuts aimed at the Pentagon’s civilian 
work force should be matched by cuts 
in programs for contracting out and 
consulting. He also called for an effec- 
tive economic conversion program for 
workers and communities whose 
military bases are faced with shut- 
downs. The program should include 
funding for such items as severance 
pay, retraining, job placement, reloca- 
tion of displaced federal workers and 
early retirement opportunities, Sturdi- 
vant said. 

HATCH ACT — The first step in 
another battle to reform the Hatch Act 
and restore political rights for some 3 
million government and postal employ- 
ees was taken when Sen. John Glenn 
(D-Ohio) introduced S. 914. The bill is 
similar to last year’s legislation, which 
fell two votes short of a veto override 
in the Senate. Among other provisions, 
it would allow government and postal 
workers to hold office in political par- 
ties, to work on campaigns and to run 
for political office. Action on the bill 
is not expected soon. 

TIMBER JOBS — A labor-industry 
group is attempting to craft legislation 
in response to the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service’s designation of 14.8 
million acres in the Pacific Northwest 
as a habitat for the northern spotted owl. 
If that designation is allowed to stand, 
the jobs of more than 131 ,000 workers 
would be affected. The administration 
admits that 100,000 jobs could be lost, 
but refuses to consider any sort of 
special economic relief for the workers, 
their families or communities. The 
labor-industry group has proposed a 
plan which would establish an “old 
growth” reserve system and strengthen 
economic stabilization and worker ad- 
justment assistance. 







Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

At a Capitol Hill press conference, AFL-CIO Secretary- almost three-fourths of the voters oppose fast-track 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue tells reporters that authority for a U.S. -Mexico free trade agreement. 

'Action plan’ full of empty promises 


Continued from Page 1 

gress since it would restructure the $6 
trillion continental economy and affect 
the U.S. economic relationship with 
Mexico and Canada for years to come. 

He stressed that the consequences of 
the trade proposal are too critical for 
Congress to forfeit its constitutional role 
by extending the fast-track authority and 
relinquishing its ability to make any 
changes in the final package. 

Responding to Bush’s “action plan,” 
the AFL-CIO said it was “ essen- 
tially ... a list of promises. ” Kirkland, 
speaking at a noon news conference 
during the Executive Council meeting, 
recalled that government promises on 
trade adjustment assistance, going back 
to the Kennedy administration, had 
proved to be without substance. 

“The program began to cost 
money,” Kirkland said. “When it 
began to cost money, it came under at- 
tack and was eviscerated and nullified 
through the appropriation process.” At- 
tacks on the program by the Reagan ad- 
ministration “succeeded to withering it 
away to practically nothing. This ad- 
ministration has zeroed it out.” 

The Bush promise also provides no 
analysis of how many jobs may be lost 
to Mexico through plant closures or 
layoffs, and ignores the shift of 
numerous U.S. companies to the border 
maquiladoras that now employ 500,000 
Mexican workers producing goods for 
the U.S. market, the federation said. 

Besides making no commitment for 
trade agreement discussions on adjust- 
ment programs for displaced workers, 
the “action plan” rejects the inclusion 
of labor standards, worker safety and 
health, or worker rights, as well as en- 
vironmental matters. 

“The plan rejects congressional par- 
ticipation by emphasizing that any labor 


T he AFL-CIO struck two blows for 
freedom and democracy in Asia, 
urging American consumers to boycott 
toys made in China and calling on the 
Bush administration to toughen its 
stance against the military dictators who 
seized control in Thailand. 

The “toycott” was launched by 
Frontlash and a coalition of pro- 
democracy Chinese and Tibetan organ- 
izations in response to the violations of 
workers’ rights in China and Tibet, in- 
cluding repression of leaders of the 
Beijing Autonomous Workers Union. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, in 
a statement, said “Americans are now 
awakening to what the labor movement 
has long known — that China cynic- 


and environmental matters will be 
handled by the executive branch,” said 
AFL-CIO trade specialist Mark Ander- 
son. “This position confirms that the 
full participation of Congress, through 
debate and amendment, in any nego- 
tiation with Mexico can come only 
through rejection of the fast-track proc- 
ess.” 

The “action plan” also skirts around 
Mexico’s workplace problems of safety 
and health hazards, child labor prac- 
tices, subsistence wage rates and the 
absence of effective union representa- 
tion for maquiladora workers, Ander- 
son pointed out. 

Responding to a reporter’s question 
that critics of the Bush trade proposal 
were branded as racist, Kirkland said 
it is ironic that the charge “came from 
a spokesman of an administration that 
has so vigorously opposed civil rights 
legislation.” He pointed out that the 
AFL-CIO took the lead in the fight for 
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that 
provides for fair employment practices 
and is now pressing to correct the 
damage resulting from recent Supreme 
Court decisions. 

The point needs to be reiterated, 
Kirkland stressed, “that the chief vic- 
tims of this fast-track procedure in the 
United States will not be the privileged. 
It will be the least privileged of our 
society . . . workers from a wide varie- 
ty of national and ethnic backgrounds.” 

In testimony before a House subcom- 
mittee, President Jack Otero of the 
Labor Council for Latin American Ad- 
vancement said U.S. Hispanics worry 
that they will pay for the trade agree- 
ment with their jobs. 

At the same time, “Our Mexican 
brothers and sisters will continue to 
work for slave wages in unsafe and 
unhealthy conditions,” Otero warned. 


ally, systematically, and massively uses 
forced prison labor to produce products 
for export to the United States and other 
countries.” 

The federation will work to have 
China’s Most Favored Nation status 
withdrawn to send a “strong message 
to the Chinese government and Amer- 
ican business that repression and the 
tolerance of repression are unaccep- 
table,” the council said. 

The council also called on the Bush 
administration to go further in its efforts 
to restore freedom to Thailand after a 
military coup d’etat overthrew the 
civilian democratic government. 

In a move to privatize major Thai in- 
dustries and quash union opposition, the 


“The president calls U.S. Hispanic 
workers fearful of losing their jobs ‘fear 
mongers.’ Yes, we are scared stiff of 
losing our jobs,” Otero stressed. 

“We already have been the victims 
of thousands of job losses to Mexico 
through the maquiladoras — a scheme 
that has depressed Hispanic employ- 
ment in the Southwest following the 
runaway of many U.S. plants to the 
Mexico side.” 

Consumer, agricultural and envi- 
ronmental groups have joined unions in 
criticizing the Bush plan as inadequate 
and unenforceable. 

• Linda Golodner of the National 
Consumers League, citing the un- 
checked exploitation of child labor in 
Mexico, said: “American consumers 
are being promised less expensive prod- 
ucts under a free trade agreement, but 
at what price to the more than 11 
million Mexican working children? If 
the price of this agreement is ignoring 
the rights of children, the price is too 
high.” 

• Lori Wallach of Public Citizen 
said the administration’s promises to 
protect jobs and the environment are 
deficient. She said the White House 
fails “to offer substantive, enforceable 
guidelines that would protect U.S. con- 
sumers from contaminated meat, pesti- 
cide-laden fruit and vegetables and toxic 
air and water.” 

• Michael Clark of Friends of the 
Earth said the administration “has pro- 
vided a disturbing lack of specif- 
ics . . .There is no budget commitment, 
no staff levels, no mention of a lead 
agency, no pollution reduction targets. ” 

Similar points were made against the 
fast-track trade proposal by other 
members of the labor-consumer-envi- 
ronmentalist coalition that now com- 
prises some 50 groups. 


new rulers have quickly moved to 
destroy the Thai labor unions, the coun- 
cil said. 

They sharply restricted a union’s 
right to choose counselors from among 
trade unionists who do not work in the 
plant the union represents, severely 
limited the right to strike and outlawed 
unions that account for some 150,000 
union members, the council said. 

The council said the administration 
has moved decisively to cut direct aid 
to the Thai government, but it needs to 
also immediately deny Thailand privi- 
leges under the Generalized System of 
Preferences because of that govern- 
ment’s flagrant violation of worker 
rights. 


Maquiladoras 
steal jobs of 
U.S. Hispanics 

By John R. Oravec 

W alk by the employment office any 
Monday in Salinas, Calif., and 
you’ll see a line of jobless workers a 
block long. 

“It’s been like that ever since the J.R. 
Simplot Co. shut down its foods proc- 
essing facilities last year and moved to 
Morelia, Mexico,” said Raul Her- 
nandez, secretary-treasurer of Team- 
sters Local 890. 

Many of those in the unemployment 
line are IBT members, mainly Hispanic 
women who have worked for Simplot 
a number of years before their jobs 
began to disappear last October. By the 
time Simplot completed the shutdown 
last December, more than 800 food pro- 
cessing workers were out on the street. 

It is much like Watsonville, less than 
a half-hour drive north from Salinas, 
where the Pillsbury Green Giant brand 
food company has laid off approximate- 
ly 1,000 members of Teamsters Local 
912. Their jobs are now at the Gigante 
Verde plant in Irapuato, Mexico. 

Simplot markets its produce under a 
variety of store chains’ private labels. 
It also supplies French fries to the 
McDonald’s hamburger chain. 

In opposing the Bush administration’s 
current U.S. -Mexico trade initiative, 
the AFL-CIO has called the border 
plants where those U.S. jobs went a 
“sneak preview” of what will happen 
on a much larger scale if Bush is 
successful. 

Based on area standards, the Simplot 
workers earned a decent wage for their 
low-skill but demanding jobs, Her- 
nandez said. Their pay averaged $7.50 
an hour. 

Poverty pay rates 

In Morelia, Hernandez noted, 
Simplot pays its top workers about 
$7.50 for a full day, although the 
average wage is closer to 60 cents an 
hour and most workers earn about $4 
a day. 

“It’s a matter of poor Mexicans on 
one side of the border and poor Mex- 
icans on the other side,” Hernandez 
said at a National Press Club news con- 
ference. “Both are hurt.” 

In Salinas, some of the former Sim- 
plot workers qualified for severance pay 
and others cashed in on their pension 
plan, which had been established by 
Dalgety Foods before the Simplot 
takeover in 1986. But now, their health 
care coverage is gone and the workers 
are struggling to keep their families 
together. 

The economic impact on the com- 
munity is staggering with the loss of an 
annual payroll of $7.4 million, Salinas 
Mayor Russell M. Jefferies said. But 
especially hurt are the displaced 
workers who face long-term unemploy- 
ment, he said. 

Hernandez said members of Congress 
who are supporting the Mexico fast 
track aren’t aware of the problem or 
simply don’t care. “They should come 
out and talk to us and to our members 
who are now unemployed.” 

The shift of U.S. firms to Mexico in 
quest of cheap wages “boils down to 
greed — clear and simple,” Hernandez 
stressed. 

Simplot’s food processing operations 
in Salinas were fairly profitable for the 
U.S. -based conglomerate, he said. 
“But when Simplot stacked up wages 
in Mexico of 60 cents an hour against 
what our members were earning, the 
company ran away.” 


Federation backs ‘toycott,’ raps Thai coup 




Anti-Castro unionist freed 
after 2 3 years in Cuban jail 



Mike Ruano/ILGWU 


Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez is greeted by a jubilant crowd of union members and 
supporters on his arrival at Miami International Airport. 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

E rnesto Diaz Rodriguez, a Cuban 
trade unionist whose opposition to 
the regime of Fidel Castro landed him 
in jail for 23 years, now walks the 
streets of Miami as a free man. 

Diaz, a transport worker and fisher- 
man, was imprisoned for anti-Castro 
political activity on Dec. 3, 1968. He 
was one of Cuba’s last historic plan- 
tados, political prisoners who refuse to 
be indoctrinated or to wear prison 
uniforms in defiance of a system they 
despise. 

Diaz and Mario Chanes de Armas, 
now the last plantado, have been the ob- 
ject of an intense international campaign 
by the AFL-CIO. Chanes, former head 
of the Cuban brewery union, has spent 
30 years in Cuban prisons. Although his 
sentence expires in July, Castro is 
known to hold political prisoners long 
after they are due to be released. 

The federation and its Free Cuba 
Committee estimate there are some 
30,000 political prisoners in Cuban jails 
and has presented proof of Cuban 
worker and human rights abuses to the 
International Labor Organization in 
Geneva.. 

“The AFL-CIO and its Labor Com- 
mittee for a Free Cuba are determined 
to help our brothers and sisters in Cuba 
to end three decades of repression under 
the Castro dictatorship,’’ said commit- 
tee chair John DeConcini, president of 
the Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers, in a May Day statement. 
“Castro’s tyrannic rule has been 
marked by demagoguery, the trampling 
of human rights and the total elimina- 

China release 
of ill unionist 
seen as ruse 

By Michael Byrne 

H an Dongfang, the young railway 
worker who helped create the first 
independent workers organization in 
China in 40 years, was released from 
China’s prison system after nearly two 
years without a trial. 

Han, who was released to his rela- 
tives in Beijing in very poor health, was 
arrested in the 1989 crackdown on the 
Tiananmen Square protesters just one 
month after he co-founded the Beijing 
Workers Autonomous Federation. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
who expressed concern for Han during 
Senate testimony April 22, cheered 
Han’s release, praising him as “a brave 
freedom fighter who dared to stand up 
to the repressive Chinese regime, only 
to fall victim to systematic abuse and 
neglect during his detention. 

Kirkland noted that thousands of 
workers who participated in the 
Tiananmen democracy movement are 
still in prison, including BWAF 
members Liu Qiang, Zao Pinlu, Li Jin- 
jin, Zhang Xinchao, Zhang Lishan, 
Wen Lihua, Cai Shi, Bao Huilin and 
Yang Xudon. 

According to the human rights group 
Asia Watch, Chinese officials at first 
refused medical treatment for Han, who 
“was in a dank and overcrowded cell 
and infectious diseases were common 
among the prisoners.’’ Han reportedly 
is critically ill with a lung ailment, but 
sources in Beijing have high hopes for 
his recovery since his release May 1 . 
Lu Jinghua, a BWAF leading mem- 


tion of a free labor movement.’’ 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
speaking at a luncheon honoring Diaz 
and Chanes during the February Ex- 
ecutive Council meeting, described 
Cuba as “ . . .one of the world’s worst 
places to work ... a place of abusive and 
degrading working conditions, forced 
labor thinly disguised as ‘volunteerism,’ 
religious and ideological discrimination 
at the workplace, and relentless pres- 
sure to produce more for the glory of 
the state.’’ 

In Miami, Diaz recalled how the 
Cuban government forced him to listen 
to high-frequency pitches in a sealed 
room all day. He said they beat him and 
shut him in a windowless cell for two 
months. 

The 52-year-old Diaz, arriving at 
Miami’s International Airport April 30, 
was met by his wife, Olga Margarita, 
and three grown sons, one of whom he 
has never seen. Also on hand was a 
labor delegation headed by Free Cuba 
committee members Marty Urra, Jose 
Collado and Mike Ruano, and Steve 
Slezak of the AFL-CIO Department of 
International Affairs. 

Ruano, manager of the Ladies’ Gar- 
ment Workers Local 415-472 and vice 
president of the Florida AFL-CIO, is 
a childhood friend of Diaz. 

“He is the same guy, quiet but 
tough,’’ Ruano said. “He has always 
been a leader. When we were in school, 
he always took care of everybody. He 
was that kind of person.” 

In 1968, Diaz and four other Cuban 
exiles, members of Alpha 66, were cap- 
tured inside Cuba with rifles, pistols 



Han Dongfang 


ber who managed to escape China after 
Tiananmen Square, accused the Chi- 
nese government of releasing Han to 
curry favor with the United States dur- 
ing the impending debate on whether to 
renew China’s “most-favored-nation” 
trading status, which President Bush 
must address by June 3. 

Charles Gray, executive director of 
the AFL-CIO Asian-American Free 
Labor Institute, accused the Chinese 
government of “a recurring pattern of 
cynicism — the release of a few promi- 
nent individuals to mollify American 
human rights concerns immediately 
prior to U.S. policy decisions that af- 
fect China.” 

Kirkland said the federation “will 
continue to oppose trade benefits for 
China, including most-favored-nation 
status, as long as the Beijing regime 
fails to respect the most fundamental 
trade union and human rights, espe- 
cially freedom of association.” 

“China’s rulers must release the re- 
maining political prisoners and free 
trade union activists held in its prisons 
and slave labor camps, and must allow 
workers to form their own, independent 
trade union organizations,” Kirkland 
said. 


and grenades. Their mission was to stir 
up anti-Castro forces. He was first 
charged with illegally entering Cuba to 
wage war and sentenced to 15 years in 
prison. 

Four years later Diaz was charged 
with conspiring against the government 
and sentenced to another 25 years. 

“I’ll continue my battle for human 
rights and Cuba’s liberty,” Diaz said. 
“We don’t want bloodshed in our coun- 
try, but independence. We must set 
aside our personal differences within 


By John R. Oravec 

B ecause of continuing worker rights 
violations and mass arrests of union 
leaders, South Korea should be dropped 
from the Overseas Private Investment 
Corp. program of U.S. government- 
backed investment guarantees, the 
AFL-CIO said. 

The Executive Council noted that last 
year it denounced the violent suppres- 
sion of striking workers by the Roh 
regime. 

“Regrettably, the government’s rec- 
ord since has made it clear that those 
acts were not aberrations, but a part of 
a systematic pattern of anti-worker con- 
duct,” the council said. 

It cited the arrest of 69 Daewoo union 
leaders last month, attacks on the in- 
dependent teachers’ union, a court rul- 
ing that limits union participation in set- 
tling labor disputes, as well the failure 
to reform anti-worker laws imposed by 
the former military dictatorship. 

The council also pointed to President 
Roh’s appointment of an anti-union 
labor minister who vowed to have 
measures enacted to beef up the govem- 
ment’s domination over unions in cru- 
cial labor disputes. 

Endorsing a petition initiated by the 
UAW, the council urged the Bush ad- 
ministration to “take fundamental 
worker rights as seriously as it does 
trade relations by revoking Korea’s 
OPIC privileges in accordance with 
worker rights provisions enacted by the 
U.S. Congress.” 

The UAW pointed out in its petition 
that a 1990 State Department report 
described the legal framework for 


the exile community and try to unite in 
a common cause . . . (the defeat) of Fidel 
Castro.” 

In prison, Diaz began writing poetry 
to maintain his sanity, he said. Three 
volumes of his work have been pub- 
lished outside of Cuba. 

Diaz, who was released because of ill 
health, now wants to write a book about 
political prisoners who were executed 
or died of sickness. “My ideas and 
principles can never be broken,” he 
said. 


labor-management relations in Korea 
“as the same as it was under the dic- 
tatorship of General Chun.” 

Despite the Roh regime’s oppression, 
the council noted that Korea’s local 
council elections in June that “could 
establish a grass-roots democracy that 
would defend workers against the re- 
pressive power of the central govern- 
ment.” 

The council called on the Roh gov- 
ernment to lift the restrictions on the 
Federation of Korean Trade Unions to 
participate in the electoral process. It 
also urged the government to “enact 
labor law reforms that wipe away the 
vestiges of the former dictatorship, and 
to help usher in a system of labor- 
management relations befitting a 
modern, pluralistic Korean society.” 

GSP privileges granted 

Meanwhile, the White House ex- 
tended additional privileges to Czecho- 
slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Yugo- 
slavia under the Generalized System of 
Preferences for duty-free access to U.S. 
markets on certain new products. 

That action had the support of the 
AFL-CIO. 

But the federation opposes the con- 
tinuation of privileges to seven other 
countries because of worker rights 
violations: Benin, the Dominican 
Republic, Haiti, Nepal, Bangladesh, El 
Salvador and Syria. 

Sudan’s GSP privileges were revoked 
for its failure to meet internationally 
recognized worker rights standards. 
The AFL-CIO had petitioned for sanc- 
tions against Sudan. 


AFL-CIO calls for revocation 
of OPIC guarantees for Korea 




Council takes fast-track case to Hill 



Raymond Crowell/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland was presented with a statuette by Vincent 
Sombrotto, president of the Letter Carriers, marking the NALC's centen- 
nial celebration. Seated next to Kirkland is Susan Bianchi-Sand, president 
of the Flight Attendants. 


Continued from Page 1 

be the underprivileged workers on both 
sides of the border as well as the U.S. 
communities that already had suffered 
job loss through plant relocations under 
the current maquiladora program. 

“The AFL-CIO believes in trade and 
lots of it,” Kirkland said. “But we 
don’t believe in forcing workers in this 
country to compete for jobs with vic- 
tims of the crudest forms of exploita- 
tion. And we don’t think our com- 
munities should be placed in a ‘com- 
parative disadvantage’ merely because 
they require employers to contribute to 
a tax base that furnishes schools, roads, 
sewage facilities and other elements of 
a decent civilized society.” 

The council also was briefed by 
McGlotten on the status of H.R. 55 and 
S. 5, legislation that would ban “per- 
manent replacements” of strikers, and 
the federation’s grass-roots campaign to 
push those bills through Congress. See 
story, Page 3. 

In other business, the Executive 
Council: 

• Urged the Atlanta committees 
responsible for staging the 1996 Olym- 
pic Games to “protect the community’s 
wage and living standards by requiring 
contractors to pay their employees the 
local prevailing wages and to provide 
them with health and retirement bene- 
fits.” The statement also urged the 
groups to adopt a policy using union 
labor and union contractors. 

• Heard a report from Jay Mazur, 
president of the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers, on the appointment of a 29- 


S aying that the nation’s financial 
system is in the most precarious 
health since the Great Depression, the 
AFL-CIO is backing a series of bank- 
ing reform proposals that would serve 
the interests of all Americans. 

The federation’s Executive Council 
issued a statement that condemns the 
Bush administration’s reform plan that 
“places the interests of big banks and 
the securities industry over those of the 
American public.” 

The council called on Congress to 
develop and approve a banking reform 
package. 

It called for provisions that include 
stronger government regulation, a 
viable deposit insurance program, the 
assurance of banking services to con- 
sumers and local businesses and proper 


A series of scams are hitting unem- 
ployed workers where they can least 
afford it — in the pocketbook — by 
misleading them about the prospects for 
jobs in the Persian Gulf. 

In New Jersey, one unscrupulous 
company has been taking advantage of 
unemployed workers by promising 
them high-paying jobs in Kuwait — 
jobs that don’t exist. 

Omne Maintenance Engineers Inc. 
ran classified ads in local newspapers 
promising electricians, plumbers and 
other trades workers jobs at hourly 
salaries of as high as $57.50. While 
Omne did not charge applicants a fee, 
it had hoped to use the list of names in 
working with government agencies. 

Omne was ordered to notify the more 
than 4,000 applicants that no jobs exist 
and to pay a fine of $3,500. New 
Jersey’s attorney general also is in- 
vestigating three similar scams. 

Local branches of the Better Business 


member steering committee for a new 
Asian- American Support Group. The 
committee will meet June 21-22 to draft 
a constitution, set bylaws and plan for 
a convention later this year. 

• Received a report from John J. 
Sweeney, president of the Service 
Employees, on recent gains in organiz- 
ing, including the Supreme Court deci- 
sion that will allow unions to organize 
hospital workers in eight separate 
bargaining units. 

• Heard AFSCME President 
Gerald W. McEntee report on the status 


safeguards for bank employees affected 
by closings and mergers. 

Regulators should make sure that 
weak financial institutions are not 
allowed to pay high interest rates to at- 
tract deposits, and that the banking 
system emphasizes job-creating, soci- 
ally responsible investments rather than 
job-killing, junk bond-financed take- 
overs and real estate speculation, the 
federation said. 

The council also called for the regula- 
tion of non-bank financial institutions, 
such as insurance companies and securi- 
ties dealers and the limiting of concen- 
trated ownership and control over finan- 
cial institutions. 

The council also called for a con- 
tinuation of deposit insurance to protect 
individual depositors. Pensions and 


Bureau have reported that job seekers 
responding to “Rebuild Kuwait” or 
“Jobs in the Gulf” ads are told they 
must pay a fee of up to $95 for more 
information, job lists or resume serv- 
ices. Another practice the Council of 
Better Business Bureaus is investigating 
is the use of 900-number lines that 
charge as much as $20 per call for 
useless information. 

The BBB council has warned job 
seekers to be wary of jobs ads for 
overseas employment — especially 
those that require an up-front payment. 
Many “help-wanted” ads placed by job 
listing companies are selling stale or 
worthless information, the BBB coun- 
cil said, noting that job seekers have 
been charged “several hundred dollars 
for information they compile from 
public sources such as government 
listings and other newspaper ads.” 

One source where applicants were 
sent, the Commerce Department’s Gulf 


of the fight against the move in various 
states to limit the terms of state and con- 
gressional representatives. Unions were 
urged to contribute to Let the People 
Decide, the national committee leading 
that campaign. 

• Approved, in addition to regularly 
funded projects, the following contribu- 
tions: $25,000 for Soviet mine workers; 
$10,000 for Red Cross Kurdish relief 
efforts; $10,000 to a radio project for 
progressives headed by Jim Hightower, 
and $5,000 for the Vietnam Women’s 
Memorial. 


other retirement accounts need to retain 
the pass-through of individual deposit 
insurance coverage, the federation said. 

Financial industry executives guilty 
of improprieties should be brought to 
justice and forced to make restitution, 
the council said. 

To help assure that the public’s in- 
terests are adequately represented, the 
AFL-CIO called for a requirement that 
federally insured institutions fill a 
prescribed number of board of directors 
seats with representatives of its consti- 
tuencies, such as labor, consumers, 
farmers and small businesses. 

The statement said bank workers 
have a right to fairer treatment, in- 
cluding proper notification of bank clos- 
ings, pension and health benefits and 
retraining. 


Reconstruction Center, serves as an in- 
formation clearinghouse for business 
only and handles no employment re- 
quests, the council said. 

Information on Kuwaiti-related con- 
tracts and reconstruction jobs is 
available at no cost from local job serv- 
ice or Employment Service offices. 

The Labor Department is encourag- 
ing employers who may have vacancies 
in the Persian Gulf to list those jobs with 
their state employment service. Those 
openings also would appear in the In- 
terstate Job Bank, a nationwide listing 
of employment opportunities. 

The Building and Construction 
Trades Department has met with the 
Kuwaiti ambassador to the United 
States to discuss the rebuilding effort. 
President Robert A. Georgine told 
delegates to the BCTD’s legislative con- 
ference that the ambassador agreed that 
at least 70 percent of the reconstruction 
program should go to U.S. workers. 


U.S. is sliding 
on ‘barbaric’ 
training path 

By Rex Hardesty 

N either the President nor anyone in 
Congress has declared, “I opt for 
a low-wage nation,” but national ac- 
tions over the past 15 years add up to 
such a policy, the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council was told at its May meeting. 

In the equity of its income distribu- 
tion, the United States is now last 
among the 22 major developed nations, 
Ira Magaziner told the council. 

Magaziner is a management adviser 
who chaired the Commission on the 
Skills of the American Workforce and 
co-authored its study, “America’s 
Choice: High Skills or Low Wages.” 
Magaziner said the report calls for 
employers to put behind the low-skill 
industrial traditions taught by Frederick 
Taylor and opt for a high-skill, high- 
pay nation rooted in education and job 
skills. He repeatedly contrasted U.S. at- 
titudes with the progressive nations of 
the world. 

Noting that real wages are down 13 
percent over the 15 -year period of the 
study, Magaziner said the United States 
was fourth in the equity of its income 
distribution 15 years ago, slipped to 
12th 10 years ago and is now last. “On- 
ly the top 30 percent is better off,” he 
said. 

Just 10 years ago, the United States 
was the highest-wage nation in the 
world, Magaziner said, but had been 
passed by nine nations by the time his 
group’s study began and by 11 nations 
when the study was completed. 

He quoted Aristotle’s definition of a 
civilized society as one that passes ad- 
vantages to the next generation, in con- 
trast to a barbaric society that plunders, 
stops to consume, then goes out to 
plunder again. After 10 generations of 
national history, he said, the United 
States threatens for the first time to 
fulfill the definition of barbaric. 

Magaziner described the five major 
recommendations of the commission: 
• Quality control in education from 
a system that establishes a uniform stan- 
dard of judging, not unlike the Boy 
Scouts’ system of merit badges at 
various stages of educational attain- 
ment. 

• Dropout recovery programs like 
those in Scandanavia, which recognize 
the cost to society of low-skilled adults 
is far greater than the cost of neigh- 
borhood centers designed to keep young 
people in school. 

• Overcoming the national bias that 
favors college and stigmatizes the other 
75 percent of Americans despite such 
achievements as union apprenticeship 
programs. 

• Continuing education beyond the 
age of the early 20s. 

• A comprehensive national policy 
on employment and training that assigns 
specific roles to state and federal 
governments. 

Former secretaries of labor Bill 
Brock and Ray Marshall were co-chairs 
of the commission, which worked under 
the auspices of the National Center on 
Education and the Economy. Labor 
members were UAW President Owen 
Bieber, Sheet Metal Workers President 
Ed Carlough, AFSCME Secretary- 
Treasurer Bill Lucy, SEIU Local 925 
President Karen Nussbaum and In- 
dustrial Union Department President 
Howard D. Samuel. 

The report is available for $18 from 
the center at P.O. Box 16670, 
Rochester, N.Y. 14610. 


Labor outlines strong bank reform plan 


Companies scam workers on Kuwait jobs 




Apartment 
strike brings 
new accord 



Steve Miller/Miller Photography 


Approximately 20,000 New York state and city workers District Council 37 President Stanley Hill called tor 
rallied in lower Manhattan April 30 to protest proposed Cuomo to restore taxes cut in recent years in order to 
cuts under Gov. Mario Cuomo's budget plan. AFSCME save jobs and services. 


State taxes favor rich, study shows 


Tax progressivity 
is empty promise 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

V irtually every state taxes its middle- 
income families at rates significantly 
higher than those faced by the richest 
families, according to a recent study by 
the Citizens for Tax Justice. 

“Too many state governments that 
are strapped for revenue are turning 
first to average families, while prof- 
itable corporations and rich individuals 
aren’t being asked to do their part,’’ 
said Robert McIntyre, director of the 
Citizens for Tax Justice. 

Instead of taking creative approaches 
to their revenue problems, the report 
stated, many states have resorted to cut- 
ting services, increasing the cost of 
Medicaid and decreasing school 
funding. 

The study found that only Vermont 
and Delaware have tax systems that are 
even slightly progressive. However, 
when federal tax offsets for state in- 
come and property tax are included, 
even these two states fail to meet the test 
of progressivity. 

Tax progressivity — or taxes based 
on the ability to pay — was the chief at- 
tribute of the income tax proposed by 


Congress and ratified by the states as 
the 16th Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion. 

Middle-income families in Nevada, 
Florida, Texas, Washington, South 
Dakota, Tennessee, Wyoming, New 
Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Illinois 
pay taxes at a rate three times as high 
as the rich in relation to income. These 
“terrible 10’’ states have the least fair 
taxes, the study concluded. 

The “terrible 10’’ typically think of 
themselves as “low-tax’’ states. But in 
Washington, for example, poor families 
must pay an astonishing 17.4 percent of 
their annual incomes in state and local 
taxes, compared with the 9.8 percent 
the poor pay in neighboring Oregon. 
Likewise, Texas hits its poorest families 
with a 17.1 -percent tax bill. 

The study noted that many of the 
states that soak the poor the most also 
are on the list of the ten lowest tax states 
for the very rich. In Nevada, Texas, 
Florida, Washington and South Dakota, 
the poor pay five times more than do 
the rich. 

“Of course, we need taxes to pay for 
public services,’’ said McIntyre. “But 
by letting the rich off easy, most states 
have put too much of the tax burden on 
those who can least afford to pay.’’ 


“The biggest problem,’’ McIntyre 
added, “is over-reliance on regressive 
sales and excise taxes rather than on 
progressive, ability-to-pay income 
taxes.’’ 

The study concluded that only 
Maryland, Vermont, Delaware, 
Hawaii, Minnesota and Oregon ask 
their richest citizens to pay more of 
their income in state and local taxes. 
However, the other 44 states and the 
District of Columbia tax the rich at 
lower rates than they tax the poor. 

“It’s sad,’’ said McIntyre. “The best 
we can say is that there are still a few 
places where the Rockefellers and the 
Trumps are asked to pay taxes at 
slightly higher rates than the Orphan 
Annies and Oliver Twists of the 
world.’’ 

While middle-income families have 
barely kept up with inflation and poor 
families’ earnings have fallen short, the 
incomes of the richest 1 percent of 
American families have risen 10 per- 
cent, the report noted. 

At the same time, federal taxes have 
been slashed on the rich due to tax 
changes in the late ’70s and early ’80s, 
while federal taxes on nine out of 10 
families were increased and the federal 
budget deficit skyrocketed. 


New York 

U sing a strategy of negotiating with 
individual building owners during a 
12-day strike, Service Employees Local 
32B-32J won a new three-year contract 
for 30,000 apartment building workers 
in the New York boroughs. 

The agreement with the Real Estate 
Advisory Board gives the workers in- 
creases in wages, pensions, legal serv- 
ices and health plans, along with an ad- 
ditional personal paid day off and new 
undergraduate scholarships. 

“The successful conclusion of nego- 
tiations was due to the solidarity and 
determination of the membership who 
maintained solid picket lines,’’ said Gus 
Bevona, president of the local, of the 
strike which started April 21 . It was the 
local’s first strike in more than a 
decade. 

The Real Estate Advisory Board had 
demanded a two-tier wage scale, new 
part-time positions, health insurance co- 
payments and offered a 2 percent yearly 
wage increase. During the strike that 
ensued, Bevona was able to negotiate 
separate deals with 311 of the 1,400 
building owners, sending 3,300 strikers 
back to work. 

Under the new agreement, workers 
will receive 4 percent per year wage in- 
creases, bringing the weekly wage for 
doormen and porters to $479 the first 
year, $498 during the second and $518 
in the final year. A cost-of-living 
allowance also is included. 

IUE gains contract 
at “Bridgeknight” 

T he “Bridgeknight’’ brandname of 
Master Apparel of Somerville, 
Tenn., has been removed from the 
AFL-CIO boycott list following the 
unanimous approval of a contract by 
Electronic Workers Local 282. 

Local 282 President Willie Rudd 
credited the union’s success to the fact 
that the workers at Master Apparel 
refused to give up in bargaining the first 
contract. The company, which manu- 
factures men’s and boys’ trousers and 
slacks, had been cited by the National 
Labor Relations Board for threatening 
workers for union activity. 

The contract provides a 25-cent 
across-the-board increase this year, a 
wage reopener for 1992 and 1993 and 
the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The 
company has agreed to provide 100 per- 
cent coverage for health insurance. 


Montana state workers back to work with pay raise 


M ore than 5,000 Montana state 
employees, who struck when Gov. 
Stan Stephens vetoed a pay raise, were 
back at work after winning increases 
that were twice that proposed by the 
governor. 

“Montana state workers finally 
achieved some measure of justice in 
fighting for pay increases against Mon- 
tana’s Republican governor,’’ said 
Montana AFL-CIO Executive Secretary 
Don Judge. 

“It was not what the workers wanted 
or deserved, but they fared better than 
what had been proposed,” Judge 
pointed out. 

The state House had failed to over- 
ride the veto, falling five votes short of 
the needed two-thirds majority and set- 
ting the stage for the first strike by 


Montana public employees in 12 years. 

The employees walked out with only 
two days left in the legislature’s regular 
90-day session. They are represented by 
three major unions: AFSCME, the 
Montana Federation of State Employ- 
ees — an affiliate of the Teachers — 
and the Montana Public Employees 
Association. 

Three days after the workers went 
out, the legislature enacted and the 
governor signed a new wage bill, which 
provides for a 60-cents-an-hour raise on 
July 1 for all workers and another 25 
cents on July 1, 1992 and 20 cents in 
January, 1993. The legislature must 
enact another wage bill to begin July 1 , 
1993. 

The pay plan is complicated by the 
governor’s market-based salary con- 


cept. Current state employees’ salaries 
will be compared with the average of 
the salaries of state employees in other 
states and private sector employees in 
Montana. Those employees whose 
salaries, including the 60 cents raise, 
fall below the market average will 
receive another raise of 1/8 of 1 per- 
cent for every percentage point below 
the average. 

The state also will increase its health 
insurance contribution by $240 a year 
per worker. 

Hazardous duty and shift differential 
pay, recruitment and retention provi- 
sions will be negotiated in collective 
bargaining. 

“The unions have already begun 
negotiations on these provisions and we 
expect an agreement very soon,” said 


Terry Minow, legislative coordinator of 
the MFSE/AFT. 

The pay plan will cost $34 million, 
or $6 million more than Stephens’ 
original proposal. 

The vetoed pay plan would have pro- 
vided a 60-cent-an-hour increase each 
year for all workers. 

More than 200 Montana National 
Guard troops were sent to help operate 
the Montana State Prison after District 
Judge Thomas Hanzel lifted a court 
order barring strikes by guards. 

The unions tried to open bargaining 
as early as January, 1990, but state of- 
ficials put them off until last October. 
There had been no meaningful bargain- 
ing sessions since December, the judge 
ruled. 

—Sharolyn Rosier 






WORKERS / ■»- y f • -g a f* • 

mm i»/Labor s fight for safe jo 


T he fight for safe jobs through reform of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act and 
timely enforcement of existing laws was 
enjoined in more than 100 sites around the 
country April 28, the third annual Workers 
Memorial Day. 

Trade unionists were joined by public 
officials, clergy and other supporters for rallies, 
educational workshops, candlelight vigils and 
memorial services. The message was clear: 
“Safe Jobs. It’s Our Right.” 

In Ripley, W. Va., a crowd of 5,000 heard 
Steelworkers President Lynn R. Williams, 
chairman of the AFL-CIO Committee on Safety 
and Occupational Health, call for both OSH A 
reform and legislation to ban the “permanent 
replacement” of strikers. 

Mine Workers President Richard Trumka, 
Gov. Gaston Caperton (D), Rep. Bob Wise (D- 
W.Va.) and AFL-CIO Safety and Health 
Director Peg Seminario also spoke at the rally 
near the site of Ravens wood Aluminum Corp., 
where last year four workers died on the job 


and 1,700 Steelworkers were locked out by the 
company and “permanently replaced.” 

As Caperton upbraided Ravenswood 
management, the crowd shouted “union, union” 
and “liberate Ravenswood.” 

The AFL-CIO currently is seeking legislation 
for OSHA reform that would give workers the 
right to refuse dangerous work, as well as other 
provisions for worker involvement in workplace 
safety. 

While some states have initiated such 
legislation — most recently in Connecticut — 
federal law now leaves many workers, including 
public employees, without protection. 

“Business as well as OSHA realize the need 
for reform of the legislation,” said Seminario. 
“The task will be to educate Congress on the 
issue.” 

In Los Angeles, a professional actress por- 
trayed the 1912 New York Triangle Shirtwaist 
tragedy, including a quote from the ILGWU of 
that era: “We need a union to make life better 
and safer for workers.” 



Steve Miller/Miller Photography 

A trumpeter heralds Workers Memorial Day ceremonies in New York City. 



Marcello Salcido 

Fresno, Calif., trade unionists march solemnly as they carry a banner to 
remember a worker killed on the job last December. 




Permanently replaced" Steelworkers Joe and Jewell Johns cheer alo 


§KP|e»amdmedi iMfi; 


A tartar-dad bagpiper plays at the site of a new permanent mem< 




Lawrence Pierce/Charleston Gazette 

along with 5,000 others in Ripley, W. Va., where Steelworkers President Lynn R. Williams spoke. 



New York Mayor 

David Dinkins was 
among the many 
local executives who 
officially proclaimed 
April 28 Workers 
Memorial Day. 



Anita Marshall/AFSCME 


In Philadelphia, AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee calls for inclu- 
sion of public employees in reformed OSHA legislation. 



Neal Sacharow 

emerial to fallen workers in Harrisburg, Pa. 


Gary Shrewsbury 

Union members in Lansing, Mich., display the names of Michigan workers killed on the job last year. 



Top 10 firms 
easily escape 
OSHA’s net 

Violations ignored; 
fines largely reduced 



Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.) chats with AFL-CIO Safety 
Director Peg Seminario as his microphone is adjusted 
by Jim Furlong of the Labor Institute of Public Affairs 
prior to a national teleconference on OSHA reform at 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


the federation's headquarters. AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland also addressed labor's concerns on health and 
safety during the teleconference, which was part of the 
AFL-CIO's observance of Workers Memorial Day. 


Labor endorses construction safety bill 


By Mike Hall 

A merican construction workers are 
being killed on the job at the same 
rate as 20 years ago, when the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Act became 
law, three AFL-CIO Executive Coun- 
cil members emphasized in urging a 
House subcommittee to pass H.R. 
1063, the Construction Safety, Health 
and Education Improvement Act. 

Underscoring the need for stronger 
construction site safety regulations, the 
witnesses pointed out that construction 
workers are four times more likely to 
die on the job as their counterparts in 
Japan, the United Kingdom and other 
industrialized countries. 

The three AFL-CIO vice presi- 
dents — Robert A. Georgine, president 
of the Building and Construction Trades 
Department; Angelo Fosco, president 
of the Laborers; and Sigurd Lucassen, 
president of the Carpenters — testified 
during two hearings before the House 
Eduction and Labor subcommittee on 
health and safety. 

“We need this bill and we need it 
without further delay,” Georgine said. 
“It will substantially reduce the 


T he AFL-CIO said it hopes the acquit- 
tal of five Chicago Magnet Wire 
Corp. executives criminally charged 
with endangering their employees will 
not discourage other criminal prosecu- 
tions of companies that willfully injure 
workers. 

Peg Seminario, director of the federa- 
tion’s Department of Occupational 
Safety and Health, said that “given the 
limitations in the current Occupational 
Safety and Health Act and the Depart- 
ment of Justice’s unwillingness to pur- 
sue criminal cases of this nature, con- 
tinued prosecution by state and local 
authorities is very important. It is an im- 
portant line of defense for workers.” 
Chicago Magnet Wire Corp. and five 
of its current and former top executives 


tragically high numbers of fatalities, 
serious injuries and occupational 
diseases that afflict the construction 
workers of this nation.” 

An average of 2,500 construction 
workers are killed and another quarter 
million are seriously injured in the 
workplace every year. Since OSHA 
was created in 1970, Fosco said, “the 
situation has not improved. The rates 
of serious injury — requiring time off 
for recuperation — and the number of 
days lost as a result, in fact increased.” 

While OSHA has reduced death and 
injuries rates for workers in many in- 
dustries, construction workers “remain 
the bastard stepchildren of the agency,” 
Lucassen testified. 

He noted that in 1969, as the OSHA 
legislation was being debated, construc- 
tion workers made up 4 percent of the 
work force and accounted for 15 per- 
cent of workplace deaths. Twenty years 
later, 5 percent of the work force was 
made up of construction workers, but 
those workers accounted for 26 percent 
of all workplace deaths. 

But the death and injury rate in the 
industry could be even higher. 


were acquitted of criminal charges that 
they knowingly exposed their 43 mainly 
Spanish-speaking workers to toxic 
chemicals and hazardous working con- 
ditions. 

Assistant Cook County State’s At- 
torney Jay Magnuson and more than 
100 prosecution witnesses described the 
sweatshop conditions of the workplace. 
The defense countered that the company 
had received only one minor safety 
violation, despite three inspections in 
the early 1980s by the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration. 

Cook County Criminal Court Judge 
Earl E. Stray horn found that the defen- 
dants knew of the hazardous conditions 
in the plant and the poor working con- 
ditions, but held the state failed to prove 


Georgine noted that the National In- 
stitute of Occupational Safety and 
Health (NIOSH) estimates that con- 
struction deaths and injuries are under- 
reported by about 60 percent. 

The legislation would provide: 

• Mandatory contractor health and 
safety programs. 

• An on-site project health and 
safety plan monitored by a construction 
safety specialist. 

• An improved system for OSHA 
investigations into fatalities, serious in- 
juries and structural failure on construc- 
tion projects. 

• Establishment of a coherent in- 
spection targeting system by OSHA. 

• Development of a group of OSHA 
compliance officers with expertise in 
recognizing and correction of imminent 
dangers and other hazards on construc- 
tion sites. 

• Establishment of a new office of 
construction safety, health and educa- 
tion within OSHA. 

Georgine noted that many of the pro- 
visions in the bill reflect what safety- 
conscious owners and contractors 
already carry out. 


the workers’ ailments were caused by 
conditions at the plant. 

He found no evidence of reckless 
conduct or of a conspiracy to operate 
the plant in a way that caused harm to 
the workers. 

The judge stressed that the company 
had met federal OSHA safety standards. 
OSHA inspectors testified they were 
forced to get court warrants before 
entering the plant and one OSHA in- 
spector said she threw up after climb- 
ing down from the catwalks where the 
temperature often reached 150 degrees 
Fahrenheit. 

Other witnesses told of windows be- 
ing welded shut to keep a constant 
temperature so the enamel used in wire 
coating wouldn’t spoil. 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration declined to levy 
penalties for 67 percent of the violations 
found against the top 10 Fortune 500 
companies, and cut those penalties it did 
assess by nearly half, a survey shows. 

The survey, conducted by Multina- 
tional Monitor magazine, examined en- 
forcement record data going back to 
1982 from the federal OSHA and from 
20 of the 23 states that conduct enforce- 
ment under OSHA state plans. 

Peg Seminario, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Occupational Safety 
and Health, said the survey “confirms 
what we’ve known for sometime — 
that OSHA enforcement of health and 
safety violations is still relatively weak. 
While there has been selective enforce- 
ment in some industries, strong en- 
forcement is still not a widespread prac- 
tice of the agency.” 

“The bottom line is that OSHA has 
never felt comfortable engaging in real 
strong enforcement,” Seminario said. 
“Until they do, employers aren’t going 
to take OSHA or health and safety 
seriously.” 

Seminario noted that Congress last 
year approved a sevenfold increase in 
the OSHA penalty ceiling. “Now we 
will have to see whether OSHA is go- 
ing to respond to the congressional 
action and impose higher penalties on 
violators,” she said. 

OSHA’s propensity to slash its initial 
penalties undercuts enforcement to the 
detriment of workers, Seminario said. 
Workers aren’t included in the settle- 
ment process, one of the failings the 
AFL-CIO seeks to redress through con- 
gressional reform of the Occupational 
Safety and Health Act. 

The survey by Multinational Monitor 
focused on OSHA citations issued to 
General Electric, General Motors, Ford 
Motor Co., Chrysler, Mobil, Exxon 
Corp., Texaco, DuPont, Philip Morris 
and IBM. 

The survey found that GE tallied 
1,495 citations, but received penalties 
in only 382 instances. The initial pro- 
posed penalties for those infractions 
were $252,894 — an amount that was 
lowered to $151,003. That’s an average 
of $395 per penalty. 

For the 10 companies, a total of 
1,238 penalties were proposed for 
3,812 citations — a 32 percent level. 

For the period 1982-89, the number 
of citations, number of penalties, total 
initial penalty and final penalty for the 
individual companies were as follows: 
• General Electric, 1,495 citations; 
382 penalties; $252,894 initial penalty 
and $151,003 final penalty. 

• General Motors, 747; 262; 
$796,480 and $609,004. 

• Ford Motor, 663; 254; $721,497 
and $433,624. 

• Chrysler, 350; 168; $1,075,442 
and $390,257. 

• Mobil, 176; 78; $57,135 and 
$21,377. 

• Exxon, 150; 34; $39,360 and 
$17,230. 

• Texaco, 107; 37; $32,651 and 
$23,773. 

• Dupont, 85; 19; $77,580 and 
$19,120. 

• Philip Morris; 24; 3; $2,280 and 
$1,700 

• IBM, 15; 1; $24,640 and $437. 


Prosecutors urged to pursue OSHA violators 







Union-Industries Show 


Spotlight on the future 


By James B. Parks 

W hether it was the thousands of 
young people on the show floor or 
the glitz of high-tech products, the 
future of American trade unionism was 
on display at the 1991 AFL-CIO Union- 
Industries Show in Minneapolis. 

The youth, including Boy Scouts and 
school children who were bused in for 
an educational day at the Minneapolis 
Convention Center, were among the 
nearly 230,000 people who attended the 
show. They heard talks on the history 
of the labor movement, followed by 
special show tours and in-depth ex- 
planations of many of the exhibits. 

For organized labor, which has a 
“long and proud history of doing the 
right thing, the union-industries exhibi- 
tion is a chance to show the American 
people who we are and what we’re all 
about,” said James E. Hatfield, presi- 
dent of the AFL-CIO Union Label and 
Service Trades Department. 

Under the banner of “Keep America 
Beautiful — Buy American,” the show 
spotlighted the skills and creativity of 
America’s union labor. 

One exhibitor, General Vision Serv- 
ices, a New York-based company, won 
the third annual Union Label Recogni- 
tion Award. The company, which sells 
and produces only union-made vision 
care products, was nominated by the 
New York State AFL-CIO Union Label 
and Service Trades Department. 
Previous winners of the award include 
W.K. Kellogg Co. and the Harley- 
Davidson Co. 

Such cooperation between labor and 
management “is a magnificent 
demonstration of what people can 
do ... in a corporation that understands 
the concept of people working 
together,” said AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue. 

On the show floor, youngsters and 
adults alike were intrigued by a whirl- 
ing, smoking, blinking space ship and 
robot controlled by the Electrical 
Workers. The Machinists hosted an ex- 
hibit of jet engines and the UAW 
showcased a computerized car of the 
future. 

Concern for health and the environ- 
ment were evident on the show floor. 
The Steelworkers and Service Em- 
ployees offered free blood-pressure 
testing while the Retail, Wholesale and 
Department Store Union controlled a 
Heinz Ketchup “envirobot” that en- 
couraged people to recycle. 

The Food and Commercial Workers 
conducted a two-day judged competi- 
tion featuring some of the nation’s top 
hair fashion designers. 

One of the perennial favorites of the 
show was on display again: a hands-on 
demonstration of glass blowing by 
members of the Glass, Molders and 
Pottery Workers. 

More than $150,000 in prizes were 
given away, including a $10,000 
Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a 
$6,900 Coleman camper. 

Richard Perry, secretary-treasurer of 
the AFL-CIO Union Label and Service 
Trades Department, described the show 
as a “huge success,” crediting the 
cooperation of local labor leaders and 
central bodies. Dennis Kivikko is the 
show manager for the department. 


An exhibit by the Communications Workers draws two very interested observers. 


Variety is the watchword for the 1991 Union-Industries Show. Thousands 
sample food and check out a hair fashion display at the UFCW exhibit, 
below. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue gets his blood 
pressure checked at the Service Employees exhibit, above, and children 
marvel at the size of an aircraft engine made by the Machinists. 


Photos by Bill Burke/Page One Photography 






UNION NEWS 


;• ;■ Y ~. ~ * '- --' s ^ ■ | ■ i 

CWA suit on illegal wiretaps gets go-ahead 


Nashville, Tenn. 

A Communications Workers class- 
action suit charging Northern 
Telecom Ltd. with illegal wiretapping 
and invasion of privacy received a boost 
when a federal judge denied the com- 
pany’s twin petitions for its dismissal. 

“This is an important victory for 
Northern Telecom employees and for 
the right to privacy in the workplace,” 
said CWA President Morton Bahr. 
“This is one of the most egregious cases 
of illegal invasion of privacy in the 
history of U.S. labor relations and it is 


New York 

T he “nameless” workers at the 
Brooklyn-based Domsey Trading 
Corp. demonstrated at the headquarters 
of the Salvation Army, calling on all 
New Yorkers to stop donating used 
clothing to the charitable group until it 
agrees to stop selling second-hand mer- 
chandise to Domsey. 

The Domsey workers have been 
dubbed “nameless” because of the 
company’s policy of forcing the mostly 
Haitian and Hispanic immigrant work- 
ers to wear numbers by which super- 
visors address them instead of using 
names. 

“The Salvation Army is contributing 
to the gross exploitation of some of the 
most vulnerable workers in America,” 
Edgar Romney, executive vice presi- 
dent of the Ladies’ Garment Workers, 
told the demonstrators, “and to a shady 
international trade that is destructive to 
the economies of some of the world’s 
poorest nations. 

“Most people think the used clothing 
they donate to the Salvation Army goes 
directly to help needy people,” Romney 
said. “In fact, the clothing is sold for 
a hefty profit in African and other Third 
World countries through a handful of 
greedy middlemen — used clothing ex- 
port companies including Domsey.” 
The AFL-CIO has asked the Salva- 


T he J. P. Morgan and Co. said it will 
stop serving as a conduit for 
Americans to own shares in South 
African companies. 

The decision came less than a month 
after the Clothing and Textile Workers 
launched a campaign to discourage in- 
vestments with Morgan because of its 
South Africa ties. 

“This sends a powerful signal to 
South African businesses and the 
government,” ACTWU said in a state- 
ment. 

ACTWU, which had asked state and 
city governments to review their in- 
vestments with Morgan, charged that 
the holding company helped finance 
South Africa’s apartheid system by 
legally issuing American Depository 
Receipts (ADRs) for South African 
businesses. 

ADRs are proxies for stocks in 


time that Northern Telecom be held ac- 
countable for its actions.” 

The suit, filed last Sept. 11, charges 
that Northern Telecom, which manu- 
factures telephone equipment at its 
Nashville, Tenn., plant, bugged the pay 
telephone in the employee cafeteria and 
recorded hundreds of hours of employ- 
ees’ conversations. Further, the suit 
says, microphones hidden in the over- 
head sprinkler system and light fixtures 
were monitored by plant guards. 

Actual tapes of the monitored conver- 
sations have been handed over to the 


tion Army and Goodwill Industries to 
stop selling the used clothes to Domsey, 
“which is making money off people’s 
charity,” said Joe Velasquez, director 
of the federation’s Department of Com- 
munity Affairs. 

The Salvation Army has sold used 
clothing to Domsey both directly and 
through brokers. The trade in used 
clothing is so destructive to the 
domestic economies of countries in 
Africa that it is outlawed in both Nigeria 
and Kenya, the ILGWU said. 

Domsey pays its employees poverty 
wages with virtually no benefits. When 
workers there sought to organize a 
union, Domsey illegally fired pro-union 
employees, and the rest of the workers 
walked out in January 1990 to protest 
the dismissals. 

Domsey is currently the subject of 
National Labor Relations Board com- 
plaints alleging numerous cases of racial 
and sexual harassment by the company 
against its workers. 

The NLRB also has issued complaints 
against Domsey for other illegal ac- 
tions, including the discharge of 
employees for pro-union activities, 
threats to workers aimed at influencing 
their votes on union representation and 
failure to reinstate striking workers 
when they requested to return to their 
jobs. 


overseas companies that are not reg- 
istered with the Securities and Ex- 
change Commission. They can be 
traded on the American stock market, 
pay dividends and the holder can vote 
on corporate governance issues. 

“It is our hope that state and 
municipal agencies with anti-apartheid 
legislation and policies in place will im- 
mediately call on Morgan to cease its 
business activities in South Africa,” 
said William Patterson, director of 
ACTWU ’s corporate financial affairs. 

The Massachusetts state government, 
at the urging of ACTWU and state Rep. 
Byron Rushing (D-Boston), notified 
Morgan that it was reviewing the com- 
pany’s ADR policy before deciding 
whether to allow it to underwrite state 
bonds. 

Less than three weeks later, Morgan 
dropped out of the ADR business. 


U.S. district attorney’s office for con- 
sideration of possible criminal action. 

The suit was filed by the CWA, Local 
3879 and its president, Jesse Parrish, 
and two school board employees who 
were surreptitiously taped, Bernice 
Christianson and Joyce Carr. It esti- 
mates the company eavesdropped on 
about 1,000 persons, including upward 
of 500 employees in violation of Title 
III of the federal Omnibus Crime Con- 
trol and Safe Streets Act and the privacy 
laws of Tennessee. 

Attorneys for the company, a sub- 



Operating Engineers 
gain unit of 10,500 

Sacramento, Calif. 

M ore than 10,500 California state 
maintenance and craft workers 
voted for the Operating Engineers as 
their new collective bargaining 
representative. 

The IUOE defeated an unaffiliated 
union, the Alliance of Trades and 
Maintenance, in the monthlong, mail- 
ballot vote, conducted by the Califor- 
nia Public Employee Relations Board. 

Operating Engineers President Frank 
Hanley said the result “is a mandate 
from these workers for effective rep- 
resentation. And that is just what the 
Operating Engineers will deliver to 
them: the best possible service to ad- 
dress their needs and desires. 

“This vote is a significant victory for 
the workers, for our local unions and 
for the IUOE,” he said. 

The workers are employed by various 
state agencies and departments, * in- 
cluding Caltrans, the Department of 
Water Resources, the California 
Highway Patrol Maintenance Division, 
the Department of Corrections, the 
Department of Parks and Recreation, 
state-run universities and hospitals and 
a host of others. 

The state employees will be merged 
into four existing IUOE local unions in 
California, which already represent 
more than 75,000 members, including 
more than 16,000 public employees. 

GCIU wins second unit 
at Areata Graphics 

W orkers at Areata Graphics in Nash- 
ville, Tenn., voted in the Graphic 
Communications Union in a rerun elec- 
tion ordered by the National Labor 
Relations Board. 

The victory is the second GCIU win 
at an Areata Graphics facility over the 
past five months, with 460 workers at 
the plant’s West Hanover and Plymp- 
ton, Mass., plants also voting “Union 
Yes” in elections. 

Workers voted for GCIU represen- 
tation by a 476-354 margin. The elec- 
tion held last year, which the union lost, 


sidiary of Northern Telecom of Canada, 
attempted to have the suit dismissed on 
the grounds that it was barred under 
federal law by the statute of limitations 
and that Tennessee law does not recog- 
nize a tort for invasion of privacy. 
Judge Thomas A. Wiseman of the U.S. 
District Court for the Middle District 
of Tennessee denied both motions in an 
order issued in mid- April. 

The union and other plaintiffs are 
seeking a permanent injunction to bar 
the company from continuing such 
actions. 


was set aside by an NLRB panel that 
ruled the employer’s threats of job loss 
affected the results. 

Then, the company told workers that 
major clients would leave the firm if the 
workers voted in the GCIU, and laid off 
workers despite the vote against union 
representation. 

GCIU organizers said a two-year 
education campaign was key to the vic- 
tory, and noted that Areata didn’t keep 
its many promises. 

GCIU organizer Bertram Haft, who 
coordinated the campaign, said “a 
number of workers were forced to 
relocate and take a pay cut’ ’ as the com- 
pany reneged on its promise that 
workers would not have to travel be- 
tween the Nashville and Clarksville, 
Tenn., facilities. 

As take-home wages continued to 
drop — workers were clobbered with a 
30-percent increase in insurance 
premiums and a reduction in work 
hours — more workers began joining 
the in-plant committee and support for 
the union grew. 

The Areata campaign was conducted 
jointly with the AFL-CIO Industrial 
Union Department’s coordinated 
organizing program. 

Grocery chains agree 
not to push grapes 

T he Farm Workers are celebrating a 
major victory in the table grape 
boycott as supermarket chains that 
operate 586 food stores in Southern 
California have agreed not to advertise 
or promote table grapes. 

The chains are Vons with 329 outlets, 
Ralphs with 163 and Quality Foods In- 
ternational with 94 Viva’s, Boys, Food 
For Less and Market Basket super- 
markets. The UFW had leafletted the 
Vons stores since last year, urging con- 
sumers not to buy grapes there. 

The no-advertising, no-promotion 
breakthrough represents “a real 
triumph for the grape boycott and deals 
a severe blow to the table grape in- 
dustry,” said UFW President Cesar 
Chavez. He credited the victory to the 
thousands of Southern California con- 
sumers who joined in UFW store leaf- 
letting, marches, and other demonstra- 
tions. 

Experts in retailing say that the loss 
of advertising and promotion can 
reduce sales of a product by 35 to 50 
percent, the union said. 

Helen Bernstein, president of the 
United Teachers of Los Angeles, helped 
negotiate the understanding between 
Vons and the UFW that ended their 
dispute. 


Salvation Army asked to halt 
sales to exploitive company 


ACTWU forces financial giant 
to drop its South African ties 






Bush pension plan could hurt more than help 


By James B. Parks 

T he Bush administration’s pension 
proposals do not go far enough to 
provide access to benefits for 42 million 
uncovered workers and may eliminate 
some protections, the AFL-CIO said. 

While the AFL-CIO has long sup- 
ported expanding access to pensions, 
the tradeoffs offered by this plan may 
hurt workers, said Meredith Miller, 
assistant director of the AFL-CIO’ s 
Employee Benefits Department. 

The AFL-CIO is working with mem- 
bers of the House Education and Labor 
Committee and the Senate Labor and 
Human Resources Committee on pen- 
sion legislation. 

The administration proposal would 
provide more access to tax-sheltered 
retirement plans, like 401(k) programs, 
rather than defined benefits plans. 
These sheltered plans are not federally 
guaranteed and may not cover the finan- 
cial needs of the retirees, Miller said. 

“Do we want, in 2020 or 2040, a 
generation of people retiring on these 
plans?” she asked. “We need some 
minimum standards.” 

Particularly, Miller said, the ad- 
ministration plan makes only modest 
proposals to increase the portability of 
benefits. It does not help employees to 
transfer their defined benefits if they 
change employers. At the same time, 
it makes it harder for employees to cash 


in their benefits before retirement. 

The AFL-CIO is looking at that pro- 
posal to determine what impact it will 
have on workers, Miller said. 

Another proposal the federation is 
studying is the shortening of the vesting 
period from 10 years to five years for 
multiemployer plans, especially its ef- 
fect on coverage and cost. 

The administration proposal, dubbed 
POWER for Pension Opportunities for 
Workers Expanded Retirement, would 


make the five-year vesting period 
universal. 

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin 
claimed the administration’s goal was 
“to add as many individuals to the list 
of those with pension coverage as we 
can.” 

The portability proposal, Martin said, 
would make it easier for employees who 
change jobs before retirement age to 
qualify for tax-free rollovers. And she 
said it would give employees the option 
of having their lump sum payments 
directly transferred to an individual 


retirement account or to a new em- 
ployer who is willing to incorporate the 
payment into its pension system. 

The proposal also would eliminate tax 
breaks, such as five- and 10-year 
averaging, which encourages people to 
spend the lump sum rather than 
reinvesting it in a retirement plan. 

Miller questioned the administra- 
tion’s proposals to add 26 million un- 
covered workers who are employed by 
small businesses. A small business with 


fewer than 100 employees would re- 
ceive reduced administrative re- 
quirements in exchange for a 2 percent 
contribution of its employees’ salaries 
to a pension plan. 

Employees would be able to make ad- 
ditional tax-free contributions of up to 
$4,200, with a 50 percent-match option 
available for employers. 

The base contribution is an important 
step toward defining what is an ade- 
quate plan, Miller said, but 2 percent 
may not be enough. 

The plan could be a boon for employ- 


ees who have no plans now, she said, 
but the loosening of some requirements, 
especially the non-discrimination testing 
that deals with minimum amounts of 
coverage and the minimum number of 
people in the plan, eventually would 
hurt workers, she said. 

The Labor Department estimates that 
another 12.6 million people could be 
covered if tax reporting requirements 
are simplified for all businesses. 

The administration plan includes 
simplifications such as basing the non- 
discrimination tests on the prior year’s 
contribution, rather than the current 
year’s; changing the definition of highly 
compensated employee; repealing the 
rules that combine family members who 
work in the same business for purposes 
of pension limitations and clarifying 
the rules for calculating the taxable por- 
tion of pension payments. 

Martin estimated that another 3.1 
million uncovered workers could be 
brought in through a proposal to allow 
tax-exempt institutions and state and 
local governments to establish 401(k) 
plans. Miller said the AFL-CIO sup- 
ports that move. 

Another problem with the administra- 
tion plan, Miller said, is that it does not 
have a requirement for education of the 
employees who have to decide what 
categories of investments they want 
their fund administrators to make. 


“Do we want, in 2020 or 2040, a generation of 
people retiring on these plans? We need some 
minimum standards.” 

— Meredith Miller 
AFL-CIO Department of Employee Benefits 


Council warns of dangers 
to pension, benefit funds 


T he AFL-CIO Executive Council 
urged its national and international 
unions to secure guarantees from 
employers to make up any benefit short- 
falls that occur as a result of an in- 
surance company’s failure. 

The federation also urged affiliates to 
meet with insurance regulators in states 
where assets of insolvent insurers are 
seized to make sure the interests of 
workers and retirees are fairly rep- 
resented in those deliberations. 

The council action came in the wake 
of the collapse of First Executive Corp. , 
which wrote billions of dollars worth of 
life and pension contracts. 

Among those most affected by the 
failure, the council said, are workers 
whose employers terminated pension 
plans to recapture “excess” assets and 
bought annuities at bargain prices. 

In a statement, the council also called 
on Congress to clarify the role of the 
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in in- 
suring pension plan annuities and to set 
standards for the purchase of annuities 
by pension plan sponsors. 

Finally it called for an investigation 
into whether insurance companies 
should be federally regulated to protect 
workers and retirees from irresponsible 
investment practices. 

The failure of First Executive 
prompted a General Accounting Office 
report that concluded that as many as 


4 million workers and their survivors 
have lost federal protection for their 
pensions and may not be aware of it. 

Affected are those plans that have 
purchased annuities from insurance 
companies like First Executive. When 
the annuities are purchased, the federal 
PBGC stops guaranteeing the plan. 

If the insurance company that wrote 
the annuity fails, the “retiree is only 
protected by a crazy quilt of state laws 
that provide incomplete and varying 
coverage,” said GAO’s Joseph L. 
Delfico. 

Louisiana, New Jersey and the Dis- 
trict of Columbia have no guarantees. 
“Many of the remaining state laws 
cover a smaller portion of benefits than 
the federal guarantee covers,” Delfico 
told the House Aging retirement-in- 
come subcommittee. 

There is no law requiring companies 
to inform workers when their pension 
plans lose federal protection. In recent 
years, several companies, especially 
those involved in takeovers, have ter- 
minated their pension plans, withdrawn 
excess contributions and contracted 
with insurance companies to provide 
annuities for employees. 

The GAO said 170 life insurance 
companies have failed since 1975 — 40 
percent of them in the last two years. 
No pensioner has lost any benefit as a 
result, the agency said. 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) ; chairman of the health and environment sub- 
committee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, speaks on 
health care reform legislation to a meeting of the AFL-CIO Department 
for Professional Employees Executive Board at federation headquarters 
in Washington, D.C. Listening, from left, are DPE research associate 
Pamela Wilson, AFL-CIO Employee Benefits Director Karen Ignagni and 
DPE President Jack Golodner. Waxman urged labor to continue its push 
on Capitol Hill for cost containment measures and greater access to and 
quality of care. At the Executive Council meeting, Health Care Commit- 
tee Chairman John J. Sweeney, president of the Service Employees, 
reported on specific legislative measures currently being crafted on Capitol 
Hill, including a program being developed by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- 
Mass.) and others. See story. Page 16. 


UAW-GM project to provide child care for 40,000 employees 


G eneral Motors Corp. and the UAW 
have announced plans for a regional 
child care center scheduled to open next 
year. 

The Flint, Mich., center would be 
available to 40,000 GM employees at 
13 manufacturing and warehouse facili- 
ties. The center would provide care dur- 
ing two shifts on a five-days-a-week 
basis. 

“Workers who know that their 
children are well-cared for are more 


content and more productive in their 
jobs,” UAW Vice President Stephen 
Yokich and Richard O’Brien, GM vice 
president of industrial relations, said 
April 23 in a joint statement. “We 
believe Flint is the logical choice 
because we can provide the most benefit 
to the most people.” 

Joint funds are to be used for the 
start-up of the center, which is to be 
conducted under the supervision of the 
UAW-GM National Human Resource 


Center and a child care provider. Ongo- 
ing expenses associated with the opera- 
tion of the center are to be funded by 
user fees and joint monies, officials 
said. 

The UAW and the Big Three auto- 
makers have been working since 1984 
on the child care issue, said UAW 
spokesman Reg McGhee. The 1990 
contract reflected a commitment to 
work toward opening on-site centers, he 
said. 


The union and GM have operated a 
resource and referral service since 1987 
to match up workers with licensed child 
care providers in their areas. That serv- 
ice is available at 16 plant locations 
nationwide. 

Chrysler Corp. already has broken 
ground for a child care center at its 
Huntsville, Ala., facility. 

McGhee said he expected Ford 
Motors would announce similar plans 
by next year. 





Conflicting jobless reports offer little consolation 


By John R. Oravec 

E mployers lopped 125,000 workers 
from their payrolls in April even 
while the jobless rate declined from 6.8 
to 6.6 percent — a sharp contrast in 
statistics as the Labor Department’s two 
employment surveys pointed in opposite 
directions. 

The household survey conducted by 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 
that the number of jobless workers 
dropped by 300,000 from March to 8.3 
million. But that is still 1 .4 million more 
on the unemployment rolls than July 
1990 when the recession began. 

The BLS business establishment 
survey showed the stretch of layoffs 
continuing in most sectors. Payrolls 
dropped by 40,000 in manufacturing, 

40,000 in retail trade, 25,000 in 
government, 20,000 in construction and 

15,000 in wholesale trade, while serv- 
ice jobs grew by 20,000. BLS said 1.6 
million payroll jobs have been wiped 
out since the onset of the recession. 


BLS Commissioner Janet Norwood 
told the Joint Economic Committee of 
Congress that it is unlikely “the 
economy has improved as much as the 
household survey suggests.” The jobs 
pickup was almost exclusively in self- 
employment, she noted, as laid-off 
workers resort to other sources of 
income. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the federation welcomes the jobless 
rate decline, but warned that the per- 
sistent loss in payroll jobs verifies the 
grim reality that “this recession is not 
over.” 

Kirkland pointed out that “more than 
15 million people are out of work or 
underemployed and more than 1 million 
workers have been unemployed six 
months or longer. One out of every 
seven U.S. workers suffers total or par- 
tial unemployment.” 

Meanwhile, he said, less than half of 
the jobless receive unemployment com- 
pensation. Of the more than 8 million 


officially unemployed, only 3.9 million 
were drawing benefits. 

“The president and Congress should 
act now to extend unemployment bene- 
fits — and to pass Rep. Thomas 
Downey’s measure to reform the sys- 
tem,” Kirkland urged. “The country 
needs programs to put people to work. ” 

More heavy industry jobs are on the 
line as General Dynamics Corp. said it 
would slash its work force by 27,000 
over four years. The cutbacks were an- 
nounced a week after the nation’s 
second-largest weapons maker was 
among the winners of a multibillion 
dollar contract to build the Air Force’s 
next generation of fighter planes. 

Earlier, McDonnell Douglas Corp. 
and Grumman Aircraft Corp. initiated 
a string of layoffs affecting more than 

30,000 workers. In early May, General 
Electric Co.’s aircraft engines division 
said it would lay off 1,800 workers by 
the end of July. Cutbacks also are ex- 
pected at Northrop Corp., which had 


the losing bid on the new fighter planes. 

Seven of the largest states reported 
jobless rates of more than 7 percent in 
April: California, 7.4 percent; Massa- 
chusetts, 8.3 percent; Michigan, 10.1 
percent; New York, 7.5 percent; Ohio, 
7.2 percent; and Pennsylvania and 
Texas, both at 7.1 percent. 

According to the household survey, 
jobless rates eased a bit among most 
major worker groups, but remained 
substantially above a year ago: for adult 
men, 6.2 percent; adult women, 5.2 
percent; white workers, 5.8 percent; 
Hispanics, 9 percent, and teenagers, 

18.1 percent. The jobless rate rose 
slightly for black workers to 12.6 
percent. 

The average workweek for produc- 
tion and non-supervisory workers on 
private payrolls declined by 0.1 hours 
to 34.1 hours. The manufacturing 
workweek at 40.2 hours and factory 
overtime at 3.3 hours both rose by 0. 1 
hour. 


Economic signs still point 
to a deepening recession 


Statistics at 

a Glance 


Unemployment Rates 

Consumer Prices — continued 


April March April 

1990 1991 1991 


March '90- 
March '91 

Unemployment (official) 

5.4% 6.. 8% 6.6% 

Housing (shelter) 

5.1% 

Unemployed Receiving 


Medical Care 

9.1% 

Jobless Benefits 

41.2% 48.0% 48.5% 

Energy 

4.5% 

"Real" unemployment rate* 

9.9% 12.5% 12.2% 


Payroll Employment 

Workers' Earnings 



Change 


March '90- 


June 90- 

Real Average Weekly Pay 

March '91 


April 91 

All Private Industry 

-2.1% 

All non-farm industries 

-1,667,000 

Manufacturing 

-3.0% 

Construction 

-499,000 



Manufacturing 

-821,000 



Transportation, Utilities 

-18,000 

Gross National Product 

Retail & Wholesale 


Last 

First 

Trade 

-502,000 

3 Months 

3 Months 

Finance, Insurance & 


1990 

1991 

Real Estate 

-16,000 

Real GNP (Annual Rate) -1.6% 

-2.8% 

Services 

-414,000 


Government 

216,000 



Consumer Prices 

Collective Bargaining 

First Contract 


March '90- 

Year 

Term 


March '91 

Average Wage Increase 


All Prices (CPI-W) 

4.6% 

First 3 months 1991 4.5% 

3.4% 

Food 

3.4% 

•Includes discouraged and part-time workers who wont full-time jobs 


First-quarter wage settlements up 


T he recession-strapped U.S. economy 
continued to skid during the first 
quarter of the year, dropping at an an- 
nual rate of 2.8 percent after falling 1 .6 
percent in the last quarter of 1990. 

The real gross national product 
(GNP) shrank by a seasonally adjusted 
$29.5 billion in the first three months 
of the year, the Commerce Department 
reported. The GNP slipped by $16.6 
billion in the preceding quarter. 

While the decline was not as steep as 
that of the Reagan recession a decade 
ago, the 2.8-percent drop was the 
sharpest since it plummeted 5.5 percent 
in the fourth quarter of 1981 and fell 
5.9 percent in the first quarter of 1982. 

The Bush recession is now in its 1 1th 
month, based on the findings of the Na- 
tional Bureau of Economic Research. 

The GNP report showed that the de- 
cline in residential construction deep- 
ened in the first quarter, plunging at an 
annual rate of 26.5 percent after drop- 
ping 20.6 percent in the fourth quarter. 

Another troublesome factor is the rise 
in the inflation rate. The fixed-weight 
price index climbed to 5. 1 percent from 
4.7 percent in the fourth quarter while 
the implicit price deflator surged to 5.5 
percent from 2.5 percent. 

Also raising concerns was the slow- 
down in the real net gain in exports of 
goods and services to $1 1 billion, from 
$37.7 billion in the previous quarter. 

Federal, state and local government 
spending fell at a 4.8-percent rate after 
rising at a 9.6-percent rate in the final 
quarter of 1990. And despite the Per- 
sian Gulf war, federal defense spending 
slipped 0.5 percent after rising 7.5 per- 
cent in the previous quarter. 

In other economic developments: 

• Construction spending declined 
1.5 percent in March, more than off- 
setting a 0.4-percent rise in February 
that had been the first in 1 1 months, the 
Commerce Department reported. 
March spending fell to a seasonally ad- 
justed rate of $391 billion, the lowest 
in five years. 


• The government’s index of 
leading indicators rose a soft 0.5 per- 
cent in March, led by gains in stock 
prices, money supply and consumer ex- 
pectations, the Commerce Department 
reported. But most of the components 
fell, including a decline in factory 
orders for consumer goods and materi- 
als, higher claims for jobless benefits, 
a shorter workweek and lower orders 
for plants and equipment. 

• Factory orders dropped 2.8 per- 
cent in March, the fifth straight monthly 
decline, reflecting the persistent 
weakness in the industrial sector. The 
Commerce Department report showed 
new orders for both durable and non- 
durable goods totaled $226 billion, 
down from $233 billion in February. 

• Most of the major U.S. banks 
lowered prime lending rates to 8.5 per- 
cent from 9 percent for their well- 
heeled customers, but not for 
consumers. 

The reductions came a day after the 
Federal Reserve lowered the discount 
rate it charges for loans to banks from 
6 percent to 5.5 percent. 

• Productivity in the non-farm 
business sector rose 1 percent at a 
seasonally adjusted annual rate in the 
first quarter, the Labor Department 
reported. 

The pickup, despite the deepening 
recession, indicates that employers — 
primarily outside the manufacturing 
sector — cut payrolls faster than cutting 
output. However, manufacturing pro- 
ductivity declined at a rate of 0.9 per- 
cent as output slipped 10.5 percent 
while hours worked declined 9.7 per- 
cent. Weakness in manufacturing con- 
tinued to be concentrated in the durable 
goods sector. Factory productivity had 
been out-pacing the rest of the U.S. 
economy until the onset of the 
recession. 

In revised figures on the last quarter 
of 1990, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
said overall productivity declined at an 
annual rate of 0.7 percent. 


U nions negotiated wage increases 
during the first quarter of 1991 
averaging 4.5 percent in the first con- 
tract year and 3.4 percent annually over 
the contract term. 

The pay packages in the collective 
bargaining settlements covering 1 ,000 
workers or more are substantially high- 
er than in the contracts they replaced, 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted. 

The last time the same parties 
negotiated agreements, usually in 1987 
or 1988, wage gains averaged 1.5 per- 
cent in the first year and 2 percent an- 
nually over the life of the contract. The 
lower average stemmed from pay cuts 
and freezes. 

Union-negotiated improvements in 
benefits, including pensions and health 
care coverage as well as cost-of-living 
adjustments and lump-sum bonuses, are 
not costed out in the basic BLS wage 
data. Labor economists estimate that the 
value of employer-paid benefits alone 
bring union workers about one-third 
more on top of the percentage gain in 
straight wages. 


The first quarter settlements cover 
215,000 workers and account for 1.8 
million workers under agreements 
reached in the 12 months ended March 
31. Over the 12-month period, BLS 
said, settlements provide annual wage 
rate gains of 3.2 percent during the con- 
tract term, compared with 2 percent in 
the contracts they replaced. 

About three-fifths of the workers 
under settlements reached during the 12 
months were in non-manufacturing in- 
dustries. Their wage increases average 
4 percent annually, compared with 2 
percent in the manufacturing sector. 

But four-fifths of the factory workers 
are covered by contracts that provide 
cost-of-living adjustments, lump-sum 
payments or both. Settlements with 
COLA clauses also have average pay 
increases of 1 .9 percent per year. Those 
without averaged 4 percent. 

Contracts with lump-sum payments 
also provide average annual pay raises 
of 2.2 percent, compared with wage in- 
creases of 3.9 percent for those without 
the bonuses. 






Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor and 
Industry Harris Wofford, a Democrat, 
was appointed to fill the Senate seat left 
vacant by the death of John Heinz (R) 
on April 4. Wofford, who was ap- 
pointed by Gov. Robert Casey (D), has 
been in Casey’s cabinet since 1987. He 
is a former civil rights adviser to Presi- 
dent John F. Kennedy. Wofford will 
serve until a special election on Nov. 
5 determines who will complete the 
three years remaining on Heinz’s term. 

The Milwaukee AFL-CIO re-elected 
Thomas J. Parker to another two-year 
term as president at its regular monthly 
meeting on March 20. Ann L. Crump 
of the Communications Workers was 
elected vice president. Bruce Colburn 
of the Amalgamated Transit Union was 
elected secretary-treasurer, beating Jim 
Heidenreich of the ATU for the post. 
Heidenreich had been vice president. 
Earl Lepp of the CWA, the former 
secretary-treasurer, retired. 

Thomas D. Riggle, 44, has been 
named director of the AFL-CIO ’s new 
Department of Computer Systems and 
Services. Riggle has more than 18 
years’ experience in the design, 
development, and implementation of 
both mainframe and personal computer- 
based information systems. He has a 
master’s degree in business administra- 
tion from Northwestern University and 
academic credentials in computer 
science. 

Robert Trussed, 43, has been hired 
as a producer/director for the Labor In- 
stitute of Public Affairs, the AFL-CIO’s 
television arm. Trussed, formerly the 
senior producer at Conway and Co. in 
Washington, has produced and directed 
more than 250 productions for unions, 
social coalitions, transportation, cor- 
porate employee communications and 
renewable energy groups. He has a 
master’s degree from Rochester In- 
stitute of Technology and has been a 
visiting professor and consultant at Yale 
University’s College of Art and Ar- 
chitecture’s media design studio. He 
fills the LIPA producer/director slot 
formerly held by Neal Sacharow. 

Janet Norwood, 67, commissioner 
of the Department of Labor’s Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, has announced she will 
not seek reappointment after 12 years 
as head of the agency. Norwood, will 
serve until her term expires in June or 
until a successor has been appointed. 

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jim Palmer 
has signed up to pitch for a new 
team — DAD’s Day (Dollars Against 
Diabetes), a project of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department. Palmer will appear in a na- 
tionally distributed public service an- 
nouncement heralding the fifth annual 
DAD’s Day, June 15. Last year, some 
20,000 union building trades members 
collected more than $1.5 million. Sheet 
Metal Workers President Edward J. 
Carlough, co-chair of DAD’s Day, 
said Palmer’s “presence gives our ef- 
fort to strike out diabetes a big boost. ” 
This year’s goal is to raise more than 
$2 million from collective sites in 300 
cities. 

AWARDS 

Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), 
chairman of the House Education and 
Labor Committee, was honored as the 
1991 recipient of the annual FAIR Con- 
gressional Award in recognition of his 


26 years of support for active and 
retired, federal, postal and public 
employees. Vincent R. Sombrotto, 
chairman of the Fund for Assuring an 
Independent Retirement (FAIR) and 
president of the Letter Carriers, 
presented Ford the award at FAIR’S 
seventh annual Congressional Awards 
Dinner. FAIR is a coalition of 31 
organizations, comprising both man- 
agement and labor officials, that repre- 
sent 6 million active and retired, 
federal, postal and public workers. 

Lois Hartel, district manager of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers Hazelton/ 
Wyoming Valley District Council in 
Wilkes-Barre, Pa., received the United 
Way of America’s Joseph A. Beirne 
Community Service Award for 1991 at 
a United Way conference in Baltimore 
on May 6. The award, established in 
1974, honors the late Communications 
Workers president who was the first 
labor representative to serve as presi- 
dent of the predecessor organization of 
United Way of America. 

Hartel is chair of the Pennsylvania 
AFL-CIO Work and Family Commit- 
tee and is active with the Greater 
Wilkes-Barre AFL-CIO and the Coali- 
tion of Labor Union Women. 

The Cincinnati AFL-CIO Building 
Trades Council was the winner of the 
1991 President’s Volunteer Action 
Award. The council was cited for 
volunteering more than 10,500 hours of 
work on converting a vacant 90-year- 
old grade school building into a dozen 
apartments for homeless families. Also 
honored was the San Antonio Building 
and Construction Trades Council, 
which received a citation for renovating 
a battered old house into a haven for 
AIDS babies. Council President Bob 
Salvatore responded to a request from 
the United Way, which owned the 
house, by marshaling volunteers who 
spent spring and summer weekends on 
the project. Project Ramp won a cita- 
tion for Carpenters Local 1301 and 
Laborers Local 465 in Monroe, Mich., 
where union members volunteered to 
build 15 ramps for low-income handi- 
capped individuals. 

DEATH 

Ernest C. Jones, a former president 
of the Indiana AFL-CIO, died May 3 
at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis 
after a long illness. He was 67. 

Jones served as head of the state 
federation from June 1980 until he 
resigned from the post in February 1989 
for health reasons. From 1972-1980, he 
was president of the Marion County 
(Ind.) AFL-CIO, which is now the Cen- 
tral Indiana AFL-CIO. Jones began 
with the Machinists and later held a 
number of positions in Steelworkers 
Local 1150. 

Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh said, 
“Ernie Jones was a fighter. He fought 
for all working men and women. Ernie 
accomplished much, and I am proud to 
have been a small part of his life and 
to have been his friend.” 

He is survived by his wife, Anne, and 
two children. The family requested that 
donations be mailed to the Indiana 
University Foundation — EAF Fund, 
c/o Division of Labor Studies, 400 E. 
Seventh St., Poplars 630, Bloomington, 
Ind. 47405. 

CORRECTION 

Bernard E. DeLury, director of the 
Federal Mediation and Conciliation 
Service, was misidentified in a photo 
caption in the April 29 issue of the 
AFL-CIO News. He was seated next to 
Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers President John DeConcini, 
who along with Nabisco Brands Vice 
President John Butler received from 
DeLury the FMCS’s first “Director’s 
Award for Excellence in Industrial 
Relations.” 



Ken Young 


K en Young will retire as executive 
assistant to AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland after the November 1991 
AFL-CIO convention, Kirkland told the 
Executive Council at its May meeting. 

Kirkland appointed AFL-CIO Euro- 
pean Representative Jim Baker to the 
post. Baker will move to Washington 
in the summer. 

“All of you who know our working 
relationship know how much I regret 
Ken’s decision,” Kirkland told the 
council. Young was named to his cur- 
rent post in January 1980, shortly after 
Kirkland was elected president. 

Young, 63, joined the AFL-CIO leg- 
islative staff in 1965. He became 
associate director of the department in 
1971 and succeeded Andrew J. Biemil- 
ler as director in 1979, the year before 
he moved to Kirkland’s office. 

An Army veteran, Young began his 
union career as an editor and organizer 
for the CIO’s Insurance and Allied 
Workers Organizing Committee in 
1951. He held editorial and research 
jobs with the Insurance Workers and In- 
dustrial Union Department of the AFL- 



Jim Baker 


CIO before becoming publicity direc- 
tor of the Electronic Workers in 1963. 
He left that post to join the AFL-CIO 
Department of Legislation. 

Baker, 37, is a member of the Com- 
munications Workers and a former 
AFL-CIO regional director who went 
to Paris in 1982 to serve as deputy to 
European Representative Irving Brown. 
He became AFL-CIO European Repre- 
sentative in 1986. Baker also succeeded 
Brown as the U.S. Worker Delegate to 
the International Labor Organization 
and as a member of the ILO governing 
body. 

Baker was born in California and 
grew up in the Northwest. He worked 
in a Ford plant in California and was 
a member of UAW Local 560. Baker 
worked for Frontlash during the 1974 
election and later became assistant to 
the president of the Oregon AFL-CIO. 

He worked for labor’s community 
services agency in Portland, Ore., prior 
to becoming an AFL-CIO field repre- 
sentative in 1975. He was named an 
AFL-CIO regional director in January 
1979. 



AFL-CIO Vice President Joyce Miller of the Clothing and Textile Workers ad- 
dresses the more than 300 women unionists from five continents at the 
5th World Women's Conference in Ottawa. Sponsored by the International 
Confederation of Free Trade Unions and hosted by the Canadian Labor 
Congress, it explored ways to empower women. Delegates concluded 
trade unions remain one of the strongest underpinnings of women's rights 
around the world. A conference report will be referred to the ICFTU 15th 
World Congress in Caracas in 1992. AFL-CIO Vice President Lenore Miller, 
president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, attended 
as a delegate and led several discussion-group sessions. Other AFL-CIO 
delegates were: Susan Dunlop, assistant to President Lane Kirkland; Gloria 
Johnson, director of social action for the Electronic Workers; Michele 
Briones, director of international affairs for the Ladies' Garment Workers; 
and Clara Day of the Teamsters. Cynthia McCaughan, coordinator of 
women's activities for the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights, served as 
an alternate delegate. 


Kirkland aide Young to retire; 
Baker to move to Washington 




Solidarity Day to draw unions from around world 


Continued from Page 1 

union members get to Washington. 

Concern about health care and the 
permanent replacement of strikers, or 
just a strong belief in “what the 
American labor movement stands for” 
is drawing union members to Solidar- 
ity Day ’91, said Vincent O’Brien, the 
assistant director of the Department of 
Organization and Field Services who is 
coordinating the event. 

The daylong demonstration will in- 
clude a march down Washington’s Con- 
stitution Avenue to the Capitol, as well 
as speeches and entertainment. 

Solidarity Day ’91 has three major 
goals: legislation banning the perma- 
nent replacement of strikers, national 
health care reform and full freedom of 
association abroad and at home — in- 
cluding full collective bargaining rights 
for public workers. 

The AFL-CIO also is working for 
participation by trade unionists and 
government representatives from other 
countries, especially Eastern Europe. 

Perkins told the council that videos 
outlining the Solidarity Day ’91 pro- 


gram have been distributed to affiliates 
and state and local central bodies, along 
with camera-ready promotional materi- 
als for publications and fact sheets. 
Decals and bumper stickers were de- 
signed and posters will be available by 
the end of the month. 

O’Brien said the project is a “coast- 
to-coast effort,” with unions from 
Texas and California to the East coast 
responding with enthusiasm. 


He noted that many unions are far 
along in working out their transporta- 
tion needs, adding that “the sooner you 
can see problems, the easier it is deal 
with them.” 

Most trade unionists will come by 
bus, and the Amalgamated Transit 
Union has been working with AFL-CIO 
coordinators to provide directories of 


bus companies to unions and central 
bodies nationwide. Organizers say a 
total of 5,800 buses were needed to 
bring unionists to Washington for the 
first Solidarity Day in 1981. 

ATU also has been working on help- 
ing union-chartered buses gain the 
necessary interstate permits, certifica- 
tion and liability insurance coverage. 

Working with the AFL-CIO Trans- 
portation Trades Department, coor- 


dinators have been meeting with Am- 
trak on expanding the rail line’s 
schedule and adding special trains, 
especially in the Northeast corridor. 

Other transportation plans include 
locating rental vans and negotiating 
charter arrangements with air carriers, 
including Northwest Airlines, the 
Trump Shuttle and others. 


The AFL-CIO is encouraging affil- 
iates and central bodies to work out 
transportation schedules as soon as 
possible, because those numbers are 
key to determining such needs as tents 
for shade, water supply, numbers of 
medical personnel and supplies, 
bathroom facilities and other on-site 
concerns. 

AFL-CIO Facilities Manager 
Georgia Dunfee is putting together a 
housing guide for union members who 
will be taking advantage of “frequent- 
flier” deals and staying overnight. 

Where geography and finances might 
limit a union’s participation, the AFL- 
CIO is encouraging those groups to sup- 
port sending a delegation — with their 
banners — to Washington. 

AFSCME is asking its West Coast 
locals, which most likely could not send 
large groups to the march, to instead 
contribute to help finance the trips of 
members closer to Washington. 

New York, Chicago, Detroit and 
other cities have canceled traditional 
Labor Day parades so union members 
can celebrate together. 


“A strong belief in what the American labor 
movement stands for is drawing union members 
to Solidarity Day ’91. ” 0 ,, rien 

Solidarity Day ’91 Coordinator 


Health care reform, family needs campaigns heating up 


T he AFL-CIO is continuing to work 
with Congress on legislation to 
reform the nation’s failed health care 
system, a drive that has been supported 
by various members of the business and 
medical community, Health Care Com- 
mittee Chairman John J. Sweeney 
reported to the Executive Council. 

Sweeney, president of the Service 
Employees, told the council that the 
AFL-CIO ’s health care reform prin- 
ciples have received widespread atten- 
tion in Congress, with the primary at- 
tention in the Senate. 

Sweeney detailed a proposal from a 
group led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy 


(D-Mass.) that included the creation of 
a national commission and a number of 
other cost containment features con- 
templated in the council’s Feb. 19 
statement. 

However, Sweeney pointed out that 
the Kennedy group’s proposal would 
make these measures voluntary. He said 
that “within the Health Care Commit- 
tee, we had many heated discussions 
about ways to reform the health care 
system, but we had no disagreement 
whatsoever about the need for man- 
datory cost containment. All unions and 
all employers need immediate cost 
relief.” 


Sweeney reported that committee 
members would advise Kennedy that 
the federation could not support legisla- 
tion that provides for voluntary, rather 
than mandatory, health care cost con- 
tainment measures. 

Finally, Sweeney reported increasing 
receptivity on the part of businesses to 
the federation’s health care reform 
principles. 

Other pressing needs of working 
families, enactment of the family and 
medical leave legislation, and negotia- 
tions for child care, elder care and flex- 
ible benefits were addressed by 
AFSCME President Gerald W. McEn- 


tee, chairman of the AFL-CIO Commit- 
tee on the Working Family. 

He told the council that a staff work- 
ing group had been created to assist the 
committee and promote the sharing of 
information on work and family strate- 
gies. 

McEntee also distributed a brochure 
detailing the provisions being sought in 
child care legislation produced by the 
AFL-CIO Department of Employee 
Benefits, and a how-to guide for in- 
tegrating work and family life at the 
bargaining table, which was produced 
by the Coalition of Labor Union 
Women. 


INSIDE 

Labor warns Congress 
of fast-track disaster 

AFL-CIO Executive Council members 
toured Capitol Hill to warn Congress 
that “fast track” to a U.S-Mexico trade 
agreement is a shortcut to disaster for 
workers on both sides of the border. 


Pope blesses role of 
unions and workers 

Pope John Paul D’s encyclical reaffirms 
the rights of workers and the role of 
trade unions. The pope warned against 
celebrating the collapse of communism 
as a “one-sided victory” for capitalism. 





0 


Rank and file respond 
on strikebreaker issue 

The AFL-CIO campaign for legislation 
to ban the “permanent replacement” of 
strikers is getting a boost from the 
grass-roots response of union members. 

Anti-Castro activist 
freed after 23 years 

Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, a Cuban trade 
unionist whose opposition to the regime 
of Fidel Castro landed him in jail for 
23 years, is now living in Miami as a 
free man. 




WMD activities press 
reform of OSHA law 

Workers rallied on the third annual 
Workers Memorial Day, urging reform 
of the Occupational Safety and Health 
Act and timely enforcement of existing 
laws. 

Insurance firm failure 
serves as warning 

The AFL-CIO urges affiliates to get 
employers to cover any benefit short- 
falls that occur as a result of an in- 
surance company’s failure. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


5 / 13/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 




FOCUS 


WHO SAYS 
HOSPITAL WORKERS 
HAVE THE RIGHT 
# TO UNIONIZE? 


The Supreme Court's go-ahead for 
eight-unit hospital bargaining rule 
has spurred unions to stepped-up 
organizing. See Page 7. 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 1 1 



MAY 27, 1991 



T he Bush administration got its “fast- 
track” authority for U.S. -Mexico 
trade negotiations — but not until a 
nearly 2-1 majority of Democratic 
House members bolted from their 
leadership to join labor, environmental 
and consumer groups in opposition. 

The strong Democratic vote against 
fast track served notice that the agree- 
ment that comes back for congressional 
approval will have to meet the grave 
concerns of those labor, environmen- 
tal and consumer groups. 

A total of 170 Democrats voted for 
a labor-supported proposal by Rep. 
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would 
have denied fast-track extension. The 


Dorgan resolution failed, 231-192, with 
21 Republicans and an independent 
joining the Democrats in opposition. 

The AFL-CIO said it was “extreme- 
ly disappointed that the Democratic 
leadership in the House joined the ad- 
ministration today in ignoring the public 
interest and supporting ‘fast track.’ 

“We believe that labor, together with 
consumer and environmental groups, 
succeeded at least in forcing the ad- 
ministration to make issues like 
workplace standards, environmental 
protection and child labor part of these 
negotiations,” the AFL-CIO said. 
“Together with those groups, we will 
closely monitor the process of both the 
General Agreement on Tariffs and 


Trade (GATT) and the U.S. -Mexico 
proposal.” 

“We expect the House, as its leader- 
ship has consistently stated, to use its 
rules to make certain that the adminis- 
tration promises are fulfilled and that 
the interests of working people are pro- 
tected,” the AFL-CIO said in the state- 
ment following the House’s May 23 
action. 

After the narrow defeat of the Dorgan 
resolution, the House approved the non- 
binding Gephardt-Rostenkowski resolu- 
tion that contains no enforceable 
mechanisms on U.S. job losses, border 
environmental problems and other 
issues it mentions. It endorses the Bush 
administration’s so-called “action 


plan,” which AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland said was “as vapid as 
dishwater.” 

In a letter to all House members, the 
AFL-CIO called the sense-of-the- 
Congress resolution ‘ ‘meaningless” 
and said the federation would not sup- 
port it. 

Local union officials and members 
talked to senators and representatives 
during recesses, Kirkland and federa- 
tion Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue met several times with con- 
gressional leaders and the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council suspended the se- 
cond day of its May 8-9 meeting, enabl- 
ing council members to visit Capitol 
Continued on Page 4 


Solidarity Day has message for all workers 



Milwaukee Labor Press 


Solidarity begins on the home front, where workers rallied recently at the 
Milwaukee office of Sen. Robert Kasten (R-Wis.), urging him to support 
legislation to ban "permanent replacement" of strikers. 


Non-unionists agree 
on strikebreaker ban 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

W hen labor and its allies gather in 
Washington on Aug. 31, Solidar- 
ity Day ’91, they have a message for 
every worker. 

The Solidarity Day march and rally 
will call attention to the need for health 
care reform, for the right of freedom 
of association both at home and abroad 
and for the need to pass legislation to 
ban the “permanent replacement” of 
strikers. 

While the strikebreaker ban is 
perceived to be a union issue, it has 
ramifications that go far beyond organ- 
ized labor. 

“The fact is that when workers can 
see their one, small piece of the 
American dream ripped out of their 
hands, all of us are threatened, every 
job is at risk, and every American has 
to know that they could be next,” said 
AFL-CIO Vice President Richard 
Trumka, president of the Mine Work- 
ers. 

Trumka assails the “scab culture” 
developed during the Reagan-Bush era 
and says the challenge is more than to 
reform laws, but to “change how 
Americans view their relationships with 
one another.” Raising public con- 
sciousness will help restore the values 
of unity and pride to all members of the 
working class, he said. 

The common principles and goals of 
workers are at the heart of the Solidarity 
Day rally. Labor is finding new allies 
daily in its drive for health care reform 
that includes quality care at an afford- 
able price for every American. At the 
core of this struggle and the fight to 
change the nation’s labor laws is the 
freedom of association essential for 
workers to advance their own causes. 


Reinforcing the universality of these 
causes, labor will be joined on Solidar- 
ity Day by allies among civil rights, 
consumer and religious groups. 

The most recent support for the ban 
on “permanent replacements” comes in 
a statement from the Council of Bishops 
of the United Methodist Church, the na- 
tion’s second largest Protestant denomi- 
nation. That follows the support by the 
Catholic bishops and an interdenomina- 
tional group of religious leaders. 

“The use of permanent replacement 
workers upsets the balance of power 
critical for achieving peaceful, 
negotiated settlements between labor 
and management,” the Methodist state- 
ment declared. “As a result, both col- 
lective bargaining and the democratic 
values that created this nation are under 
attack.” 

Few understand this tilt toward 
management as well as Eric Sparks, a 


former Greyhound bus driver who 
plans to make his voice heard in 
Washington on Solidarity Day. 

Sparks, a member of the Amal- 
gamated Transit Union Local 1 150, was 
“permanently replaced” by Greyhound 
when the ATU went on strike more than 
a year ago. 

“As long as they can hire someone 
else, the company doesn’t have to par- 
ticipate in collective bargaining,” 
Sparks said. “It should be that two par- 
ties sit down at the table and negotiate. 
A lot of our members are disillusioned 
about the whole process.” 

The House version of the bill to ban 
“permanent replacements,” H.R. 5, 
was passed out of the Energy and Com- 
merce Committee by a voice vote May 
21 , and is expected to go before the full 
House in early summer. The Senate will 
then begin various committee hearings 
Continued on Page 4 


Teleconference will 
explain major issues 

T he AFL-CIO will preview Solidar- 
ity Day ’91 on June 11, when a na- 
tional teleconference will beam to 19 
sites around the country a presentation 
on the campaigns for health care reform 
and a ban on striker replacements. 

The teleconference, which will origi- 
nate at the Labor Institute of Public Af- 
fairs’ studio at the federation head- 
quarters, will be from 1 :30 to 3:30 p.m. 
EDT. After the program, participants 
will field telephone calls from the 
regions with any questions that cannot 
be answered on-site. 

The regional sites, along with the 
contacts for more information, are: 

Albuquerque, N.M., University of New Mexico, 
Woodward Hall. Steve Bieringer (303/820-2801). 

Anaheim, Calif., Disneyland Hotel Grand Ballroom, 
David Sickler (415/398-7152 or 213/387-1974). 
Atlanta, IBEW Hall, Ron Martin (404/766-5050). 
Austin, Texas, KLRU-TV Studio 6-A, A1 Williams 
(512/477-1811). 

Baltimore, Masters, Mates and Pilots school, A1 
Snyder (301/859-5700). 

Chicago, Triton College Center Rooms 201 and 202, 
Charles Stott (708/255-4747). 

Cincinnati, WCET Channel 48 Studio B. Jim 
Freeman (615/333-9891). 

Denver, Flash Video Studio, Steve Bieringer 
(303/820-2801). 

Detroit, Radisson on the Lake Auditorium II, Charles 
Stott (708/255-4747). 

Harrisburg, Pa., USWA 1688, Walter Waddy 
(301/644-1010). 

Idaho Falls, Idaho, University Place Auditorium, Ed- 
ward Collins (206/284-6611). 

Nashville, Tenn., Paperworkers Union Building, Jim 
Freeman (615/333-9891). 

Farmington, Conn., University of Connecticut 
Health Care Center, Link Room, Frank Myers 
(617/261-4840). 

Portland, Ore., Portland Community College, 
Sylvania Campus, S.T. Building, Room A-l, Edward 
Collins (206/284-6611). 

Raleigh, N.C., Jane S. McKimmon Center, N.C. 
State University, Ron Martin (404/766-5050). 

St. Louis, Graphic Arts Building, L.D. Porter 
(918/622-0742). 

St. Paul, Minn., World Trade Conference Center, 
Studio Theater, Ray Francis (612/893-9282). 

Syracuse, N.Y., Sheraton Inn Cotillion Room, Mary 
Crayton (212/661-1555). 

Tulsa, Okla., Tulsa Marriott Hotel, Salons A-D, L.D. 
Porter (918/622-0742). 






Airline unions take different tacks on talks 



Flight attendants from around the world discuss common problems at symposium. 


Flight attendants plot global strategies 


By Candice Johnson 

A irline unions are pulling out the 
stops as they brace for more tough 
bargaining with some of the nation’s 
major carriers. 

With talks between the Flight Atten- 
dants and United Airlines stalled, the 
AFA has called on the National Media- 
tion Board to begin the 30-day “cool- 
ing-off period,” after which union 
members can take action — including 
a strike — against the carrier. 

The AFA, representing about 15,000 
United attendants, has been negotiating 
with United since 1987, with federal 
mediators involved in the talks over the 
past two years. 

The Air Line Pilots have reached 
agreement with United while the Ma- 
chinists are still bargaining. Negotia- 
tions at the financially troubled Trans 
World Airlines are also up in the air, 
as TWA owner Carl Icahn is seeking 
concessions from its three unions — the 
ALPA, I AM and an unaffiliated flight 
attendants group. 

No pay raise in five years 

United had offered the AFA atten- 
dants a 2 percent pay raise over a 
43-month contract, with no im- 
provements in health, retirement or 
other benefits. The attendants have not 
had a pay raise in five years. 

Because of the carrier’s “inadequate 
proposals in the areas of wages, retroac- 
tive pay and retirement, the flight atten- 
dants felt compelled to take this serious 
step,” said Diane Robertson, president 
of AFA’s United executive council. 

The AFA members are seeking a pay 
raise, a 401(k) plan to improve retire- 
ment benefits, elimination of personal 
weight restrictions for attendants and 
seniority protection in the case of a sale. 

United’s retirement benefits for atten- 
dants lag 38 percent below those offered 
by Delta and American Airlines — and 
hourly pay for senior United attendants 
is about 12 percent less than Delta and 
American’s rates for comparable posi- 
tions. 

The settlement gained by Air Line 
Pilots at United raises pay rates to cur- 
rent American Airlines scale, with ad- 
ditional increases that boosts rates to 
those paid by Delta, the highest in the 
industry. 

The agreement, ratified by ALPA’s 
United master executive council and in 
effect through Nov. 30, 1994, includes 
new health care cost-containment 
measures and improvements in the pen- 
sion, life insurance, dental and 401(k) 
investment plans. 

In the first stages of bargaining at 
TWA, the IAM won assurances that the 
company would not sell any other in- 
ternational routes nor other parts of its 
Kansas City-based operation while bar- 


F light attendant union leaders from 
around the world descended on 
Washington May 16-17 to exchange 
information on common goals and 
problems. 

The international symposium, 
hosted by the Flight Attendants, “is 
yet another step in AFA’s program to 
network with flight attendants world- 
wide,” said AFA President Susan 
Bianchi-Sand. The discussion of 
common issues “will help us prepare 
for action during the globalization of 
the airline industry,” she said. 

The jobs and working conditions 
of flight attendants already are being 
affected by that globalization, par- 
ticularly the continuing trend toward 
deregulation and the threat of inter- 
national cabotage — the move to 


gaining continues. The IAM agreement 
has been open since January 1989. 

The IAM represents TWA’s 5,200 
passenger service workers, as well as 
12,000 mechanics, ramp personnel and 
other workers. Under the agreement, 
senior service agents will receive an im- 
mediate wage “snapback,” restoring 
wages to levels prior to a 1985 wage 
cut, while workers hired after January 
1986 will receive a comparable salary 
increase. 

TWA must use the proceeds of the 
sale of the London routes to American 
Airlines for reinvestment in the com- 
pany and reduction of debt, and must 
not pay principal or interest to its debt 
holders while talks continue, the agree- 
ment states. 

The interim agreement requires the 
carrier to take action on grievance set- 
tlements already reached by the parties 


allow major airlines to operate routes 
within other countries. 

Paul Juttner of the Aviation Divi- 
sion of the Canadian Union of Public 
Employees described the impact of 
deregulation in Canada, in which 
“we are seeing in one-and-a-half 
years what took 12 to 13 years in the 
United States.” 

Since Canada deregulated its 
airlines, Juttner said, seven Canadian 
airlines have disappeared through 
merger and buyouts while 14 have 
gone into bankruptcy. 

That mirrors the experience in the 
United States, where 51 mergers and 
more than 150 bankruptcy filings 
have occurred since deregulation in 
1978. The Bush administration has 
proposed to extend its deregulation 


and to take to arbitration a question over 
the disposition of the former Ozark 
Airlines’ IAM health and welfare plan. 

If negotiations cannot produce a set- 
tlement, both sides must give 30 days’ 
advance notice of their intent to seek 
“self help,” including the right to strike 
or lockout. 

Icahn also outlined an offer to buy 
back $1.36 billion of the carrier’s 
debt — estimated as high as $2.5 
billion — as part of its restructuring 
plan. 

ALPA called the payout “too gen- 
erous,” noting that the deal would drain 
TWA’s cash supply. 

Earlier, the three unions reached an 
agreement with Tracinda Corp. on a 
$137 million package of wage and bene- 
fit concessions to help the company, 
owned by financier Kirk Kerkorian, 
buy TWA. Kerkorian, who promised to 


policy, increasing foreign ownership 
of U.S. airlines from the current 25 
percent limit to 49 percent. 

Another extension of the deregula- 
tion policy — cabotage — was 
described by Bianchi-Sand as “the 
most important international issue 
for flight attendants.” Flight atten- 
dants and other airline unionists are 
concerned that allowing strong inter- 
national carriers to take over national 
routes will further weaken smaller 
carriers, costing jobs. 

Daniele Jullien of the French Syn- 
dicat National du Personnel Navigant 
Commercial warned that a recent 
European Community commission 
had recommended that national 
airlines share routes with external 
airlines. 


immediately invest $250 million into the 
carrier, stressed he would buy the 
airline only with the London routes 
intact. 

In other industry developments: 

• The AFA is seeking to seize an 
aircraft, or other Horizon Air assets, to 
pay a $275,000 judgment awarded to the 
union. Last year, a federal district court 
found that Horizon engaged in bad faith 
bargaining and awarded the union at- 
torneys’ fees and costs. 

Negotiations are continuing with a 
federal mediator. 

• The AFA reached a tentative set- 
tlement with Aloha Airlines covering 
230 attendants. Mail ratification ballots 
will be counted May 31. 

• AFA members at CCAir — 
US Air Express — reached a tentative 
first agreement with the carrier after 
two years of contract talks. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 11 



MONDAY, MAY 27, 1991 



The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00I-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington. D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





LEGISIMIN 


Public work pushed for public good 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland calls for jobs programs to address U.S. infra- 
structure needs. At right is Legislative Director Robert M. McGlotten. 


By Mike Hall 

T he Bush administration’s rosy predic- 
tions that the nation’s recession is 
short and shallow cannot cover up the 
fact that more and more U.S. workers 
are losing their jobs, AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland told the House 
Public Works and Transportation Com- 
mittee. 

Kirkland urged Congress to pursue a 
broad anti-recession program that 
would include rebuilding the nation’s 
infrastructure — such as crumbling 
highways, bridges and other facili- 
ties — expanding the unemployment 
insurance program and building afford- 
able housing for low- and moderate- 
income Americans. 

While government statistics list 8.3 
million jobless, a “more realistic 
count — one that includes discouraged 
and involuntary part-time workers — 
escalates the total... to 15.4 millon 
Americans,” Kirkland said. 

In the past two months alone, 
365,000 U.S. jobs have disappeared, 
1 .7 million since last summer, he said. 
In past recessions, he noted, unemploy- 
ment jumped by about 3 percentage 
points and did not come back down for 
several years after the “official” end 
of a recession. 

Continued joblessness 

Kirkland presented data compiled by 
the AFL-CIO Department of Economic 
Research that showed, for example, that 
it took more than four years for the 
jobless rate to fall below 6 percent after 
the 1982 recession. In the construction 
industry, it took seven years for the 
jobless rate to drop from 20 percent to 
10 percent after that recession. Today 
that figure is 15 percent. 

He called for a revamping of the 
unemployment insurance system that is 
now paying benefits to only 37.3 per- 
cent of the jobless and a six-month ex- 
tension of benefits for the long-term 
jobless. 

But the creation of jobs for Amer- 
icans is the key to any recovery from 
the recession, Kirkland said. 

“Working American families have 
borne the brunt of this recession and 
cannot wait that long for relief,” he 
said. “They need jobs now and they 
have every right to demand that their 
government recognize the severity of 
the problem and take steps to solve it. ” 
The administration has done nothing 
but proclaim “to anyone who will listen 


T he Senate unanimously approved a 
convention to abolish forced labor. 
With President Bush’s signature, the 
United States joins 109 other nations 
pledged to enforce the human rights 
pact. 

The agreement is the International 
Labor Organization’s Convention 105 
on the Abolition of Forced Labor. The 
ILO is the only agency of the United 
Nations with tripartite membership — 
that is, with representatives of labor, 
employers and government. Founded as 
a League of Nation’s organization in 
1919, it is the oldest UN agency. 

It has been 28 years since President 
Kennedy asked the Senate to act on the 
forced labor convention. While busi- 


that ‘prosperity is just around the cor- 
ner,’” Kirkland said. “A number of 
factors suggest that prosperity is not 
right around the corner: continued 
decline in the number of jobs, the 
weakness of real estate, troubled state 
and local governments, a faltering bank- 
ing system and high levels of debt.” 

The longer the administration sits on 
its hands, the more costly the 
unemployment problem becomes, he 
said. Each 1 percent of unemployment 
costs the U.S. Treasury $33 billion in 
lost taxes, unemployment payments, 
welfare, food stamps and other costs. 

Investment benefits 

“Now compare that to the fact that 
every billion dollars spent on public 
works projects will create between 
15,000 and 22,000 jobs — half of them 
in construction and half in other in- 
dustries such as manufacturing, mining, 
transportation and services,” Kirkland 
said. 

A cornerstone of any effort to create 
jobs is the “critical task of rebuilding 
the nation’s badly deteriorated high- 
ways, bridges and mass transit 
facilities,” he said. 

Committee Chairman Rep. Robert 
Roe (D-N.J.) is expected to introduce 
legislation to reauthorize the Surface 
Transportation Act, which is expected 
to accelerate the reconstruction program 
and pay for it with an additional five- 
cent a gallon gasoline tax. The AFL- 


ness leaders originally opposed it, 
Abraham Katz, president of the U.S. 
Council for International Business, said 
he is satisfied with the “understand- 
ings” worked out through four years of 
Senate hearings. 

Of the 168 ILO conventions, the 
United States has ratified only 10. 

The old American Federation of 
Labor in 1947 asked the UN and the 
ILO to investigate forced labor, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland testified 
before a hearing of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee in April. Two in- 
quiries confirmed the existence of 
forced labor in Soviet-controlled nations 
as well as in the Soviet Union and the 
People’s Republic of China. 


CIO supports that proposal, Kirkland 
said. 

There are now two versions of the 
reauthorization already introduced — 
the administration’s bill and one by Sen. 
Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.). But the 
Bush proposal falls short in several 
areas, including funding levels, cost- 
shifting to hard-pressed states and the 
lack of Davis-Bacon and other worker 
protections. 

Moynihan ’s bill moves away from 
traditional highway and mass transit 
funding with the creation of metro- 
politan planning organizations (MPOs), 
which would have complete discretion 
over how funds would be divided be- 
tween highway and mass transit spend- 
ing. The AFL-CIO believes these 
MPOs need further review. 

New ideas 

However, Kirkland noted, “with the 
interstate system all but complete, 
America is entering a new era with 
regard to how highway and mass tran- 
sit projects are funded. We understand 
that there are a lot of new ideas out 
there and we are not afraid to take a 
good look at them.” 

Along with highways and mass tran- 
sit, infrastructure rebuilding should in- 
clude water and sewage facilities and 
toxic waste cleanup. Any legislation to 
rejuvenate the nation’s infrastructure 
should include strong Buy American 
provisions. 


Kirkland pointed out that China still 
uses forced labor in its massive prison 
gulag — labor that is manufacturing 
products for export, according to 
documents recently uncovered by the 
human rights organization, Asia Watch. 

ILO Convention 105 bans forced 
labor in five specific cases: as a means 
of political coercion or education or as 
punishment for political views opposed 
to the established political, social or 
economic system; as a method of mo- 
bilizing labor for economic develop- 
ment; as a means of labor discipline; as 
punishment for participating in strikes; 
as a means of racial, social, national or 
religious discrimination. 

— Press Associates 


i 


Capitol Digest 


E ven after supporters had crafted a 
substitute version of the civil rights 
legislation that strengthened language 
against the use of quotas, the White 
House and the GOP continued their at- 
tack on the bill. They even revived parts 
of a 1990 Jesse Helms campaign com- 
mercial that linked loss of jobs by 
whites to affirmative action. 

“The unjustifiable charge that H.R. 
1 as originally proposed is a ‘quota bill’ 
should be put to rest by the changes 
made in this substitute,” said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. 

One of the substitute’s sponsors, Rep. 
Jack Brooks (D-Texas), charged that 
the White House sees the bill “as a red- 
hot political issue that they can exploit 
to the fullest in next year’s election.” 
Ralph Neas, executive director of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 
attacked the ad, sponsored by Helms’s 
political action committee, as a “repre- 
hensible use of the big lie technique.” 
The substitute explicitly outlaws hir- 
ing and promotion quotas and incor- 
porates much of the language from re- 
cent negotiations between civil rights 
leaders and the Business Roundtable. 
Those talks broke off after heavy 
pressure by the White House on the 
business group. 

The bill would clarify the intent of 
law following several recent Supreme 
Court rulings that made it much more 
difficult for individual workers to sue 
employers who discriminate in the 
workplace. The bill is expected to come 
up for a vote in the House by the end 
of May. 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 

DRUG TESTING - The House 
defeated an attempt to require all federal 
employees under the State Department 
Authorization Act to undergo random 
drug testing. The AFL-CIO opposed the 
amendment, calling it ill-conceived, un- 
necessary and expensive. Government 
Employees President John Sturdivant 
said that, in light of past court rulings, 
the amendment “would not withstand 
constitutional review . ’ ’ 

FEDERAL WORKER SAFETY- 

Job safety protections for more than 3 
million federal workers in over 100 
agencies have been weakened during 
the past decade due to inaction and low 
staffing by the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration, a House sub- 
committee was told. The OSH A staff 
that oversees federal workers has been 
decreased by two-thirds in the last 15 
years, said union witnesses. 

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS - The 
House Public Works Committee re- 
ported a bill backed by the AFL-CIO 
that would set maximum duty time and 
minimum rest periods for the nation’s 
flight attendants. Although there are 
rules for pilots, flight engineers and air 
traffic controllers, there are no federal 
regulations on the amount of hours 
flight attendants can work before a re- 
quired rest period. 


U.S. ratifies ILO convention on forced labor 








Congress allows fast track to Mexico trade 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Airing labor's concerns on the fast track to a U.S.-Mexico R. Donahue talks with reporter Judy Woodruff of the 
trade agreement, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. 


Continued from Page 1 

Hill in a coordinated lobbying 
campaign. 

By refusing to block fast track, the 
House extended the authority for 
another two years. Fast track was devis- 
ed 17 years ago but has been used only 
three times — on the GATT agreement 
in 1979 and in agreements with Israel 
in 1985 and Canada in 1988. Scores of 
other agreements were reached without 
fast track. 

Under the fast-track rule, Congress 
will not be allowed to make any changes 
in a Mexico trade agreement, retaining 
only the right of an up-or-down vote on 
the final trade document submitted by 
the White House. 

On the eve of the floor debate, AFL- 
CIO Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten told House members that an 
issue as important as the integration of 
the disparate economies of the United 
States and Mexico deserves more than 
just a yes-or-no vote. 

“Without fast track, Congress can 
develop programs that will minimize 
job loss, improve job retraining, im- 
prove the lot of Mexican workers, and 
protect both consumers and the environ- 
ment,” McGlotten said. “With fast 
track, these key issues will be shunted 
aside and ignored.” 

The federation strongly supported the 
Dorgan resolution and endorsed a 
measure by Rep. Sander Levin (D- 
Mich.) as a substitute for the Gephardt- 
Rostenkowski resolution. The Levin 
resolution was kept off the floor in a 
274-148 vote on the rule — an anoma- 
ly in which the House Democratic 
leadership’s position was opposed by a 
majority of House Democrats but 
upheld by solid Republican support. 

After three hours of debate, the 


House approved the Gephardt-Rosten- 
kowski resolution on a 329-85 vote. 
The Senate also failed to derail the ex- 
tension of fast-track authority by rejec- 
ting a resolution offered by Sen. Ernest, 
Hollings (D-S.C.) that was similar to 
Dorgan’s. The vote was 59-36. 

Labor’s intense campaign against the 
extension of fast-track authority began 
in late winter when U.S. Trade Repre- 
sentative Carla Hills was flatly telling 
Congress that worker rights, environ- 
mental and similar concerns “were not 
on the table.” By May 1, the Bush ad- 
ministration had changed its tune, send- 
ing Congress the “action plan” of 
promises on worker and environmen- 
tal issues. 

Addressing the Detroit AFL-CIO 
convention prior to the House and 
Senate action, Donahue urged Congress 
to take a hands-on role in trade talks. 


Donahue said the Mexican trade 
agreement would have a devastating im- 
pact on U.S. factory workers. The 
government’s hands-off trade policies, 
he said, have caused the United States 
to fall behind Europe and Japan, whose 
governments are far more involved in 
their industrial economies. 

Kirkland has charged that the Bush 
administration, to whom a “national in- 
dustrial policy” is anathema, has by its 
actions in trade giveaways in fact im- 
posed an industrial policy of low wages. 

In testimony before House and Senate 
committees, union witnesses had 
documented the loss of some 500,000 
jobs to U.S. -owned maquiladora plants 
already operating across the border, 
where Mexican workers are exploited 
with pay of less than $1 an hour. 

A study commissioned by the 
Economic Policy Institute warned that 


Bush’s trade proposal would result in 
the loss of another half-million 
American jobs and cost the U.S. 
economy about $36 billion. 

In citing severe U.S. job dislocations, 
the EPI findings refuted claims that the 
agreement would spur employment and 
promote industrial growth. 

The only three known polls con- 
ducted on the issue all show that the 
American people are concerned about 
U.S. job losses. 

The May 14 NBC/Wall Street Jour- 
nal poll shows 47 percent tend to 
believe the trade agreement would mean 
a loss of U.S. jobs while 21 percent 
aren’t sure. The May 15 textile 
manufacturers’ poll found that 58 per- 
cent think fast track is a “bad idea.” 
An April 22 Garin-Hart poll found that 
72 percent think fast track is a “bad 
idea.” 


Striker replacement fight enjoined on Solidarity Day ’91 


Continued from Page 1 

on its version of the legislation, S. 55. 

Another “permanently replaced” 
worker, John Becker of UFCW Local 
73 A in Milwaukee, is now concen- 
trating his time and energy in the 
Milwaukee AFL-CIO’s grass-roots ef- 
fort to press for passage of the 
legislation. 

“I may not be working on my job, 
but I’m working hard,” said Becker, 
who was replaced after 30 years with 
Patrick Cudahy, a slaughtering and 
meat processing plant. He was dis- 
tributing leaflets, postcards, buttons and 
informational fliers at a recent rally, 
which attracted a wide cross-section of 
onlookers. 

Pulling people together 

“When we demonstrated in front of 
the office of Sen. (Robert) Kasten (R- 
Wis.) to show our support for passage 
of H.R. 5 and S. 55, we had about 300 
people, including members of the com- 
munity and church groups,” said UAW 
Local 438 President Robert Peter. “We 
pulled together all kinds of people.” 

Local 438 is “using fliers to plaster 
the state legislature while stirring up 
public support’ ’ for striker replacement 
legislation, Peter said. The local also is 
impressing upon union members that 
the issue affects everyone in the long 
run. “We are planting seeds in union 
member minds,” he said. 

Peter also has contacted several of the 
unions in the Milwaukee area and is 
hoping to bring 200 members to 
Washington for Solidarity Day. 

That widespread support for the leg- 
islation is borne out by a poll conducted 
by State University of New York 


students at Old Westbury in late March. 
Respondents, by a 2-1 margin, said they 
believe employers should not have the 
right to hire permanent replacements 
for strikers. 

The New York assembly is currently 
studying a proposal to allow the state 
attorney general to seek an injunction 
barring replacement workers upon find- 
ing such use creates a threat to the 
public order and safety. 

New York City’s Labor Day Parade, 
which traditionally draws huge crowds 
of labor supporters, is being moved to 
Washington as part of the Solidarity 
Day activity. In voting May 16 to move 
the parade, the executive board of the 
New York City AFL-CIO urged its 500 
affiliated local unions to join in the 
rally. 

The campaign to ban strikebreakers 
got a boost in Minnesota May 18, when 
the state House joined the Senate in ap- 
proving legislation to prohibit 
employers from hiring “permanent 
replacements” for workers during a 
strike or lockout. The bill must now be 
signed by the governor. 

Other states are continuing their ef- 
forts in introducing and passing perma- 
nent replacement bills. 

Legislators from Oregon, Rhode 
Island, Montana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, 
Indiana, Delaware and West Virginia 
are considering a range of proposals. 
They include measures for ending the 
practice of hiring permanent replace- 
ments during a strike to offering 
unemployment compensation to strike 
workers, continuing health benefits to 
striking employees and barring employ- 
ment agencies from referring job ap- 
plications to a struck company. 


Replaced Steelworkers cheered 
by NLRB finding on Ravenswood 


R avenswood Aluminum Corp., 
which locked out its 1,700 
workers last November and hired 
1,000 “permanent replacements,” 
committed an unfair labor practice, 
according to findings by the National 
Labor Relations Board’s regional of- 
fice in Cincinnati. 

“This goes a long way toward 
proving our contention that the com- 
pany has been subverting the law all 
along,” said Jim Bowen, director of 
the Steelworkers District 23. Two 
other complaints have been forward- 
ed to Washington for a final deter- 
mination that could result in an in- 
junction against the company. 

The NLRB notified the parties that 
an unfair labor practice complaint 
would be issued against RAC unless 
it agrees to settle the allegations that 
it unlawfully delayed and refused to 
furnish various safety studies 
necessary for the performance of the 
union’s collective bargaining duties. 

Five workers have been killed at 
the plant during the past 18 months. 
“RAC has compiled the worst 
record of fatal injuries of any plant 
in the metal industry in the entire 
U.S.,”over that time frame, Bowen 
charged. “It’s many times worse 
than the record (former owner) 
Kaiser Aluminum had during its 30 
years of ownership.” Part of the 
contract dispute stemmed from dis- 


agreements over unsafe working 
conditions, he added. 

“Workers suffered constantly 
from heat stress, hearing loss and 
even pneumoconiosis, a lung disease 
caused by inhaling mineral dusts,” 
said Bill Doyle, vice president of 
USWA Local 5668. “And manage- 
ment consistently failed to record 
them as the federal law requires.” 

The NLRB determination on the 
complaint comes on the heels of a 
mass rally for Workers Memorial 
Day. The rally, attended by more 
than 5,000 people that included 
union members from as far away as 
Connecticut, Massachusetts and 
Missouri, honored the memory of 
the five RAC workers who died in 
1989 and 1990. 

“It tells me that the ones who are 
gone are not forgotten,” said a tear- 
ful Bobby Rider, whose son Jimmy 
Lee Rider died on the job last year. 
“If Jimmy was alive today, he would 
be proud to stand here. Hopefully, 
there will be something that will 
come out of this to prevent a recur- 
rence.” 

The other two complaints filed 
with the NLRB charges that the com- 
pany illegally implemented its final 
offer and that the company unlawful- 
ly “permanently replaced” the bar- 
gaining unit employees in the lock- 
out. 





Eastern retirees hang on to 
health insurance for now 


OSHA faulted 
after blast 
levels plant 

8 chemical workers 
killed in Louisiana 

By Arlee C. Green 

T he Oil, Chemical and Atomic 
Workers faulted federal inaction on 
petrochemical industry safety after an 
explosion at a chemical plant in Ster- 
lington, La., that killed eight workers 
and injured 120 other persons. 

“Will it take a Bhopal on the Bayou 
before the Bush administration acts to 
improve safety in the petrochemical in- 
dustry?” OCAW Secretary-Treasurer 
Anthony Mazzocchi asked members of 
the House Government Operations em- 
ployment and housing subcommittee. 

The explosion devastated houses and 
stores in Sterlington, causing an 
estimated $50 million in damages. 
Razor-sharp shrapnel, propelled fast 
enough to pierce inch-thick steel beams, 
rained down on the community. 

A 150-pound chunk of steel landed 
behind OCAW Local 4-7 86 ’s union 
hall, three-quarters of a mile from the 
plant, where a temporary morgue was 
set up. Three of the eight persons killed 
were members of Local 4-786. They 
worked for IMC Fertilizer Inc., which 
operated the Angus Chemical Co. plant. 
IMC also runs an ammonia production 
operation on an adjacent site. 

The explosion occurred after a fire 
broke out near a propane compressor 
at the Angus nitro-paraffin unit and it 
spread to an overhead pipe rack con- 
taining electrical, chemical and control 
lines. Less than two minutes later, a 
tower containing nitromethane, nitro- 
ethane and nitropropane exploded with 
a force equal to more than six tons of 
TNT. 

Standard in limbo 

This was the sixth chemical plant ac- 
cident since the Feb. 25 Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration hear- 
ing in Houston on its proposed chemical 
process safety management standard, a 
rule it has been working on since 1986. 
Since that hearing, 17 workers have 
been killed and nearly 250 others in- 
jured, dozens of them critically. 

OCAW industrial hygienist Joel Carr 
told the House panel that the Sterlington 
“incident is another example of the 
several failures of OSHA and the Bush 
administration.” He explained that 
OSHA did not inspect the Angus unit 
in 1989 when an inspection was con- 
ducted at the adjacent IMC ammonia 
plant because the inspector was told 
Angus had only three employees. Em- 
ployers with less than 10 employees are 
exempt from OSHA coverage. 

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Tom 
Lantos (D-Calif.) said it “is incom- 
prehensible that with two plants within 
the same complex, one should be in- 
spected and one should be avoided 
because technically Angus had only 
three employees.” He said the purpose 
of the hearing was to find out, “was 
there collusion, or was it sheer stupid- 
ity.” 

OSHA managed to get one investi- 
gator to the accident site on the day of 
the explosion. When others arrived, 
they lacked necessary equipment and a 
procedure for adequately securing an 
accident site, Carr said. 

Underscoring OCAW’s frustration 
with OSHA foot-dragging and the Bush 
administration’s failure to act, Carr 
noted that a Chemical and Hazard In- 



Joe Carr/OCAW 


A worker surveys damage from 
chemical plant explosion that killed 
eight workers in Louisiana. 

vestigation Board, as authorized by the 
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 
has yet to be established by the ad- 
ministration, which did not even seek 
funding for it in its fiscal year 1992 
budget request. 

OSHA’s proposed chemical industry 
standard would not have prevented the 
explosion at Sterlington, Carr testified. 
It lacks input from employees and com- 
munities and is “performance based,” 
he said. “If the plant does not blow up, 
you performed. If the plant does blow 
up, you didn’t perform. This is scant 
relief for the workers and communities 
who have to pay the consequences.” 

Carr testified that critical design flaws 
in the Angus plant might have been un- 
covered if Angus or IMC had done a 
process hazard analysis based on 
criteria addressed in OSHA’s direc- 
torate of compliance programs, dated 
Sept. 6, 1988. That document spells out 
specific requirements for such plants, 
but it is not being used by OSHA and 
will not be part of its proposed chemical 
industry rule. 

Carr urged that OSHA address the 
double standard regarding contract and 
regular employees, and make employ- 
ers clearly accountable for the “ex- 
clusive supervision of all aspects of the 
facility, including contract and daily 
personnel.” 

Residents in shock 

Homer Green, an AFL-CIO field 
representative, helped get the American 
Red Cross and United Way involved in 
providing trauma counseling to the 
residents of the town, especially those 
who were working at the plant when it 
exploded, said Regional Director Allen 
Williams. 

Even though representatives of the 
company and state and federal en- 
vironmental agencies have declared the 
town safe, Sterlington’s 1,140 residents 
remain unconvinced. 

Residents, who were evacuated from 
the town shortly after the blast, are con- 
cerned that asbestos insulation might 
have been blown throughout the com- 
munity. Residents have received letters 
from the company warning them not to 
eat food from their gardens until soil 
tests are conducted. 

Angus Chemical is paying for shelter, 
food and clothing for those in need, and 
has hired a non-union firm to repair 
homes that were damaged. 


By James B. Parks 

M ore than 14,000 retired Eastern 
Airlines employees had their health 
benefits extended until the end of the 
year — but for a price — under a tem- 
porary arrangement imposed by the 
company’s bankruptcy trustee. 

The agreement calls for the retirees 
under 65 to pay $75 per month per per- 
son for health care or $150 per month 
per couple, beginning July 1. The 
retirees did not pay premiums under the 
previous plan. Retirees over 65 are 
eligible for Medicare. 

Eastern will pay $145 per month per 
person, plus any overruns up to $170. 

The Machinists and Transport 
Workers opposed the settlement, but 
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton R. 
Lifland ordered all the unions to accept 
the interim plan while negotiations con- 
tinue on a permanent solution. The Air 
Line Pilots and non-contract workers 
agreed to the settlement. 

The IAM and TWU had proposed an 
$18 million lump sum payment to pro- 
vide two years of full benefits. 

“It’s a bad deal,” said TWU 
Secretary-Treasurer John Kerrigan. 
“We think there is enough money to 
continue benefits for several years. The 
court is only interested in making sure 
the lawyers get paid.” 

The settlement will hurt TWU flight 
attendant members, said Penny Pilzer, 
of the Washington law firm of O’Don- 
nell, Schwartz and Anderson. She 
represented the union in the hearings. 

TWU members cannot afford the 
premiums on their pensions, she said, 
and there is always the possibility that 
the company could declare bankruptcy 
and leave the retirees with no coverage. 

At issue is $125 million expected to 
be left over from the liquidation of the 
airline. The unions had filed suit to stop 
Eastern’s trustee, Martin Shugrue, from 
suspending the health benefits at the end 
of June. 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he movement to reform the U.S. 

health care system continues to gain 
ground as more voices join the call for 
change. 

The Journal of the American Medical 
Association, editorially independent of 
the AM A, weighed in recently with its 
health care reform proposals. 

Like the AFL-CIO, the journal urged 
in an editorial that basic health care 
coverage be universally available for all 
Americans. It was the first time the 
magazine devoted an entire issue to a 
single topic. 

“We welcome the attention focused 
on the urgent need for reform of the 
U.S. health care system,” said Karen 
Ignagni, director of employee benefits 
for the AFL-CIO. “Our goals of cost 
containment, administrative overhaul 
and guaranteed access to medical care 
for all are reflected within the contents 
of the issue, and we stand ready to work 
with those who share our goals.” 
Journal Editor George D. Lundberg 
wrote that “a long-crying need has 
developed into a national moral im- 
perative and now into a pragmatic 
necessity as well. An aura of inevitabil- 
ity is upon us. It is no longer acceptable 
morally, ethically or economically for 
so many of our people to be medically 
uninsured or seriously underinsured.” 
Lundberg also cited racial discrimina- 
tion in the current health care system, 


“Eastern and Mr. Shugrue should not 
be allowed to throw the lives of 
thousands of hard-working employees 
to the wind,” said Frank Ortis, vice 
president of IAM District 100. 

“Cases like this really bring home the 
point that we need a national health care 
program,” Kerrigan said. The AFL- 
CIO has been making a major national 
health care reform push. 

The unions, in papers filed with the 
court, said the impact of terminating the 
benefits would be devastating to the 
retirees. Those with serious illnesses 
would not be accepted by other in- 
surance plans and would wind up with 
no coverage. Others are living on small 
incomes and could not afford the 
premiums. 

One retiree facing catastrophic costs 
is William Persinger, 62, who retired 
after 25 years as an Eastern mechanic. 
His wife, Eunice, has undergone 12 
surgeries for cancer and to remove a 
blockage to her vocal chords. She needs 
chemotherapy every other week, with 
each session costing $300. 

Under Eastern’s health plan, the Per- 
singers were completely covered after 
paying the first $1 ,500. But if they had 
lost the coverage, they would not be 
able to get insurance under another 
plan. 

The bills would have eaten up his 
$2,000-a-month income from his pen- 
sion and a part-time job, Persinger said. 

Eastern estimated its obligation under 
the current reitrement plan at $3.6 
million a month. 

The interim agreement will cost 
Eastern about $1.5 million each month, 
Pilzer said. 

The Eastern proposal to cut off 
benefits was particularly ironic and 
ludicrous, Ortis said, in light of the re- 
cent 43 percent raise given Shugrue — 
pushing his own monthly fee to 
$50,000, up from $35,000, partly 
because of the cost of health insurance. 


calling the problem “longstanding, 
systematic (and) institutionalized.” 

He pointed out, as the AFL-CIO has 
on numerous occasions, that the United 
States and South Africa are the only in- 
dustrialized nations without national 
health care. Further, he wrote that the 
two countries were “the only two such 
countries that have within their borders 
substantial numbers of under-served 
people who are different ethnically from 
the controlling group.” 

One of the 13 articles published in the 
journal featured the AMA’s proposal, 
which would expand access to health 
care for all Americans by requiring 
employers to provide insurance for all 
full-time workers and their dependents. 
In turn, the federal government would 
provide tax breaks for the participating 
employers. 

For the medically uninsurable and 
others who are without insurance, the 
AMA proposes that the states be re- 
quired to set up risk pools. 

The AFL-CIO, through a series of 
regional hearings last year and in 
testimony before Congress, has docu- 
mented the mounting problems in the 
American health care system. 

More than 37 million Americans are 
without health insurance and another 50 
million are underinsured. Of those 37 
million without insurance, nearly 75 
percent are working Americans and 
their dependents. 


Health care campaign gains ground 
as AMA journal backs major reform 




Bush plan branded a fiscal disaster for cities, states 


By Sharolyn A. Rosier 

A state-by-state analysis of the White 
House block-grant funding plan for 
states shows the bankruptcy of the Bush 
administration’s “New Paradigm,” 
Service Employees President John 
Sweeney said. 

“The fiscal disasters now spreading 
through state capitols and city halls have 
already brought job freezes, massive 
layoffs of public employees and cuts in 
services,” Sweeney said. “The funding 
cuts that will ensue from Bush’s block- 
grant proposal further compound state 
and local budget woes.” 

The study, released at the convention 
of the SEIU’s Public Division, describes 
how the “New Paradigm” program 
will move decision-making and funding 
down to lower levels of government 
through a mega-block grant proposal 
consolidating $15 billion in funds to 
states. 

Under the Bush plan, states would 

Two IUE locals 
offer buyout 
bid for brewery 

T he employees of Pittsburgh Brewing 
Co. moved a step closer to becom- 
ing owners as they submitted a bid to 
buy the embattled company. 

Two Electronic Workers (IUE) 
locals, 22B and 144B, bid more than $8 
million to buy the company from 
Australian businessman Alan Bond. 
The locals entered a partnership with 
the current Pittsburgh Brewing manage- 
ment in the buyout effort. 

A group made up of former Pitts- 
burgh Brewing management submitted 
a bid, but has dropped out. 

Pittsburgh Brewing, the nation’s 
eighth largest brewery, employs about 
325 workers making Iron City and I.C. 
Light brands, as well as several other 
beers under contract. 

Bond Corp., which bought the com- 
pany in 1986 for $28.5 million, even- 
tually built an $8 billion worldwide em- 
pire of breweries and media companies. 
Last year, the firm was struggling under 
$4 billion of debt and Bond was forced 
out as head of the corporation. 

In anticipation of the buyout, the 
union agreed to only a one-year contract 
with Pittsburgh Brewing, said Jack 
Shea, organizing director for IUE 
District 1. 

Shea praised IUE President William 
By water and District 1 President Mike 
Giardino for their support and help in 
the buyout effort. 

The union is now raising the money 
to finance the deal, said Craig Liv- 
ingston, an official of the New York- 
based investment company, Working 
Equity, which is helping the locals put 
the plan together. 

Livingston said he expects the fund- 
ing will come from several sources, in- 
cluding banks, union pension funds and 
private investors. 

Under the ESOP, the unions would 
own 50 percent of the company and 
nominate four of the nine members of 
the board of directors. The current 
management and salaried employees 
would own 20 percent. 

The remaining 30 percent would be 
owned by outside investors. The outside 
investors and management would nom- 
inate four board members. The remain- 
ing board member would be selected by 
the other eight members. 

Livingston said he expects the deal 
could be completed by September. 


lose an estimated $27.3 billon in federal 
funds over the next five years. In ab- 
solute dollar terms, New York would be 
the biggest loser, forgoing more than $3 
billion over the five-year period, 
according to the study, which is based 
on statistics from Fiscal Planning Ser- 
vices, Inc., a Washington-based 
research firm. 

Six other states — California, Il- 
linois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania 
and Texas — each would lose at least 
$1 billion. 

“To make matters even worse, the 
Bush administration’s block grant initi- 
ative hits hardest at education, housing 
and human services programs aimed 
primarily at low and moderate income 
people,” Sweeney added. 

Among other programs, the block 
grant would consolidate state ad- 
ministrative expenses for Medicaid, 
AFDC and food stamps, as well as the 
social services block grant and the low- 



IATSE members 
accept N.Y. pact 

New York 

D espite some misgivings, the Theatri- 
cal Stage Employees ratified a new 
agreement that will save the slumping 
New York City movie business. 

In a mail ballot, members of IATSE 
Local 52 approved the pact by an 
801-449 vote, after rejecting it in an 
earlier vote by a 606-393 margin. 

After the first vote, major studio pro- 
ducers began boycotting New York as 
a site for their films. Union members 
accepted the contract “despite the ma- 
jor wage cuts it entails because we want 
to end the producers’ boycott of New 
York filmmaking and get everyone back 
to work,” said Local 52 President 
Walter Stocklin. 

The agreement cuts night and 
weekend compensation by about 30 per- 
cent, in exchange for improvements in 
health and pension benefits. Union 
members first rejected the settlement 
because of the concessions. 

FAA inspectors 
join MEBA division 

V oting “Union Yes,” the last group 
of unorganized employees of the 
Federal Aviation Administration 
became members of Professional Air- 
ways Systems Specialists (PASS), 
which is now a division of the Marine 
Engineers. 

With the addition of the 1,900 avia- 
tion safety inspectors, PASS now will 
represent 10,000 federal workers, in- 
cluding all of the FAA’s technical 
employees. The union said a remark- 
able 80 percent of eligible members in 
the new bargaining unit participated in 
the May 1 election and voted for PASS 
by 62 percent to 38 percent. 

In a subsequent referendum, the 
PASS membership voted overwhelm- 
ingly to become a division of 
MEBA/NMU District 1. The PASS 
division represents FAA pilots, 
engineers and technicians, as well as the 
safety inspectors. 


income home energy assistance pro- 
gram. Together these programs would 
lose $6.2 billion over five years, 
according to the report. 

The housing and urban development 
programs contained in the block grant 
would suffer the largest funding cuts, 
amounting to $9.9 billion over five years. 

With the economy showing no real 
signs of recovery, 17 of 20 states — 
including New York, California, Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania — that are bat- 
tling the largest budget deficits also 
would experience the highest absolute 
dollar loss under Bush’s block grant. 

The concept of lumping programs in- 
to a block grant is nothing new, the 
study noted. President Reagan made 
widespread use of block grants during 
his first year in office. Under the 
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 
1981, more than 80 categorical grant 
programs were consolidated into just 
nine block grants covering a wide range 

The National Association of Air Traf- 
fic Controllers, which represents FAA 
controllers in airport towers and other 
federal air control facilities, continues 
as a MEBA affiliate. 

With the addition of PASS, the 
restructured MEBA/NMU District 1 
now consists of four divisions: the 
Licensed Division, primarily repre- 
senting deck and engine officers serv- 
ing in the merchant marine, as well as 
municipal employees in Florida; the 
Unlicensed Division, representing 
unlicensed merchant seamen; the In- 
dustrial, Technical and Professional 
Employees Division, which represents 
on-shore employees at U.S. military in- 
stallations; and PASS. 

In announcing referendum results, 
MEBA President C.E. DeFries said the 
restructured division would attract other 
new bargaining units. The reorganiza- 
tion, DeFries said, “makes the union 
better able to serve all our members.” 

Howard Johannssen, president of the 
former affiliate, is the new chairman of 
the PASS Division. The ITPE Division 
is headed by John Conley, and the 
Unlicensed Division by Lou Parise. 
Gordon Ward heads the Licensed 
Division. 

Study reveals job 
bias is widespread 

B lacks still face significant discrimina- 
tion in employment, according to a 
study by the Urban Institute. 

The study, involving 476 sets of 
paired testers who applied for randomly 
selected jobs in Chicago and Washing- 
ton, D.C., found discrimination to be 
“entrenched and widespread,” the 
researchers said. Black applicants ex- 
perienced discriminatory practices 
almost three times as often as white 
applicants. 

“The lack of fairness in the hiring 
process helps explain the widening gap 
between white and black unemployment 
figures,” said Michael Fix, one of the 
authors of the study. 

The hiring audits, conducted in the 
summer of 1990, paired two young 
men — one black and one white —who 
were carefully matched on all 
characteristics that could affect a hiring 
decision and trained to act similarly 
before being sent out on interviews for 
entry-level jobs. 

In 20 percent of the audits, the white 
applicant was able to advance further 
through the hiring process than the 
equally qualified black applicant and 
was either asked to submit an applica- 
tion, received a formal interview or 


of domestic assistance service areas. 

Lumping block-grant programs con- 
tributed to the drop in funding from 
17.7 percent of city budgets in 1980 
down to 6.4 percent in 1990. Federal 
funds were down to 18 percent of total 
state expenditures in 1990, compared 
with 26 percent in 1980. 

While funding has decreased, the 
people behind the programs — public 
employees — have had to do more with 
less. According to the AFL-CIO Public 
Employee Department, 17 million pub- 
lic servants deliver government serv- 
ices. However, only 6.5 percent of the 
work force is employed to administer 
the more than $1.7 trillion in public 
programs provided by the federal, state 
and local governments. 

Convention delegates heard from 
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and 
Rep. William Gray (D-Pa.), and trav- 
eled to Capitol Hill to tell represen- 
tatives of their concerns. 


were offered the job. Black applicants 
advanced farther than white applicants 
in only 7 percent of the cases. 

The study found that the unequal 
treatment was more likely to occur in 
white-collar jobs or those involving 
direct client contact, rather than in blue- 
collar jobs. 

Current anti-discrimination efforts by 
the AFL-CIO and its allies are focused 
on supporting the Civil Rights and 
Women’s Equity in Employment Act of 
1991. 

The bill, H.R. 1, would clarify the 
intent of the law following several re- 
cent Supreme Court decisions that made 
it more difficult for individual workers 
to sue employers who discriminate in 
the workplace. The bill also would 
allow women and the disabled to sue 
employers for damages for intentional 
job bias. 

Coordinated bargaining 
by IUD gains contract 

A new three-year master agreement, 
bargained under the AFL-CIO In- 
dustrial Union Department’s coordi- 
nated bargaining program, was ratified 
by the more than 2,000 employees of 
Merck and Co., members of three 
unions — the Clothing and Textile 
Workers, Chemical Workers and Oil, 
Chemical and Atomic Workers. 

The new accord raises wages for the 
three job classification groups by a 
range of 1 1 to 15 percent over the term. 
All workers got a 5 percent increase the 
first year, with raises in the second and 
third years of 5 percent for Group I, 4 
percent for Group II and 3 percent for 
Group III. 

Pensions were improved from the 
current monthly level of $32 per year 
of service to $34 in the first year and 
to $35 in the second year. 

A new pension policy, effective July 
1 , 1991 , will pay joint and survivor an- 
nuity benefits amounting to 50 percent 
of the lump sum value of those benefits 
into the estates of unmarried workers. 

All life insurance benefit levels were 
increased by $5,000. Health care cov- 
erage now provides for automatic ap- 
proval of preventative medical tests 
such as pap smears and mammograms. 
A new prescription drug program was 
implemented with a $3 co-pay. 

The master agreement covers two 
plants each in Rahway, N.J., and 
Elkton, Va., and plants in Albany, 
Georgia and Danville, Pa. 

Employees also will be able to pocket 
50 percent of the savings if they self- 
audit medical bills and find errors. 








FOCUS 


Court helps hospital workers say Union Yes 


By Candice Johnson 

A fter years of fighting past roadblocks 
set up by hospital administrators, 
unions have the green light to organize 
hospital and health care workers. And 
they are wasting no time. 

Since last month’s unanimous Su- 
preme Court decision supporting the 
National Labor Relations Board’s rule 
establishing eight separate hospital 
bargaining units, AFL-CIO affiliates 
have been busy spreading the union 
message. 

In a variation on the old Mine 
Workers’ organizing slogan — “Pres- 
ident Roosevelt wants you to join the 
union’’ — the Service Employees are 
distributing leaflets reminding hospital 
workers that the nine Supreme Court 
justices want hospital workers to have 
a fair chance in union organizing 
campaigns. 

AFSCME’s United Nurses and the 
Teachers’ Federation of Nurses and 
Health Care Professionals also have ac- 
celerated their educational campaigns as 
they press to organize the estimated 
500,000 registered nurses and 140,000 
licensed practical and vocational nurses 
in the nation’s private hospitals who are 
eligible for union representation. 

At the union’s second National 
Nurses Congress, AFSCME President 
Gerald McEntee told the 200 delegates 
that “we’re putting the union on the line 
with money, marbles and chalk. Get 
ready for our own organizing version 
of Desert Storm.’’ 

The Retail, Wholesale and Depart- 
ment Store Union is expanding its 
organizing efforts among hospital and 
health care workers, President Lenore 
Miller said, adding to workers in New 
York, New Jersey, Virginia and other 
areas already represented by RWDSU. 

Other unions representing health care 
workers include the Food and Commer- 
cial Workers, Teamsters, Steelworkers, 
UAW, Machinists and the unaffiliated 
American Nurses Association. 

NLRB guidelines 

The NLRB has issued guidelines to 
its regional offices on implementation 
of the hospital unit rule. The eight units 
determined by the NLRB and affirmed 
by the Supreme Court are registered 
nurses, physicians, all other profes- 
sionals, technical employees, skilled 
maintenance employees, business 
clerical workers, all other non- 
professional employees, and guards. 

Excluded from the rule are nursing 
homes, psychiatric hospitals and 
rehabilitation hospitals. 

The ruling prompted the Steel- 
workers to take another look at some 
of their unsuccessful organizing cam- 
paigns, with plans to “go back into it, 
work with the interested people and 
carve out these units,’’ USWA Organiz- 
ing Director Bernie Hostein said. 

The Supreme Court decision fol- 
lowed years of judicial wrangling since 
the NLRB gave hospital and health care 
workers the right to join unions 17 years 
ago. The American Hospital Associa- 
tion, which challenged the NLRB’s 
1989 unit rule in court, has pressed for 
broader bargaining units that include 
dissimilar job classifications — a road- 
block against an orderly and timely vote 
on whether the workers want a union. 
The SEIU leaflets, which were dis- 


tributed at more than 100 hospitals in 
40 cities, provide information about the 
union and hospital workers’ rights 
under the recent court decision and in- 
vite workers to contact SEIU. 

SEIU President John Sweeney joined 
in leafleting at George Washington 
University Hospital in Washington, 
where he noted that the hospital in- 
dustry’s “shortsightedness’’ — which 
often has led to a shortage of hospital 
personnel — can now be corrected. 

“Hospital workers can now choose 
to be represented by a union and fight 
back against the poor wages and 
benefits, short staffing and lack of pro- 
tection from infectious diseases like 
AIDS and hepatitis B that are affecting 
patients as well as workers,” he added. 

At AFSCME’s nurses convention, 
Kathy Sackman, an AFSCME vice 
president and head of United Nurses 
Associations of California, stressed that 
“nurses are still exploited and they are 
still unorganized. Whatever im- 
provements they get in their work life 


Martha Tabor/ AFSCME 

they can thank those of us who are 
organized. They depend on our success 
for what they get.” 

The union also is scheduling regional 
conferences for nurses across the coun- 
try in 1991 and 1992. 

Delegates welcomed AFSCME’s 
newest nursing affiliate, the 
1 ,000-member Nurses Professional 
Organization, which represents nurses 
at hospitals in Louisville, Ky., and is 
now organizing nurses at several 
hospitals, including four owned by 
Humana. 

AFSCME also will be working to 
organize other hospital workers, in- 
cluding nurses aides and orderlies, 
maintenance workers, dietary employ- 
ees, clerical and technical workers, 
McEntee said. 

The Teachers’ health care affiliate, 
the Federation of Nurses and Health 
Care Professionals, is sending the 
message that “health care workers have 
certain undeniable rights,” including 
the right to organize. 


Martha Tabor/SEIU 

Several AFL-CIO unions have 
accelerated their hospital 
organizing efforts since the 
Supreme Court upheld the 
NLRB's eight-unit rule. 

Above, Service Employees 
outside a Washington, D.C., 
hospital talk union with 
health care workers. Left, 
AFSCME's Kathy Sackman 
discusses organizing plans 
with nurse delegates. 


At the union’s professional issues 
conference in Washington, delegates af- 
firmed a “bill of rights” for health care 
workers. 

Candice Owley, vice president of the 
40,000-member health professional 
unit, told delegates that “for too long, 
health care administrators have taken 
our work and our professional input for 
granted. We bear the brunt of efforts 
to control medical costs with greater 
patient-to-staff ratios and are called on 
to perform non-nursing duties like 
clerical tasks, housekeeping and other 
administrative responsibilities. 

“Our time needs to be devoted to pa- 
tient care. Our voice in the health care 
delivery system must be heard. Union- 
ization and collective bargaining are 
proven ways to accomplish these 
goals,” she said. 

The Supreme Court decision “has 
opened a window of opportunity” to 
help health care workers realize they 
have rights, Owley said, adding, “we 
intend to take full advantage of it.” 




Former political prisoner Ernesto Diaz tells a news con- 
ference about his 23 years in Cuban jails. John DeCon- 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

cini, chairman of the AFL-CIO Labor Committee for a 
Free Cuba, is at left, while an interpreter is at right. 


Diaz to continue fight for Cuban rights 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

A mong the first stops for Ernesto 
Diaz Rodriguez, released after 23 
years in Cuban jails, was a cemetery. 

Diaz visited the grave of the son of 
Mario Chanes de Armas, his fellow 
political prisoner who lost his son dur- 
ing his 30-year prison term. 

“They told him he could view his 
son’s body for about an hour but he had 
to wear the uniform of the common 
prisoner,’’ Diaz said. “He would not 
go against his principles, so he lost the 
chance to say goodbye to his son.” 
Diaz, addressing a news conference 
at the AFL-CIO headquarters May 15, 
described the physical pain and mental 
anguish suffered by political prisoners 
in Cuba. The regime of Fidel Castro 
was especially harsh on Diaz and 
Chanes, both trade unionists and the last 
of the historic plantados — political 
prisoners who refuse to be indoctrinated 
or to wear prison uniforms in defiance 
of a system they despise. 

Chanes, whose 30-year sentence ex- 
pires in July, is believed to be the 
longest-held political prisoner in the 
world. The AFL-CIO and its Labor 
Committee for a Free Cuba launched an 
intense international campaign last year 
to free the two men. 

Diaz, a transport worker and fisher- 
man before his imprisonment, was ac- 
companied to Washington by his young- 
est son, Danny, whom he saw for the 


first time when he arrived in Miami. 

In Washington, Diaz met with AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland and was 
the special guest at a meeting of the 
Free Cuba committee. He also went to 
Capitol Hill to meet with Sen. Bob 
Graham (D-Fla.) and Rep. Dante 
Fascell (D-Fla.). 

“Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez’s remark- 
able commitment and dedication helps 
strengthen the resolve of the AFL-CIO 
to support democracy and trade union 
rights for workers in Cuba and where- 
ever tyrants seek to suppress the human 
spirit,” declared Kirkland. 

“The AFL-CIO demands the libera- 
tion of Mario Chanes de Armas and of 
all political prisoners languishing in 
Cuban jails,” Kirkland said. “The 
American trade union movement stands 
with you in your struggle to create a 
free and democratic society that 
respects the dignity of every in- 
dividual.” 

Asked by a reporter if he felt his life 
had been wasted in prison, Diaz said, 
“I do not feel that I have lost 23 years. 
I gained 23 years of experience. I was 
fighting for Cuba’s freedom.” In 
prison, Diaz wrote poetry, which has 
inspired freedom fighters elsewhere. 

Diaz described to the Free Cuba com- 
mittee the horrendous conditions of his 
imprisonment. He said he was put in 
solitary confinement for seven years, 
clothed only in underwear. He wit- 


nessed prisoners being injected with 
fuel oil and gunned down in cold blood. 

“We have to continue pressure 
against Castro,” he said. “We need to 
restrict tourism. I am in favor of the 
United States’ policy to isolate Castro. 
All countries should isolate Castro.” 

The Free Cuba committee estimates 
that there are some 30,000 political 
prisoners in Cuban jails. It has pre- 
sented evidence of rights abuses in Cuba 
while calling for Castro to honor the Ju- 
ly release of Chanes. 

Chanes, who was the leader of the 
Cuban brewery workers, was im- 
prisoned not because he conspired 
against the government, but because 
Castro feared him, Diaz said. That is 
why Diaz believes Chanes will never 
leave Cuba. “His brother was schedul- 
ed to spend 20 years in jail and spent 
23 for political activity,” he said. 

Diaz’s immediate plans include 
traveling to Europe where he will meet 
with human rights groups and trade 
unionists. The trip, arranged by the 
federation’s American Institute for Free 
Labor Development, will include one 
of his three sons. Diaz’s sons are tak- 
ing advantage of this time, Danny said, 
to get to know their father “not only as 
a father, but as a friend as well.” 

“It was never like we never knew 
him,” explained Danny. “We always 
knew why he was in Cuba. It was like 
he was on an extended business trip.” 


UFCW presses Wal-Mart on foreign goods 


By James B. Parks 

T he Food and Commercial Workers 
have launched a campaign to per- 
suade Wal-Mart, the nation’s leading 
retailer, to stop selling garments made 
by children and to stop doing business 
with repressive regimes in foreign 
countries. 

Displaying boots and shoes manufac- 
tured in China, the presidents of two 
UFCW locals called news conferences 
to release letters to the governors of 
their respective states, asking for help 
in persuading Wal-Mart owner Sam 
Walton to stop selling the products. 

The UFCW Women’s Network, 
meanwhile, announced plans for a 
leafleting campaign to convince shop- 
pers not to buy clothing made by 
Bangladeshi children. 

Pat Scarcelli, a UFCW vice presi- 
dent, said two Wal-Mart vendors, 
Gitano and Capital Mercury Shirts, 
manufacture clothing at the Shams Gar- 
ment Factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 
which employs child labor. 

And the AFL-CIO’s Food and Allied 
Service Trades Department, which 
holds shares of Wal-Mart stock, took 
on the retail giant on the legal front, fil- 


ing a suit that charged the company’s 
1991 proxy statement misled share- 
holders by failing to disclose several 
key transactions. The suit was with- 
drawn after the company agreed to 
publicly disclose the transactions. 

In Little Rock, Ark., UFCW Local 
President Cecil W. Casey announced 
that he has asked Arkansas Gov. Bill 
Clinton to “talk some sense” into 
Walton, whose Wal-Mart headquarters 
is in Bentonville, Ark. 

Edward L. Collins, president of 
UFCW Local 1557, writing to Ten- 
nessee Gov. Ned McWherter, said that 
“Wal-Mart’s massive imports from 
Communist China are destroying the 
jobs of Tennessee workers.” 

Since Walton announced a “Buy 
American” program six years ago, 14 
of 22 of the private label boot and shoe 
brands Wal-Mart owns or uses are 
made in China. The company has im- 
ported more than 7.3 million pounds of 
the shoes from China alone. Since the 
June, 1989 massacre at Tiananmen 
Square, Wal-Mart’s rate of imports 
from China has doubled. 

“It is a shame, a sham, and a scam 
which must be ended,” Casey said. 


Wal-Mart’s shoe sales account for 3 
percent of its total sales, or about $1 
billion. Since 1985, approximately 
28,000 footwear workers have lost their 
jobs in the United States. 

Scarcelli of the UFCW Women’s 
Network noted that thousands of Bang- 
ladeshi children have helped to build the 
fortune of Walton, who has for several 
years been at the top of the Fortune 500 
list of the richest businessmen in the 
United States. 

“We will not let Sam Walton turn a 
blind eye to the demeaning and abusive 
practice of child labor in his worldwide 
search for the lowest priced garments 
which bring his company the highest 
profit,” Scarcelli said. 

The FAST suit charged that a relative 
of Sam Walton and director James 
Walton are owners of several shopping 
centers that include Wal-Mart stores in 
Oklahoma and Missouri. 

FAST also said that Wal-Mart did not 
disclose merchandise transactions with 
companies owned by Walton Enter- 
prises, a holding company owned by the 
Walton family. The company sent a 
revised proxy to its shareholders, 
thereby enabling FAST to drop the suit. 


BCTD looking 
to Kuwait on 
job prospects 

Georgine, Joyce visit 
war-torn emirate 

By Candice Johnson 

T wo AFL-CIO Executive Council 
members have traveled to Kuwait to 
assess job opportunities for American 
workers. 

Robert A. Georgine, who heads the 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department, and John T. Joyce, presi- 
dent of the Bricklayers, were scheduled 
to meet with Kuwaiti government of- 
ficials on employment prospects for 
building trades workers in the country’s 
reconstruction effort. They also sched- 
uled sessions with the Army Corps of 
Engineers and U.S. contractors with 
operations in the emirate. 

The trip followed an earlier meeting 
with Kuwait’s ambassador to the United 
States, who told Georgine that Kuwait’s 
council of ministers had adopted a set 
of principles stating that “materials, 
equipment and labor, including craft 
workers for work in Kuwait, should be 
procured from the United States and its 
key allies.” 

Meetings arranged 

The ambassador then arranged meet- 
ings with Kuwaiti officials to discuss the 
employment situation, including the 
number and kind of jobs that might be 
available to U.S. workers. 

While some Kuwaiti officials had said 
that U.S. contractors might receive 70 
percent to 75 percent of the work, the 
number of jobs available for U.S. 
building trades workers has not been 
determined. 

In the past, contractors have hired 
Pakistanis, Filipinos, Indians, Egyp- 
tians and other local workers on con- 
struction projects. 

In the United States, building trades 
unions, state employment service agen- 
cies and other government offices have 
been swamped by calls from workers 
seeking information about jobs in 
Kuwait. 

While the Labor Department is en- 
couraging employers to list job vacan- 
cies in the Gulf region with its employ- 
ment service network, only 257 jobs 
had been posted as of May 1, all in 
technical fields such as engineers, 
technicians and oil-well fire fighters. 

Job seekers also are being alerted to 
a series of scams that charge workers 
hefty fees for useless information about 
employment opportunities in the Mid- 
dle East. 

Lofty promises 

Classified ads have run in newspapers 
across the country, promising high 
wages for building trade workers who 
respond — and pay a fee of $95, or 
more. Other scams include the use of 
900-number lines, charging job-seekers 
as much as $20 per call for useless 
information. 

The Commerce Department has low- 
ered its estimate for rebuilding Kuwait 
from $60 billion to about $30 billion 
over the next five years, citing less 
damage to the country’s roads, 
buildings and infrastructure than was 
previously believed. 

Georgine and Joyce also planned a 
stop at the BCTD’s international office 
in Rome. From that office, the BCTD 
will coordinate its international training 
programs that include assistance to 
Poland and other Central and Eastern 
European countries. 





Greyhound liability cap does not deter ATU 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he Amalgamated Transit Union is 
continuing its efforts to resolve its 
strike against Greyhound Lines Inc., 
and said a bankruptcy court judge’s 
limitation of the bus carrier’s back pay 
liability is “not an insurmountable 
obstacle to settlement of the dispute.’’ 
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard 
Schmidt in Corpus Christi, Texas, ruled 
May 14 that Greyhound’s back pay ex- 
posure would be only $31.25 million, 
a 75 percent reduction from the $125 
million settlement the union is seeking 
in its unfair labor practice case before 
the National Labor Relations Board. 

ATU President James La Sala said 
that while he was “disappointed with 


the bankruptcy court’s final estimate,” 
the court “correctly saw fit to accept 
the potential size of the back pay claim 
as we do, totaling as much as $125 
million in back pay for Greyhound’s 
unlawful actions.” 

The judge said he was reducing the 
back pay figure by 75 percent based on 
his perception of the likelihood of the 
NLRB proving the unfair labor practice 
charges, the possibility of the settlement 
of the strike and Greyhound’s precari- 
ous financial situation. 

The bankruptcy judge’s ruling on 
back pay does not limit what the ATU 
members ultimately could receive 
through the NLRB, the union said. 

Greyhound filed for Chapter 1 1 bank- 


ruptcy in June 1990, three months after 
6,300 ATU members struck the carrier 
when it unilaterally implemented its 
final contract offer. 

Back pay and reinstatement of all 
striking drivers are the key issues to any 
out-of-court settlement that might be 
worked out between the carrier and the 
union. 

The unfair labor practice case was be- 
ing heard before NLRB administrative 
law judge Robert Giannasi in Milwau- 
kee. Following Schmidt’s ruling, Gian- 
nasi recessed the NLRB hearing until 
June 3 to see if the two sides can reach 
a settlement. One obstacle is manage- 
ment insistence on retaining the replace- 
ment drivers it hired during the strike. 


The union has representation on the 
creditors’ committee before the bank- 
ruptcy court, but “it seems unlikely that 
we could block a reorganization plan 
along the lines the company has pro- 
posed,” said ATU General Counsel 
Earle Putnam. 

Greyhound has proposed giving un- 
secured creditors a 95 -percent stake in 
the new company and $165 million in 
new notes, a move that would reduce 
its aggregate debt from about $631 
million to $460 million, of which about 
$150 million would be in secured bank 
debt. The remaining 5 percent of the 
new company’s equity would be con- 
tributed to an employee stock owner- 
ship plan. 


Lockout ended, UFCW shifts campaign to contract talks 



UFCW photo 


UFCW Local 7 member Dee Hill, center, pickets Albertson's during lockout. 


By James B. Parks 

A bout 70 members of the Food and 
Commercial Workers returned to 
work at a Clifton, Colo., warehouse 
after the company reversed its position 
and unconditionally ended a five-month 
lockout that included the hiring of 
replacement workers. 

The decision of Albertson’s Inc. to 
end the lockout came in the wake of an 
extensive corporate campaign by the 
union, which said it now will focus the 
campaign on getting a new contract with 
the highly profitable grocery chain. 

The National Labor Relations Board 
was preparing to seek an injunction 
against the company for its refusal to 
bargain in good faith, said Charles E. 
Mercer, president of UFCW Local 7. 

“Injunctions of this (Section lOj) 
nature are few and far between and are 
only sought by the NLRB in very severe 
cases of unfair labor practices,” said 
Mercer. 

The two sides have been negotiating 
on contracts for 72 Clifton warehouse 
workers and about 100 workers at Al- 
bertson’s Grand Junction, Colo., store. 
But those negotiations “are not really 
getting anywhere,” Mercer said. 

The major issue is contract language, 
not economics, Mercer said. The Clif- 
ton contract expired last year on Nov. 
5, and the Grand Junction contract ex- 
pired Aug. 11. 

The next major step in the corporate 
campaign was informational picketing 
planned for May 24 at the company’s 
stockholders’ meeting in Boise, Idaho. 

The Colorado AFL-CIO has called 
for a campaign against all Albertson’s 


stores in the state and the UFCW has 
set up a special task force to monitor 
other Albertson’s stores to check 
scheduling practices. 

The union has mailed a “fact book” 
to Albertsons’ board of directors high- 
lighting the company’s poor labor-re- 
lations record, including several NLRB 
charges stemming from the lockout. 


The campaign also includes informa- 
tional pickets at Albertson’s facilities, 
a multimedia advertising campaign and 
a lawsuit to compel arbitration, said 
Krissy Shearer, a spokeswoman for 
Local 7. 

The lockout began Nov. 13 after four 
unsuccessful negotiating sessions in 
which Albertson’s management refused 


to accept revised contract language 
covering layoff and recall by seniority, 
employee training, improved vacation, 
newborn and family leaves of absence, 
personal holidays and demotions. 

The language was equal to agree- 
ments Albertson’s had reached with 
Local 7 at other sites in Colorado. The 
local represents 22,000 workers in Col- 
orado and Wyoming. 

“There’s no reason the Clifton 
workers should be treated any differ- 
ently than other Colorado members of 
Local 7,” Mercer said. “If we allow 
this to happen ... it could happen any- 
where, and our members have fought 
too hard for better working conditions 
to let them be eroded.” 

Albertson’s chief negotiator ignored 
the union’s proposals and presented 
what he called his final offer that in- 
cluded only wages, health and welfare 
proposals and pension contributions. 

The proposal also stated that the of- 
fer was only good if acted on promptly 
and if the unions took no economic ac- 
tion such as boycott, adverse publicity 
or strike. 

On Nov. 7, the unions rejected the of- 
fer. Two days later they began running 
boycott ads on local media, but no 
picket line was established until the 
lockout. 

Replacement workers were let go 
when the lockout ended, but some will 
be rehired and become members of 
Local 7 after 30 days, Shearer said. 

Community support has been pivotal 
for the union, Mercer said. “The citi- 
zens of Grand Junction know the impor- 
tance of having workers treated fairly.” 


Texas workers’ compensation plan ruled unconstitutional 


By Sharolyn A. Rosier 

T he Texas Workers’ Compensation 
Act is unconstitutional because it 
denies workers the right to due process, 
equal protection and an open court pro- 
cedure, a Texas district court recently 
ruled. 

Joe D. Gunn, president of the Texas 
AFL-CIO, which had challenged the 
law in court, hailed the ruling as “a 
great victory for the workers of Texas. 
The law was regressive, punitive and 
patently unfair to injured workers.” 
The state federation on Dec. 21 had 
won a temporary injunction from an- 
other district court judge blocking the 
law from taking effect Jan. 1, but the 


state won a stay with an appeal to a 
higher court. 

The state has indicated that it will ap- 
peal the ruling, but Bill Whitehurst, one 
of the attorneys for the Texas AFL- 
CIO, said the ruling by 365th State 
District Court Judge Rey Perez bodes 
well for workers. 

“It’s very significant that this law has 
now been reviewed by two separate 
judges and has been found constitu- 
tionally deficient,” said Whitehurst, 
who is the former president of the Texas 
Bar Association. 

“Both courts have viewed this law as 
enacting an artificial and arbitrary 
scheme of benefits and dispute resolu- 


tion, a scheme which has no rational 
relation to the purposes of the workers’ 
compensation system,” Whitehurst 
said. 

The law, aimed at controlling in- 
surance premium costs that had risen 
150 percent since 1985, was supported 
by Texas employers. 

Gunn called the legal ruling a moral 
victory. “Workers have been absorb- 
ing the losses of a greedy insurance in- 
dustry, and paying for unsafe working 
conditions with bodily injuries because 
businesses are unwilling to spend some 
of their profits on safety and health.” 

The law replaced the concept of com- 
pensation based on disability or loss of 


wage-earning capacity. Instead, a sys- 
tem relying on the American Medical 
Association’s Guide to the Evaluation 
of Permanent Impairment is installed to 
determine impairment and supplemen- 
tal income benefits. It also set up ad- 
ministrative procedures for handling 
disputes and claims. 

In his ruling after a two- week trial, 
Perez called the law’s reliance on the 
AMA’s impairment guides arbitrary 
and unreasonable. The new law further 
failed to adequately address the issue of 
workplace safety, Perez said, noting 
that Texas has one of the nation’s worst 
safety records for industrial injuries and 
deaths. 





For CEOs, best 
of times in 
worst of times 


Unemployment rates by state, March 1991 

U.S. Average = 7.1 percent 



Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 


Easing inflation still docks workers 


W orkers lost more ground against 
creeping but persistent inflation 
during April even though the consumer 
price index for urban wage earners 
(CPI-W) edged up just 0.3 percent. 

Real weekly earnings declined 0.1 
percent in April and are down 2.2 per- 
cent over the last 12 months, the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics reported. Prices have 
risen 4.7 percent since April 1990, 
while average hourly wages increased 
3.3 percent and the average workweek 
shrank 0.9 percent. 

Although average hourly earnings 
rose 0.5 percent last month, the com- 
bination of the rise in retail prices and 
a 0.3-percent decline in weekly hours 
resulted in the drop in real weekly pay. 
Analysts attributed the shorter 
workweek to the continuing recession, 
which has yet to bottom out in most in- 
dustrial sectors. 

Revised data showed real weekly 
earnings unchanged in March, rather 
than the 0.2 percent gain that BLS 
posted a month ago. In current dollars, 
weekly pay for production and non- 
supervisory workers averaged $351.23, 
BLS data showed. 

Workers have been victimized by 
various stages of inflation throughout 
the 1980s, and their pay lag continues 


T he continuing recession trimmed the 
overall influx of foreign goods dur- 
ing March as the U.S. merchandise 
trade deficit eased to $4 billion. But the 
shortfall is still likely to reach $90 
billion for the year, according to some 
government estimates, about $10 billion 
below the 1990 total of $101 .7 billion. 

The Commerce Department said 
U.S. exports edged up by $0.4 billion 
to $34 billion, while imports declined 
by $1.5 billion to $38 billion. 

Even so, the deficit in manufactured 
goods accounted for more than 80 per- 
cent of the overall shortfall, with im- 
ports of $31.2 billion and exports of 
$27.9 billion. 

While the March deficit was the 


into the 1990s, AFL-CIO economist 
Anne Draper noted. Last month, real 
weekly earnings were 5.9 percent 
below April 1981, Draper said. 

Food prices surged 0.7 percent in 
April, stemming from a 4.8-percent 
jump in fruit and vegetable prices. The 
sharp rise was attributed to “supply 
shortages due to adverse weather and 
insect infestations,” BLS said. Overall 
food prices were up 4.2 percent from 
April 1990. 

Entertainment costs also advanced 
0.7 percent in April as the price of ad- 
mission to movies, shows, concerts and 
sporting events rose about 1.5 percent. 

Heating oil costs continued to de- 
cline, dropping 4.7 percent in April, but 
were still 5.4 percent higher than a year 
ago. Gas pump prices rose 0.2 percent 
and were 5.5 percent above April 1990. 

In other economic reports: 

• In March, 44 states recorded 
unemployment rates higher than a year 
ago as recession-driven layoffs pushed 
the national jobless rate from 5.4 per- 
cent to 7. 1 percent before seasonal ad- 
justment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
said. The adjusted national rate was 6.8 
percent in March. 

Twenty-nine states reported over-the- 
year increases in unemployment of 1 


smallest in nearly eight years, AFL- 
CIO economist Mark A. Anderson ex- 
pressed concern that spreading global 
economic weakness would cut demand 
for U.S. exports in coming months with 
the rising value of the dollar making 
American products more expensive. 

The United States posted a $3. 2-bil- 
lion surplus with Western Europe, but 
ran up a $3. 6-billion deficit with 
Japan — the largest with any single 
country. 

In trade with Mexico, the United 
States had a March deficit of only $65 
million with exports of $2.34 billion 
and imports of $2.41 billion. But more 
than half of the exports to Mexico are 
components that are assembled into 


percent or more, with Maine, Massa- 
chusetts, Michigan and Montana 
posting jumps of more than 3 percent. 

Nine states had jobless rates of 8 per- 
cent or higher, compared with just one 
state in March 1990: Michigan, 1 1 per- 
cent; Massachusetts and West Virginia, 
10.3; Maine, 8.9; Montana, 8.8; 
Mississippi, 8.7; Rhode Island and 
Alaska, 8.4; and Arkansas, 8.0. 

Significant job losses occurred in the 
goods-producing sector, BLS said. 
Three-quarters of the states reported 
over-the-year job losses in manufactur- 
ing, while three-fifths of the states 
posted declines in construction jobs. In- 
dustrialized states were hard hit by the 
layoffs — including Michigan, Massa- 
chusetts and New York, which reported 
a combined loss of 400,000 jobs from 
March 1990. 

• Industrial production inched up 
0. 1 percent in April, the first gain after 
six months of declines, the Federal 
Reserve reported. Despite the pickup to 
105.1 percent of the 1987 index base, 
April output was 3.4 percent below the 
year-ago month. 

In revised data, the Fed said in- 
dustrial production fell 0.6 percent in 
March, rather than the 0.3 percent drop 
reported earlier. 


products at border maquiladora plants 
for shipment back to the United States. 

After Japan, the largest deficit was 
with China at $501 million. Over the 
past two years, trade deficits with China 
surged sharply, hitting $10.4 billion in 
1990. Analysts estimated the deficit will 
top $15 billion this year — particularly 
if Congress renews most- favored-nation 
status for China. 

The AFL-CIO has strongly de- 
nounced President Bush’s “business-as- 
usual” policy with China. At its mid- 
winter meeting, the Executive Council 
called on Congress “to take the lead in 
reshaping American China policy to 
make it consistent with America’s tradi- 
tional support for the oppressed.” 


By John R. Oravec 

T he running recession doesn’t trouble 
America’s top corporate executives. 
Their paychecks keep getting fatter. 

Even throughout the last decade — 
in good years and bad — chief execu- 
tive officers of blue chip companies had 
the best of times with their soaring 
salaries, bonuses, stock options and 
golden parachutes. 

During the 1980s, the combined com- 
pensation of chief executive officers 
shot up 212 percent, according to a 
survey by Business Week magazine. 
That surge was four times faster than 
that of factory workers, whose pay rose 
a total of 53 percent — not enough to 
keep pace with inflation. 

The CEOs did quite well with their 
take-home pay in 1990 even when 
overall corporate profits were shrink- 
ing, a survey by Forbes magazine 
showed. 

At the start of the 1980s, the average 
annual pay of the CEO was 
$642,996 — or 42 times that of the 
rank-and-file factory worker, according 
to the Business Week survey. In 1990, 
when the CEO’s pay topped $1.9 mil- 
lion, the gap between the factory 
worker had grown to 85 times. 

The U.S. executive who makes 85 
times as much as the average worker is 
far ahead of other countries. In Japan, 
for example, the CEO makes 17 times 
the worker’s salary, and in Germany 
it’s 23 times. 

$1 million-a-year club 

Of the “Forbes 800” top corporate 
enterprises, 48 percent of the CEOs col- 
lected $1 million or more in compen- 
sation last year. That is up from 43 per- 
cent in 1989. Forbes noted that 161 
CEOs made more than $2 million last 
year, up from 1 19 in 1989. Meanwhile, 
35 top corporate bosses made more than 
$5 million last year and nine others 
raked in more than $10 million. 

Business Week notes that even 
though corporate profits fell 7 percent 
last year, the CEO’s average total com- 
pensation climbed 7 percent to 
$1,952,806. 

On top of the CEO heap was Stephen 
J. Ross of Time Warner Inc., who drew 
a $74. 9-million bonus on top of his 
salary and perks for total 1990 pay of 
$78.2 million. 

Then came Stephen M. Wolf of UAL 
Inc. and its concession-demanding 
United Airlines, with his paycheck of 
$18.3 million — about 1,200 times 
more than that of a UAL flight atten- 
dant, who has not had a pay raise in five 
years. 

Wolf was followed by Apple Com- 
puter Corp.’s John Sculley, who drew 
$16.7 million. Apple just announced it 
would fire 1 ,500 of its 15,000 employ- 
ees because of falling profits and has 
turned a deaf ear to community and 
Service Employee efforts to lift the 
lifestyles of some 1,500 Latino janitors 
in the Silicon Valley of California. 

With inflation of the 1980s factored 
in, AFL-CIO economists estimate that 
the CEO’s real compensation doubled 
over the decade while real pay for the 
factory worker declined 1.5 percent. 


Recession dampens demand for imports 







Newsmakers 


Mario Scarselletta Jr. was elected 
by the Paperworkers executive board to 
fill the unexpired term of the late 
Christopher Jackman as a Paper- 
workers vice president and regional 
director for New York and New Jersey. 
Scarselletta, 59, has served as a UPIU 
staff representative for the past 28 years 
in upstate New York. He served as 
president of UPIU Local 18 in Glen 
Falls, N.Y., from 1953-63. Jackman, 
the majority leader in the New Jersey 
Senate, died Jan. 28, after a two-year 
struggle with cancer. 

Eugene G. “Gene” Perry was 
elected by the Bakery, Confectionery 
and Tobacco Workers executive board 
to fill out the unexpired term of Vice 
President A1 Meyer, who died April 
15. Perry, 56, joined BCT Local 1 in 
Chicago in 1953, became an interna- 
tional representative assigned to 
southern California in 1966 and was 
named the technology representative for 
a six-state western region last year. 
Meyer, 67, had served as an interna- 
tional vice president since 1962. He had 
joined the union in 1942, moving up 
through the ranks of Local 37 to be 
elected financial secretary-treasurer in 
1956. 

AWARDS 

AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee, an AFL-CIO vice president, 
was awarded an honorary doctor of law 
degree from LaSalle University during 
its 128th commencement May 12 in 
Philadelphia. McEntee, a 1956 LaSalle 
graduate, said “I learned to love the 
labor movement at my father’s knee, 
but it was here at LaSalle with my men- 
tors and friends, that I came to grasp 
the essential morality of organized 
labor.” He became an organizer in 
1958 in Philadelphia and crafted the 


drive that unionized 75,000 state 
employees. 

Dorothy Shields, director of the 
AFL-CIO Department of Education, 
was awarded an honorary doctor of arts 
degree from Stonehill College in Mas- 
sachusetts on May 19. Shields, the first 
woman named to head a federation de- 
partment, has served in her current post 
since 1980; she joined the AFL-CIO 
staff in 1972. She was cited by the col- 
lege for her work in establishing the 
Labor/Higher Education Council, her 
assistance to unions in developing pro- 
grams to meet the needs of local 
membership and her direction of the 
“Labor in the Schools” program. In 
addition to her work in the education 
field, Shields also facilitates organized 
labor’s relations with the religious 
community. 

Edwin M. Schmidt, director of 
AFL-CIO Reproduction, Mailings and 
Subscriptions, was awarded the In- 
dustry Excellence Award by the U.S. 
Postal Service “in recognition of pro- 
gressive mailing practices in the non- 
profit/college and university area.” 
Schmidt, who recently completed 40 
years of service with the AFL-CIO, has 
been the postal adviser to affiliates and 
local unions for most of those years and 
represents the International Labor Press 
Association on the postal service’s 
Mailers Technical Advisory Com- 
mittee. 

Sam Fine, a former vice president of 
the Ladies’ Garment Workers, received 
the 1991 Community Achievement 
Award from the American Labor ORT 
(Organization for Rehabilitation 
through Training) chapter of the 
American ORT Federation at a May 21 
luncheon in New York City. Proceeds 
from the luncheon will establish a Sam 
Fine ORT Scholarship Fund to aid 
students at ORT schools throughout the 
world. Fine, who has served as 
manager of ILGWU Locals 20, 1-35, 
and 91-105, is now chairman of the ex- 
ecutive committee of the Fashion Crafts 
Educational Commission Advisory 
Board for the High School of Fashion 
Industries. ILGWU President Jay 
Mazur, last year’s winner of the Com- 
munity Service Award, served as the 
luncheon chairman. 


Joe Nigro, business agent of Sheet 
Metal Workers Local 17 in Boston, was 
awarded the AFL-CIO Building and 
Construction Trades Department’s 
President’s Award for his fundraising 
efforts on behalf of DAD’s Day (Dol- 
lars Against Diabetes). Nigro raised 
more than $120,000 in 1989 and 1990 
for the fund, which benefits the 
Diabetes Research Institute. BCTD 
Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Maloney 
presented the award. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Joyce 
Miller, president of the Coalition of 
Labor Union Women, announced the 
organization’s 1991 Hit or Ms. list, 
which blasts those whose actions or at- 
titudes smack of sexism and praises 
those who have made significant con- 
tributions on behalf of women. 

The 1991 Ms. awards went to: 

• The UAW for taking to the 
Supreme Court the Johnson Controls 
Inc. case where the employer had bar- 
red women of child-bearing age from 
jobs which exposed them to lead, in- 
stead of making the jobs safe for all 
workers. 

• Lois Robinson, a Jacksonville, 
Fla., shipyard employee who brought 
a case against her employer and two of 
her bosses on the grounds that the por- 
nography displayed in their offices con- 
stituted sexual harassment. 

• Delta Pride Catfish workers, a 
majority of whom are women, who over- 
came stiff odds to win a union contract. 

• New York State Supreme Court 
Judge Carmen Ciparick, who ruled a 
state program to provide low-income 
women with prenatal care violated their 
constitutional rights to due process, 
privacy and equal protection because it 
did not include provisions for safe, legal 
abortions. 

• Archbishop Rembert Weakland 
for supporting a more tolerant stance on 
pro-choice views within the Catholic 
Church. 

• Good Housekeeping, which in its 
New Traditionalist advertising cam- 
paign depicts working single mothers as 
responsible, concerned parents and 
valuable, productive members of the 
community. 

The Hits went to: 

• NBC News President Michael 


Gartner and New York Times editor 
Max Frankel for releasing the name of 
a woman who filed rape charges. 

• Victor Kiam, owner of the New 
England Patriots football team and 
Remington Products Inc., for calling 
journalist Lisa Olsen a “bitch”, after 
she accused Patriot team members of 
sexually harassing her and for continu- 
ing his attack even after being widely 
censured for his remarks. 

• President George Bush and those 
in Congress who have relentlessly sup- 
ported his pursuit of an anti-family 
domestic agenda. 

• Johnson Controls Inc. for barring 
women of child-bearing age from 
hazardous jobs. 

• WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News in 
New York City for firing Asian anchor- 
woman Kaity Tong, 40. She was 
replaced by a non- Asian, younger an- 
chor, which the award said showed the 
station’s insensitivity to both Asians and 
women. 

DEATHS 

Joseph A. Beavers, a retired first 
vice president of the Hotel Employees 
and Restaurant Employees and treas- 
urer of the 1963 March on Washington, 
died of cardiac arrest May 13 at Holy 
Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., 
after having suffered a stroke. He was 
69. 

Beavers was elected business repre- 
sentative of the hotel union in 1949 and 
first vice president in 1975, a post he 
held until retiring in 1986. He also serv- 
ed as a vice president of the Greater 
Washington AFL-CIO and the Mary- 
land/D. C. AFL-CIO, and was a 
founder and former president of the 
Washington chapter of the Negro 
American Labor Council. 

He was a founder and organizer of 
“Good Friday Workshops” which 
trained people for non-violent 
demonstrations to end segregation in 
Washington hotels. He was a former 
member of the executive committee and 
chairman of the Labor and Industry 
Committee of the NAACP, and had 
served as treasurer of the United Way, 
D.C. Chamber of Commerce and 
Northwest Settlement House. 



PUBLICATIONS 


Bargaining for Family Benefits: A 
Union Member’s Guide is a booklet 
published by the Coalition of Labor 
Union Women. Copies are $5 each or 
$4 each for 20 or more. To order 
copies, contact CLUW, 15 Union 
Square, New York, NY 10003. 


CONFERENCES 


On the Condition of Workers in 
1991: A Continuation of the Dialogue 
Between the Religious Community 
and Organized Labor, sponsored by 
the AFL-CIO in cooperation with a 
number of religious and civil rights 
groups, will be held June 10-11 at the 
Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. Conference 
topics are: Health Care Reform; Human 
Rights and the Maquiladora Industry; 
Plant Closings; and the Future of 
Women, Hispanic, Black and Asian 
Workers. For more information contact 
Michael Szpak, AFL-CIO, 202/637- 
5284. 

The Future of Labor-Management 
Innovation, sponsored by the National 


Planning Association, will be held June 
1 1-12 at The Hotel Washington. Donald 
F. Ephlin, NPA senior fellow and 
former UAW vice president, is among 
the participants. For more information, 
contact Jim Auerbach, NPA, 1424 16th 
Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, 
D.C. 20036. 

SEMINARS 

The Western Semester, a series of 
courses offered by the George Meany 
Center and the AFL-CIO Education 
Department, will begin during the 
month of June at the University of 
California at Berkeley’s Clark Kerr 
Campus. For more information, call the 
George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies at 301/431-6400. 

AUDIO 

Off-Center, the audio magazine of 
the George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies and the AFL-CIO Education 
Department, features segments on 
Workplace Literacy, the Center’s Col- 
lege Degree Program, Getting Along 
with the Media, and Interviews with 
musician John McCutcheon and Hun- 
garian Unionist Andras Korossy. A 
one-year subscription to Off-Center is 
$18, and individual tapes are $8. To 
order, contact Lynne Mingarelli at 
301/431-6400. 

TESTIMONY 

Copies of the following testimony are 


available from the AFL-CIO Pamphlet 
Division, Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006: 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
testified before the House Subcommit- 
tee on Labor-Management Relations on 
H.R. 5, a bill to amend the National 
Labor Relations Act to ban “perma- 
nent replacement” of strikers. 
Publication No. 91-05. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue testified before the 
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere 
and Peace Corps Affairs on the pro- 
posed U.S.-Mexico trade negotiations. 
No. 91-06. 

Diane Factor, AFL-CIO industrial 
hygienist, testified before the Health 
and Environment Subcommittee on in- 
door air quality. No. 91-14. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
testified before the Senate Finance 
Committee on national health care 
reform. No. 91-12. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue testified before the 
House Ways and Means Committee on 
the president’s request for extension of 
fast-track trade agreement imple- 
menting authority. No. 91-15. 

Rudy Oswald, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Economic Re- 
search, testified before the United States 
International Development Trade, 
Finance and Monetary Policy on the 
North American free trade agreement. 
No. 91-17. 


Educators focus 
on learning to do 
more with less . 

D eveloping the administrative and 
leadership skills of union leaders 
was the focus of the AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Education annual conference in 
Bal Harbour, Fla. 

The conference, held in conjunction 
with the University and College Labor 
Education Association, featured work- 
shops, speakers, and plenary sessions 
on topics ranging from workforce 
diversity to strikebreaker legislation and 
national health care reform. 

In light of growing international con- 
cerns, the delegates also received infor- 
mation on international labor education 
issues. Focus groups examined various 
issues in geographic areas such as 
Eastern Europe, Sweden, Africa, 
Canada and South America. 

The main focus for the meetings — 
developing union administrative and 
leadership skills — was designed to 
help national staff and local union offi- 
cers to provide maximum services to 
members in spite of dwindling re- 
sources. 

With the average American worker 
facing so many problems in the work- 
place, it is increasingly important for 
unions to work as efficiently and effec- 
tively as possible, the AFL-CIO 
Department of Education said. 





Labor gears up to assist new working families 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

C hanges at home and in the workplace 
over the last several generations pose 
many challenges for today’s families. 

Economic and demographic changes 
in recent years have reshaped the work 
force and the family, labor officials say. 
In most American families, both parents 
now work. More than two-thirds of all 
mothers with children work outside the 
home, while one of every four families 
is headed by a single parent. Also, the 
proportion of senior citizens in the 
population is expanding, and many 
workers must care for their parents as 
well as their children. 

In response to the special needs of 
working families, the AFL-CIO has 
established a working group on work 
and family issues to explore ways to 
gain improved child care, elder care and 
flexible benefits. 

The group, under the auspices of the 
federation’s Work and Family Commit- 
tee chaired by AFSCME President 
Gerald McEntee, focused its first 
meeting May 2 1 on the relationship be- 
tween work and family from the view- 
points of collective bargaining, legisla- 
tion and policy-making. It has begun to 
build a network for information ex- 
change and for a coordinated union ap- 
proach to achieving improvements. 

Mary Logan of the AFL-CIO Em- 
ployee Benefits Department highlighted 
the provisions of the child care laws 
enacted by Congress last October, the 
first comprehensive federal child care 
legislation passed since World War II. 

While the legislation included less 
money and placed a greater reliance on 
the tax code than would have been 
desirable, it was a small victory and 
helpful nonetheless, Logan said. 

An update on pending family and 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME and chair of the 
AFL-CIO Work and Family Committee, makes a point 
during the first meeting of the working group on work 
and family issues. Listening are (from left): Sandy Pope, 
executive director, Coalition of Labor Union Women; 
Joan Lombardi, specialist on early childhood and public 


policy; Mary Logan, assistant director of the AFL-CIO 
Department of Employee Benefits; Karen Ignagni, the 
federation's director of Employee Benefits; Joyce Long, 
women's coordinator of AFSCME's Women's Rights 
Department; and Leon Lynch, vice president of the 
Steelworkers. 


medical leave legislation was provided 
by Jane O’Grady of the AFL-CIO Leg- 
islative Department. The measure 
would guarantee workers up to 12 
weeks of unpaid leave without threat of 
loss of job after the birth or adoption 
of a child or in the event of a serious 
illness of an immediate family member 
or the worker. O’Grady said the legisla- 
tion — H.R. 2 and S. 5 — could come 
up on the Senate floor in June. 

Others discussed the need for greater 
availability and higher quality care for 
workers’ children and parents. Louise 
Caddell of the Communications Work- 
ers described negotiations with AT&T 
that resulted in the Work and Family 
Benefits Program. 

Caddell also focused on the need for 
flexible benefits, including such options 


as phased-in return from maternity 
leave, part-time work for employees 
with family-care needs and a provision 
for flexible work schedules. 

Judith Wineman of the Ladies’ Gar- 
ment Workers and Nancy True of the 
Teamsters outlined elder care issues for 
the group. Family members now pro- 
vide 80 percent of elder care, with only 
5 percent of the elderly — mainly those 
85 and older — cared for an institu- 
tional setting. 

Other elder care issues include refer- 
ral and resource services and flexible 
leave packages to take care of elderly 
relatives. 

McEntee said that labor and the AFL- 
CIO committee he chairs will push hard 
for new approaches and productive pro- 
grams to assist workers in the 1990s. 


Chicago students 
get labor lesson 

C hicago schoolchildren gained 
firsthand knowledge of 
workplace safety and health at a 
Workers Memorial Day In-School 
Program sponsored by the 
Chicago AFL-CIO, the University 
of Illinois, the National Safety 
Council and the Illinois Histori- 
cal Society. 

Nearly 40 students of the 7th 
and 8th grades at the Oliver Perry 
School participated in sessions on 
union history, with an emphasis 
on child labor and testimonials 
from workers in hazardous jobs. 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 11 
MAY 27, 1991 


INSIDE 

Labor’s allies amplify 
Solidarity message 

On Solidarity Day ’91, unionists and 
their allies in civil rights, religious, con- 
sumer, and other groups will send a 
strong message for workplace fairness. 


Airline unions ready 
for bumpy bargaining 

Airline unions are bracing for more 
tough bargaining, as financial tur- 
bulence and mismanagement rock some 
of the nation’s major carriers. 



Bush’s rosy claims 
belied by joblessness 

The Administration’s claim that the 
recession is ending rings hollow to the 
thousands of workers losing jobs, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland testifies. 


Louisiana tragedy tied 
to OSHA inaction 

O The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers 
condemn OSHA’s failure to protect 
petrochemical workers in the wake of 
yet another deadly explosion. 




Freed Cuban prisoner 
tells of Castro terror 

Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, a Cuban trade 
unionist released after 23 years in 
Castro’s jails, describes the plight of 
Cuban political prisoners. 

Recession or not, 
CEOs get big return 

In good years and bad, compensation 
for America’s CEOs only goes up, fat- 
tened by soaring salaries, bonuses, 
stock options and golden parachutes. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-11 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


5 / 27/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 





VOLUME 36, NUMBER 12 JUNE 10, 1991 


Health care, strikebreaker ban: tie that binds 



Steve Miller/Miller Photography 

Costumed IL6WU members join other unionists in rally for health care reform in New York City. 

Democrats’ health care plan is first step 


By Michael Byrne 

N early 70 percent of the 26,450 
strikers “permanently replaced” 
last year were striking over health care 
benefits as a major issue, according to 
a study by the AFL-CIO Department of 
Employee Benefits. 

This shocking finding points up the 
difficult situation in which union 
members find themselves. With em- 
ployee health benefit costs rising four 
times faster than employer contribu- 
tions, workers have had to take a stand. 
But that stand has cost them dearly 
against unscrupulous employers who 
have jumped at the opportunity to 
replace their unionized workforces. 

The confluence of these two major 
issues — the permanent replacement of 
striking workers and the failure of the 
U.S. health care system — provides a 
strong impetus to labor’s march on 
Washington Aug. 31, Solidarity Day 
’91. 

Labor and its allies will rally that day 
to call for changes in the systems that 
undercut the rights of workers, in- 
cluding the assault on freedom of 
association at home and abroad. 

The campaigns to ban striker replace- 
ments and to reform the nation’s health 
care system, along with labor’s plans 
for Solidarity Day ’91, will be dis- 
cussed in detail during a nationwide 
teleconference originating from AFL- 
CIO headquarters June 1 1 . The satellite 
briefing, set for 1 :30 to 3:30 p.m. EDT, 
will include an opportunity for par- 
ticipants at 19 regional sites to phone 
in questions that cannot be answered on 
site. 

Planned downlink sites include Albu- 
querque, N.M.; Anaheim, Calif.; 
Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Baltimore; 
Chicago; Cincinnati; Detroit; Denver; 
Farmington, Conn.; Harrisburg, Pa.; 
Idaho Falls, Idaho; Nashville, Tenn.; 
Portland, Ore.; Raleigh, N.C.; St. 
Louis; St. Paul, Minn.; Syracuse, 
N.Y.; and Tulsa, Okla. 

Continued on Page 8 


By John R. Oravec 

N ational health care legislation 
introduced by the Senate leadership 
is seen by the AFL-CIO as a major step 
toward reforming the existing system, 
which is afflicted with runaway costs 
while excluding 37 million persons 
from coverage. 

Democratic leaders said the measure, 
titled “Health America,” would assure 
every American basic health insurance 
coverage, either through employer- 
provided plans or through a federal- 
state public insurance program called 
“AmeriCare,” which also would insure 
the unemployed. 


Noting that the proposal has not yet 
been fully analyzed, the federation said 
in a statement: “We applaud this Senate 
effort to provide access for all 
Americans, assure quality of service, 
and develop a workable structure to 
secure cost containment.” 

To be effective, the federation 
stressed, the cost-containment features 
of the package must go beyond volun- 
tary compliance. 

“We hope this proposal will energize 
the Bush administration and others to 
join in enacting needed health care 
reform before the adjournment of the 
102nd Congress,” the AFL-CIO said. 


Addressing the issue of cost contain- 
ment, Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell (D-Maine) said a key element 
of the legislation is the establishment of 
a federal expenditure board and state in- 
surance/purchasing consortia, which 
would save nearly $80 billion in costs 
over five years. 

Joining Mitchell in unveiling the 
HealthAmerica plan were Sens. Edward 
Kennedy (D-Mass.), Jay Rockefeller 
(D-W.Va.) and Donald Riegle 
(D-Mich.) 

Federation Vice President John J. 
Sweeney, chairman of the AFL-CIO 

Continued on Page 8 


Civil rights passage gives Bush chance to ‘do right thing’ 


By James B. Parks 

L abor-endorsed civil rights legislation 
moved a step closer to becoming law 
when the House passed its version of 
the bill, which would reverse recent 
Supreme Court decisions that narrowed 
the remedies available to victims of job 
discrimination. 

The AFL-CIO applauded the bill’s 
passage. The “vote should prove that 
it’s good politics to do the right thing. 
The nation should be spared any fresh 
attempts at racial division. 

“We urge the Senate to follow the 
House’s lead and give the president a 
chance to put equal opportunity back on 


track by signing the bill,” the federa- 
tion’s statement said. 

“The concerns of the labor move- 
ment and the civil rights movement 
have long been intertwined. We are 
united in our fight for justice for all peo- 
ple,” said AFL-CIO Vice President 
Lenore Miller. 

“Today’s vote represents an impor- 
tant step in that struggle . . . We call on 
the Senate to follow the House and on 
President Bush to withdraw the false 
issue of quotas and support the bill,” 
said Miller, who is president of the 
Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union, and chair of the labor 


federation’s Civil Rights Committee. 

The bill was passed by a 273-158 
margin. Twenty-two Republicans 
bolted from Bush and voted with 250 
Democrats and one Independent in sup- 
port of the bill. 

House Speaker Thomas Foley CD- 
Wash. ) predicted the final version of the 
bill, yet to be worked out with the 
Senate, would receive enough votes to 
override an expected presidential veto. 

“This is the first quarter,” Foley 
said. “We are very happy at the results 
of the vote.” 

Civil rights leaders agreed. Benjamin 
Hooks, executive director of the 


NAACP, said the “vote clearly in- 
dicates the majority of Congress 
and ... the American people want this 
measure passed. We hope it becomes 
law. 

“Our efforts will now move to the 
Senate where we will endeavor to 
secure a wide margin of passage,” 
Hooks said. 

“This was a very strong vote that 
continues the momentum of the past few 
weeks” for passage of the bill, said 
Ralph Neas, executive director of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 
which includes some 170 civil rights, 
Continued on Page 3 






Ravenswood bars 08HA inspectors from plant 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

R avenswood Aluminum Corp., which 
has locked out and sought to “per- 
manently replace” 1,700 Steelworkers, 
has come under congressional scrutiny 
for its safety record after the company 
refused entry to inspectors from the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Adminis- 
tration. 

Rep. Joseph M. Gaydos (D-Pa.), 
chairman of the health and safety sub- 
committee of the House Committee on 
Education and Labor, asked OSHA 
Director Gefard Scanned to supply his 
subcommittee with inspection records 
of the West Virginia plant from Feb. 7, 
1989, to the present. 

RAC officials turned away two 
OSHA inspectors on May 23. The in- 
spectors were armed with warrants to 
investigate the plant soon after two 
workers were injured. One of the 
workers had to be evacuated by 
emergency helicopter to Charleston 
Hospital. 


Jim Bowen, director of USWA Dis- 
trict 23, said the Steelworkers “applaud 
the congressional committee’s action” 
and termed it an “absolute outrage” 
that the company refused to honor the 
federal magistrate’s warrant. 

“If any corporation in America can 
high-handedly deny entry to officials of 
OSHA who have a legal warrant requir- 
ing that access be granted, then every 
American worker’s right to a safe job 
is in jeopardy,” Bowen said. 

“The federal government can’t wait 
until RAC itself decides when or if it 
will comply with our federal laws,” 
said Bowen. “They’ve got to take im- 
mediate action if they are to have any 
credibility with working people in this 
country.” 

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) also 
called for an investigation following 
RAC’s “incredible” action in rebuff- 
ing federal safety inspectors. During an 
informal meeting with several wives of 
the company’s union workers, Rocke- 


feller promised to look into the 
situation. 

Part of the seven-month-old dispute 
stems from disagreements over unsafe 
working conditions. The 1,700 workers 
were locked out in November of last 
year and replaced with about 900 scabs 
the company said were “permanent re- 
placements.” 

In a short press release, RAC blamed 
the Steelworkers for initiating the com- 
plaint, saying it refused to permit the 
OSHA inspection because “the com- 
plaint appears to have been filed by peo- 
ple who have no current knowledge of 
conditions in the plant. RAC will not 
be a party to the manipulation of a 
government agency.” 

Said Steelworkers Local 5668 Presi- 
dent Dan Stidham, “I think they have 
something to hide. Had they been 
sincere about safety at the plant, I 
believe they would have allowed OSHA 
in there to see the conditions at the 
plant.” 


Since new owners purchased the plant 
two years ago, five RAC workers have 
died. The union says the deaths gave the 
company the worst record of fatal in- 
juries of any U.S. plant in the metal in- 
dustry during that time period. 

“Just from looking at the injuries we 
know about since the November lock- 
out, safety must be a joke,” observed 
Local 5668 Vice President Bill Doyle, 
who chairs the local’s safety and health 
committee. “Two people have suffered 
electrical injuries, one lost his leg and 
then two more were seriously injured 
at the very time the warrant was being 
served.” 

Meanwhile, union members are con- 
tinuing their efforts to publicize the 
plight of the locked-out workers, in- 
cluding publicizing the companies 
which use aluminum from RAC. Mem- 
bers also have been traveling through- 
out the country distributing handbills 
describing the safety and health condi- 
tions at the plant. 


ILGWU pattern agreement 
affects more than 100,000 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Ladies’ Garment Workers 
negotiated new contracts with nearly 
all major outerwear employer associa- 
tions, with a pattern settlement set in 
talks with dress, coat, suit and rainwear 
employers. 

In the first round of agreements 
reached, 35,000 ILGWU members in 
New York, New Jersey and Pennsyl- 
vania will receive a 12-percent wage in- 
crease over the three-year term, as well 
as increases in employer health and 
welfare contributions and other 
benefits. 

Negotiating the package were 
ILGWU Local 89-22-1 and the Dress- 
makers’ Joint Council with nine 
associations representing outerwear 
employers. 

Settlements with employers in the 
blouse and sportswear industry, cover- 
ing 55,000 workers, provided the same 
wage and benefit improvements. Those 
agreements were negotiated between 
ILGWU Local 23-25 and nine employer 
associations, and between three 
ILGWU affiliates and the Atlantic Ap- 
parel Contractors Association. 

More than 100,000 union members 
at 2,000 companies would be affected 
by the conclusion of the new agree- 
ments. Twelve ILGWU unions and 
councils have been bargaining with 47 
separate manufacturer associations 
since March. While most of the 
agreements have been ratified, negotia- 
tions with garment trucking firms and 


a few other groups are continuing. 

Throughout negotiations, garment 
workers stressed that “we are one in 
’91 ,” and wore buttons and signed peti- 
tions to show their support for ILGWU 
negotiators. Health benefits and a fair 
wage increase topped union members’ 
concerns. 

ILGWU President Jay Mazur said the 
agreements were “fair and construc- 
tive, a pattern for the industry to 
follow.” 

Under the settlement, employer con- 
tributions to the medical plan will in- 
crease by 1.5 percent of payroll over 
the contract term, with contributions to 
the drug plan increasing by 1 percent 
of payroll. 

The agreement also provides for ex- 
tended family leave for workers to care 
for sick family members, breaks for 
video display terminal operators and 
employer funding (based on a percen- 
tage of total payroll) for union- 
management activities under the Coun- 
cil for American Fashion. 

Mazur said the cooperative program 
was a step toward “genuine partner- 
ship” that could improve productivity 
and working conditions and enhance 
“the strengths of the domestic apparel 
manufacturing industry . ’ ’ 

Joint activities will include the 
development of child care programs, 
establishment of ergonomic work sta- 
tions, skills training and education and 
initiatives to promote domestic industry 
and products. 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

The Solidarity Day '91 poster is fresh off the press, as Graphic Communica- 
tions Union member George Holt checks the color guage. More than 90,000 
posters, available in two sizes, have been mailed out. For information on 
ordering the poster, displayed on Pages 6-7 of the News, contact your state 
or local AFL-CIOs, or call 1-800-LABOR 91. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics/layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 12 ®<a sfSS fts> 3 MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1991 


| .jjOjCgjMU^, I 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 


Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





AFL-CIO: No trade favors for China 


By Michael Byrne 

T he AFL-CIO called on Congress to 
revoke China’s most-favored-nation 
trading status because it “contributes 
directly to the Chinese government’s 
brutal repression of China’s working 
men, women and children.’’ 

President Bush has announced that he 
plans to again waive the requirements 
of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 to 
afford China the MFN status. 

“The AFL-CIO shares in the presi- 
dent’s wish to positively influence the 
policies of China,’’ AFL-CIO Research 
Director Rudy Oswald told a House 
Foreign Affairs subcommittee, “but 
believes that simple morality prohibits 
rewarding oppression . ’ ’ 

The Trade Act denies the privileges 
of MFN to “nonmarket’’ countries that 
prohibit freedom of emigration, but 
allows the president to waive that re- 
quirement for a year if there is evidence 
the country will move toward freedom 
of emigration. China not only does not 
permit its citizens to leave the country, 
but also maintains strict controls on the 
movement of people within the country. 

“It is abundantly clear that, through- 
out the decade of the 1980s, including 
the two years since the tragedy of 
Tiananmen Square, the policies of the 
Chinese government have remained un- 
changed,’’ Oswald said. “The peren- 
nial need for a waiver is also evidence 
of the unreformed totalitarian character 
of the Beijing regime.” 

Congress can pass legislation that 
would overturn Bush’s action, or tie any 
future renewal of the trade status to 
progress on human rights. It has 90 days 
to act, subject to veto by Bush. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Jack 
Sheinkman, president of the Clothing 
and Textile Workers, said “the presi- 
dent is wrong to say that the United 
States cannot have an impact on the 
Chinese leaders by the trade policy our 
nation practices,” citing the effec- 
tiveness of boycott activity against 
South Africa. Allowing MFN for 



Rudy Oswald 


China, he said, not only supports the 
repressive regime, but runs the risk of 
allowing “goods onto our shores that 
were made by prison labor.” 

The Chinese government operates a 
vast prison gulag, where as many as 20 
million Chinese prisoners make prod- 
ucts for domestic and foreign markets, 
Oswald said. He quoted a report by the 
human rights organization Asia Watch 
“that it is common practice in China for 
labor reform camp prisoners to be for- 
cibly and indefinitely retained as 
workers after they have completed their 
sentences so that export-oriented pro- 
ductivity will not be diminished by their 
departure from the (prisons).” 
Workers who dare to seek freedom 
of association are brutalized in this 
prison system, said Oswald, who cited 
the examples of Han Dongfang, a leader 
of the Beijing Autonomous Workers 


Federation who was released in ill 
health in May after two years of deten- 
tion, and Wei Jingsheng, a worker 
whose advocacy of democracy netted 
him a 15-year prison term, with three 
years left to serve. 

“For us in the AFL-CIO, the concern 
for human rights is personalized in the 
struggles of two young workers in 
China, Han Dongfang and Wei Jing- 
sheng — both persecuted for the cause 
of human freedom,” Oswald said. “We 
deem it wholly improper for our gov- 
ernment to dignify as ‘Most Favored’ 
a regime that brutalizes the likes of Han 
Dongfang and Wei Jingsheng simply 
for wanting democracy.” 

Asia Watch, in “Two Years After 
Tiananmen,” a 150-page report re- 
leased May 30, noted that “the 
authorities’ harshest treatment has 
generally been reserved for workers 
who participated in the pro-democracy 
movement. Held in the worst of prison 
conditions, they have also received the 
heaviest sentences; all but four of the 
50 officially announced judicial execu- 
tions arising from the June 1989 events 
have been of workers, and the rest were 
farmers.” 

The prison labor contributes to the 
burgeoning U.S. trade deficit with 
China, which was the third largest in 
1990, and is expected to be the second 
largest this year under MFN, Oswald 
said. MFN “only serves the interests 
of the Communist Party elite and a 
small group of American and other 
businessmen.” 

“China is a safe haven for employers 
who want to escape not just unions, but 
health and safety controls, child labor 
restrictions and laws prohibiting dis- 
crimination based on race, age, sex or 
creed,” Oswald said. 

He warned that heavy commercial re- 
lations with a country like China can 
become addictive to the point where we 
find ourselves rationalizing a “cozy 
relationship with a dictatorial re- 
gime. . . .It is time to say no.” 



F ederal nuclear facilities, among the 
worst polluters and offenders of the 
nation’s environmental safety laws, 
should be required to comply with both 
federal and state hazardous waste laws, 
the AFL-CIO said in supporting a 
House bill, H.R. 2164. 

“The AFL-CIO believes that H.R. 
2164 is clearly in the public interest and 
an important component in protecting 
the environmental health of workers 
and their communities,” said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. 

Nuclear facilities operated by the 
Department of Energy employ some 
80,000 workers (many of them 
members of the Electrical Workers, 
Electronic Workers, Operating Engi- 
neers, Laborers, Oil, Chemical and 
Atomic Workers and other unions) who 
have been put at risk, along with their 
communities, because of serious safety 
and health violations. 

DOE also operates, in combination 
with the Defense Department, some 
5,000 hazardous waste sites awaiting 
cleanup. 

The government has claimed “sov- 
ereign immunity” from environmental 
regulations, including the Resource 
Conservation and Recovery Act. The 
House legislation would subject the 
federal facilities to the same enforce- 
ment sanctions, including civil penal- 
ties, that apply to state and local govern- 
ments and private companies. 

The bill was reported by the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee and 
has a companion bill in the Senate. The 
administration is opposed to the legis- 
lation, but claims to support its objec- 
tives. 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 


Rights bill would reverse recent court rulings 


Continued from Page 1 

consumer, religion and labor groups. 

“The president’s policies and rheto- 
ric on this legislation has been absolute- 
ly reprehensible. He has used the big 
lie technique of calling it a quota bill 
when it expressly forbids quotas,” Neas 
said. “The president should be ashamed 
of himself. ’ ’ 

Several moderate Republican sen- 
ators have introduced a civil rights bill 
that comes closer to meeting the needs 
of women and minorities than does the 
administration’s bill. 

Foley said he had been assured by 
Senate Majority Leader George Mitch- 
ell (D-Maine) that the Senate would 
begin consideration promptly. The 
House speaker said he still held out 
hope of agreeing on a version Bush 
would sign. 

If the issue returns to the House this 
year, Foley said, supporters also will 
gain the votes of one Democrat who 
was absent and of the Democratic win- 
ner of a recent special election in 
Massachusetts. 

The bill, known as the Civil Rights 
and Women’s Equity in Employment 


Act of 1991 , clarifies the intent of law 
following several recent Supreme Court 
decisions that made it more difficult for 
individual workers to sue employers 
who discriminate in the workplace. The 
bill allows women, the disabled and 

“The president . . . 
has used the big-lie 
technique of calling 
it a quota bill. He 
should be ashamed 
of himself ” 

— Ralph Neas 
Leadership Conference on 
Civil Rights 


religious minorities to sue employers 
for damages for intentional job bias. 

Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas), who 
sponsored the final version of the bill 
along with Rep. Hamilton Fish (R- 
N.Y), said the measure simply restores 
“what had been the law, what had been 
operating for the last 25 years when the 
Supreme Court decided to change in 


mid-course.” 

The bill’s passage followed the 
defeat, on a 277-152 vote, of an 
administration-backed alternative . 

The Brooks-Fish bill, for the first 
time, allows punitive damages for in- 
tentional discrimination based on sex, 
religion, national origin or disability. It 
sets a $150,000 limit on the amount of 
those damages. 

In cases of unintentional discrimina- 
tion, the victim must cite a particular 
employment practice that caused a dis- 
criminatory result. After that, the 
employer must prove that the practice 
has a “significant and manifest” rela- 
tionship to effective job performance. 

The bill explicitly states that quotas 
are illegal hiring practices, something 
advocates said already had been estab- 
lished in court rulings. 

The bill further outlaws the practice 
of race norming or scoring the results 
of aptitude tests separately for whites, 
blacks and Hispanics. It also prohibits 
the use of biased employment tests that 
fail to predict job performance equally 
well regardless of race, religion, sex or 
national origin. 


TIMBER JOBS — The Forests and 
Families Protection Act, H.R. 2463, 
would balance economic stability and 
environmental protection in the Pacific 
Northwest, the AFL-CIO testified. The 
bill is one of several aimed at solving 
the old growth and spotted owl con- 
troversies. “By any standard, the im- 
pact of some of these proposals on 
employment in the region would be 
catastrophic,” AFL-CIO Legislative 
Representative Jay Power told the 
House Forests, Family Farm and 
Energy Subcommittee. 

HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT -The 
$ 105-billion, five-year reauthorization 
for federal highway and mass transit 
programs is expected on the Senate 
floor in early June. The legislation 
moves away from traditional funding 
with the creation of Metropolitan Plan- 
ning Organizations (MPOs), which 
would have discretion over how the 
highway and mass transit funds are 
spent. The AFL-CIO believes the role 
of the MPOs needs further clarification 
and is also concerned that there is no 
worker representation in the MPO 
structure. The House is expected to act 
on its own version of the bill and an ad- 
ministration version later. 






Court rulings boost agency fees, NFL free agency 


By James B. Parks 

T he U.S. Supreme Court once again 
rebuffed a Right-to-Work Commit- 
tee effort to invalidate agency shop con- 
tracts and negate the right to charge fees 
to those non-members covered by those 
contracts who benefit from the union’s 
activities. 

In Lehnert vs. Ferris Faculty Asso- 
ciation, the Supreme Court upheld the 
use of agency fees to support the ac- 
tivities of state and national unions. At 
the same time, the court ruled, based 
on First Amendment considerations, 
that public employee union agency fees 
cannot be used for lobbying and public 
relations activities that go beyond ef- 
forts to ratify or implement a collective 
bargaining agreement. 

As in earlier decisions on the use of 
agency fees by unions representing 
workers covered by the Railway Labor 
Act and the National Labor Relations 
Act, the limits on the use of agency fees 
pertain only if the non-member files an 
objection to paying the full agency fee. 

Fees to parent unions 

“The most important issue was 
whether local bargaining units can 
charge for the expenses of state and na- 
tional parent unions,” said Robert 
Chanin, the attorney who argued the 
case for the National Education Asso- 
ciation. It would have caused difficulty 
“if that had gone the other way,” he 
said. 

Public employee unions already were 
separating out much of the lobbying ex- 


penses of objecting non-members under 
the court’s 1977 ruling in Abood vs. 
Detroit Board of Education, Chanin 
said. 

The ruling established a three-part 
formula for determining what union 
activities may be charged to non- 
members. The activities must be ger- 
mane to collective bargaining; be in the 
interest of promoting labor peace and 
of preventing “free riders” who benefit 
from the union’s efforts without paying 
for its services; and must not signif- 
icantly burden free speech. 

Using that formula, the court dis- 
allowed charging non-members for 
NEA public relations efforts to enhance 
the reputation of the teaching profes- 
sion. But union activities to further 
teachers’ professional development are 
chargeable, for example, the court said. 

In another major labor case, two 
federal judges have voided the National 
Football League’s antitrust exemption, 
a step toward free agency for the 
players. 

In Minneapolis, Judge David M. 
Doty ruled that, because the NFL 
Players Association decided in Novem- 
ber 1989 to renounce its status as the 
players’ collective bargaining agent, no 
“ongoing collective bargaining rela- 
tionship exists” and the antitrust ex- 
emption ended. 

“You couldn’t ask for anything bet- 
ter. This is huge,” said NFLPA Ex- 
ecutive Director Gene Upshaw. 

The ruling follows a series of court 
battles, beginning when the union filed 


suit against the NFL in 1987 following 
the players’ return without a contract 
after a 24-day strike. 

Doty held that because the union is 
no longer handling grievances for the 
players, it has abandoned its collective 
bargaining relationship with the league. 
Citing that relationship, the U.S. Court 
of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had 
overruled an earlier decision that ended 
the exemption. 

NFLPA action vindicated 

The decision “shows we’re right in 
what we did in 1989,” Upshaw said, 
“and followed exactly” what the ap- 
peals court said “we had to do.” Other 
pro sports, particularly baseball, allow 
athletes more freedom as free agents 
than the football owners. 

The NFL said it plans to appeal the 
ruling. If the appeals court does not 
agree to hear the case, then a suit filed 
by New York Jets running back Free- 
man McNeil challenging the free 
agency rule will go ahead. 

If the appeals court hears the case, its 
ruling could be appealed to the Supreme 
Court. 

In a related case, Judge Royce C. 
Lamberth of Washington, D.C., ruled 
that the NFL’s antitrust exemption 
ended with the expiration of the last col- 
lective bargaining agreement in 1987. 

The NFLPA hailed Lamberth ’s rul- 
ing as a big victory for the players. If 
it stands, the ruling could prevent the 
NFL from imposing a wage scale as it 
has threatened to do, Upshaw said. It 


also could end the college draft, which 
the NFLPA contends violates antitrust 
laws and limits players’ salaries. 

In other court news: 

• A settlement has been reached in 
the Laborers’ eight-year battle against 
a National Western Life Insurance Co. 
pension plan that was used by non- 
union contractors to undercut union 
competitors on federal and state funded 
construction projects. 

The terms of the settlement were con- 
fidential, but more than 7,000 union 
members will receive a check for their 
share of the settlement. The Builders, 
Contractors, and Employees Retirement 
Trust and Pension Plan operated by Na- 
tional Western will be terminated. 

• The Supreme Court has agreed to 
resolve whether an employer has a right 
to make unilateral changes in benefits 
and working conditions once it provides 
the union with notice and an opportunity 
to respond. 

The case, National Labor Relations 
Board vs. Nabors Trailers Inc., gives 
the court a chance to endorse the 
NLRB’s view that Taft-Hartley bars 
employers from making changes until 
the parties have bargained to an 
impasse. 

• The Supreme Court also let stand 
a decision by the NLRB that labor law 
does not require ballots for union elec- 
tions to be printed in foreign languages 
for non-English speaking workers. 

The board had ruled that English-only 
ballots are permissible if pre-election 
notices are translated for all workers. 



AFSCME photo 


CBTU President William Lucy addresses the organization's 20th anniversary 
convention in Chicago. 


CBTU at 20 
looks forward 
to more gains 

Chicago 

M ore than 2,000 members of the 
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists 
celebrated the group’s 20th anniversary 
in the city where it was born, emphasiz- 
ing the need to keep moving black trade 
unionism forward in the 1990s. 

“This convention is not a trip down 
memory lane,” said William Lucy, 
secretary-treasurer of AFSCME and 
CBTU president. “It is a springboard 
for black trade unionists to have an im- 
pact on the national agenda. 

“CBTU members — in their union 
halls, their churches, and their com- 
munities — are actively shaping the 
struggle for quality education, anti-drug 
programs, more aid for inner cities, and 
an end to workplace discrimination.” 

Bush record attacked 

Lucy attacked the Bush administra- 
tion for continuing to spend a dispro- 
portionate share of the budget on 
defense at the expense of domestic 
needs. 

“The welcome home celebrations 
and the flagwaving ring hollow when 
at home American workers — includ- 
ing the soldiers returning home from the 
war — are facing pink slips, mortgage 
foreclosures, and a president who is 
playing politics with civil rights while 
embracing a fast-track approach to ex- 
porting American jobs to Mexico under 
the guise of free trade,” he said. 

The convention honored five of the 
group’s founders: Lucy; Cleveland 
Robinson, CBTU executive vice presi- 
dent and secretary-treasurer of UAW 
District 65; William Simon, CBTU 
treasurer and president of the Teachers 
Local 6 in Washington, D.C.; the late 
Nelson Jack Edwards; and U.S. Rep. 


Charles Hayes (D-Ill.), who is a 
member of the Food and Commercial 
Workers. Also honored for service to 
the CBTU was Leonard Ball, Lucy’s 
former executive assistant at AFSCME, 
who recently retired. 

Other speakers included Hayes; 
AFL-CIO Civil Rights Director Rich- 
ard Womack; Frank Cowan, special 
assistant to AFSCME President Gerald 
McEntee; William Pollard, former 
director of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights 
Department; Illinois Attorney General 
Roland Burris; Alexis Herman, chief of. 
staff at the Democratic National Com- 
mittee; Tony Harrison, director of the 
Electoral Participation Project; and 


former Washington, D.C. mayor 
Marion Barry. 

The CBTU Women’s Conference 
kicked off the convention, with Lucy 
paying special tribute to co-chairs: Ad- 
die Wyatt, retired director of UFCW’s 
department of civil rights and women’s 
affairs, and Anita Patterson, an inter- 
national area director for AFSCME. 

Special speakers included economist 
Julianne Malveaux, USA Today editor 
Barbara Reynolds and U.S. Rep. Bar- 
bara Rose Collins (D-Mich.). 

Over the past 20 years, CBTU has 
grown from 10 chapters representing 37 
national and international unions to 27 
chapters representing 77 unions. 


BCTD to appeal 
harbor cleanup 
court decision 

he AFL-CIO will ask the U.S. 
Supreme Court to reverse an appeals 
court decision striking down a project 
agreement in the $6 billion cleanup of 
Boston Harbor. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
First Circuit, in a 3-2 decision, struck 
down the agreement, which includes a 
union security clause. 

Robert A. Georgine, president of the 
AFL-CIO Building and Construction 
Trades Department, said “we intend to 
carry this case as far as we can.” 
Federal courts recently have upheld 
similar project agreements in Tennessee 
and Alaska. 

Joe Nigro, secretary-treasurer of the 
Boston Building and Construction 
Trades Council, said the court had 
struck down “a perfectly good project 
without one lost day” and left “all 
kinds of headaches.” 

Prior to the negotiation of the agree- 
ment there had been “numerous work 
stoppages for all different reasons,” he 
said. 

The case was brought by the notori- 
ous anti-union Associated Builders and 
Contractors against the Massachusetts 
Water Resources Authority. 

The project labor agreement 
negotiated by the BCTD and Kaiser 
Engineers includes a no-strike clause, 
dispute resolution procedures and stan- 
dardized work rules, as well as the pro- 
vision that requires workers to join a 
union within seven days of being hired. 

The appeals court upheld an earlier 
ruling by a court panel. The two dis- 
senting appeals judges, Stephen G. 
Breyer and Levin H. Campbell, said 
that nothing in federal labor law 
“explicitly forbids a state. . .from 
entering a pre-hire agreement.” 




Roll call: Congress votes on 'fast track resolutions 


The House had two key votes on fast-track authority 
for the U.S. -Mexico trade negotiations— on the rule 
and, in the second column, on the resolution by Rep. 
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to disapprove the extension 


ALABAMA 



DELAWARE 



1 CALLAHAN (R) 

W 

W 

1 CARPER (D) 

W 

W 

2 DICKINSON (R) 

W 

w 




3 BROWDER (D) 

A 

A 

FLORIDA 



4 BEVILL (D) 

W 

R 

l HUTTO (D) 

W 

W 

5 CRAMER (D) 

R 

R 

2 PETERSON, PETE (D) 

R 

R 

6 ERDREICH (D) 

R 

R 

3 BENNETT (D) 

W 

W 

7 HARRIS (D) 

R 

R 

4 JAMES (R) 

W 

W 




5 MCCOLLUM (R) 

A 

A 

ALASKA 



6 STEARNS (R) 

W 

R 

l YOUNG. DON (R) 

W 

W 

7 GIBBONS (D) 

W 

W 




8 YOUNG, BILL (R) 

A 

W 

ARIZONA 



9 BILIRAKIS (R) 

W 

w 

1 RHODES, III (R) 

W 

W 

10 IRELAND (R) 

R 

w 

2 UDALL (D) 

I 

I 

1 1 BACCHUS (D) 

W 

w 

3 STUMP (R) 

W 

W 

12 LEWIS, TOM (R) 

W 

w 

4 KYL (R) 

w 

W 

13 GOSS (R) 

R 

w 

5 KOLBE (R) 

w 

W 

14 JOHNSTON, HARRY (D) 

W 

R 




15 SHAW (R) 

W 

W 




16 SMITH, LAWRENCE (D) 

R 

R 

ARKANSAS 



17 LEHMAN, WILLIAM (D) 

A 

A 

1 ALEXANDER (D) 

R 

R 

18 ROS-LEHTINEN (R) 

W 

W 

2 THORNTON (D) 

W 

W 

19 FASCELL (D) 

W 

W 

3 HAMMERSCHMIDT (R) 

W 

W 




4 ANTHONY (D) 

W 

W 

GEORGIA 






1 THOMAS, LINDSAY (D) 

W 

R 

CALIFORNIA 



2 HATCHER (D) 

A 

R 

1 RIGGS (R) 

W 

W 

3 RAY (D) 

W 

R 

2 HERGER (R) 

W 

W 

4 JONES, BEN (D) 

R 

R 

3 MATSUI (D) 

w 

w 

5 LEWIS, JOHN (D) 

R 

R 

4 FAZIO (D) 

w 

w 

6 GINGRICH (R) 

W 

W 

5 PELOSI(D) 

R 

w 

7 DARDEN (D) 

W 

R 

6 BOXER (D) 

R 

R 

8 ROWLAND. ROY (D) 

W 

R 

7 MILLER, GEORGE (D) 

R 

R 

9 JENKINS (D) 

W 

R 

8 DELLUMS (D) 

R 

R 

10 BARNARD (D) 

W 

R 

9 STARK (D) 

R 

R 




10 EDWARDS, DON (D) 

R 

R 

HAWAII 



1 1 LANTOS (D) 

W 

R 

1 ABERCROMBIE (D) 

R 

R 

12 CAMPBELL. TOM (R) 

W 

W 

2 MINK (D) 

W 

R 

13 MINETA (D) 

R 

R 




14 DOOLITTLE (R) 

W 

W 




15 CONDIT (D) 

W 

R 

IDAHO 



16 PANETTA (D) 

R 

W 

1 LAROCCO (D) 

W 

W 

17 DOOLEY (D) 

W 

W 

2 STALLINGS (D) 

W 

R 

18 LEHMAN. RICHARD (D) 

R 

R 




19 LAGOMARSINO (R) 

W 

W 

ILLINOIS 



20 THOMAS, WILLIAM (R) 

W 

W 

1 HAYES, CHARLES A. (D)R 

R 

21 GALLEGLY (R) 

W 

W 

2 SAVAGE (D) 

R 

R 

22 MOORHEAD (R) 

W 

W 

3 RUSSO (D) 

W 

R 

23 BEILENSON (D) 

W 

W 

4 SANGMEISTER (D) 

R 

R 

24 WAXMAN (D) 

W 

R 

5 LIPINSKI (D) 

W 

R 

25 ROYBAL (D) 

W 

W 

6 HYDE (R) 

W 

W 

26 BERMAN (D) 

W 

W 

7 COLLINS, CARDISS (D) 

R 

R 

27 LEVINE, MEL (D) 

W 

A 

8 ROSTENKOWSKI (D) 

W 

W 

28 DIXON. JULIAN (D) 

W 

R 

9 YATES (D) 

R 

R 

29 WATERS (D) 

R 

R 

10 PORTER (R) 

R 

W 

30 MARTINEZ (D) 

W 

R 

1 1 ANNUNZIO (D) 

W 

R 

31 DYMALLY, MERVYN (D)R 

R 

12 CRANE (R) 

W 

W 

32 ANDERSON (D) 

W 

W 

13 FA WELL (R) 

W 

W 

33 DREIER, DAVID (R) 

W 

W 

14 HASTERT (R) 

W 

W 

34 TORRES (D) 

R 

R 

15 MADIGAN (R) 

I 

I 

35 LEWIS, JERRY (R) 

W 

W 

16 COX, JOHN (D) 

w 

W 

36 BROWN, GEORGE (D) 

R 

R 

17 EVANS, LANE (D) 

R 

R 

37 MCCANDLESS (R) 

W 

W 

18 MICHEL (R) 

W 

W 

38 DORNAN. ROBERT (R) 

w 

A 

19 BRUCE (D) 

R 

R 

39 DANNEMEYER (R) 

w 

W 

20 DURBIN (D) 

W 

R 

40 COX. CHRISTOPHER (R) W 

W 

21 COSTELLO (D) 

R 

R 

41 LOWERY. BILL (R) 

w 

W 

22 POSHARD (D) 

R 

R 

42 ROHRABACHER (R) 

w 

W 




43 PACKARD (R) 

w 

W 

INDIANA 



44 CUNNINGHAM (R) 

w 

W 

1 VISCLOSKY (D) 

R 

R 

45 HUNTER (R) 

R 

R 

2 SHARP (D) 

R 

W 




3 ROEMER (D) 

R 

R 

COLORADO 



4 LONG (D) 

R 

R 

1 SCHROEDER (D) 

W 

W 

5 JONTZ (D) 

R 

R 

2 SKAGGS (D) 

R 

W 

6 BURTON (R) 

R 

W 

3 CAMPBELL, BEN (D) 

W 

R 

7 MYERS (R) 

W 

W 

4 ALLARD (R) 

W 

W 

8 MCCLOSKEY (D) 

R 

R 

5 HEFLEY (R) 

w 

W 

9 HAMILTON (D) 

W 

W 

6 SCHAEFER (R) 

w 

W 

10 JACOBS (D) 

R 

R 

CONNECTICUT 



IOWA 



1 KENNELLY (D) 

w 

W 

1 LEACH, JAMES (R) 

W 

W 

2 GEJDENSON (D) 

w 

R 

2 NUSSLE (R) 

W 

W 

3 DELAURO (D) 

R 

R 

3 NAGLE (D) 

R 

R 

4 SHAYS (R) 

W 

W 

4 SMITH, NEAL (D) 

W 

W 

5 FRANKS. GARY (R) 

W 

W 

5 LIGHTFOOT (R) 

W 

W 

6 JOHNSON. NANCY (R) 

W 

W 

6 GRANDY (R) 

W 

W 


HOUSE VOTE 

of fast-track. The AFL-CIO opposed the rule (H. Res. 
158), which passed 274-148 (DEM: 129-131; REP: 
144-17; IND 1-0) and supported the Dorgan resolu- 
tion (H. Res. 101), which failed 192-231 (DEM: 


KANSAS 



MISSOURI 



1 ROBERTS, PAT (R) 

W 

W 

1 CLAY (D) 

R 

R 

2 SLATTERY (D) 

W 

w 

2 HORN (D) 

W 

R 

3 MEYERS (R) 

R 

R 

3 GEPHARDT (D) 

W 

W 

4 GLICKMAN (D) 

W 

R 

4 SKELTON (D) 

A 

W 

5 NICHOLS (R) 

W 

W 

5 WHEAT (D) 

W 

R 




6 COLEMAN, THOMAS (R) W 

W 

KENTUCKY 



7 HANCOCK (R) 

W 

W 

1 HUBBARD (D) 

W 

W 

8 EMERSON (R) 

w 

W 

2 NATCHER (D) 

W 

R 

9 VOLKMER (D) 

R 

R 

3 MAZZOLI (D) 

W 

W 




4 BUNNING (R) 

W 

W 

MONTANA 



5 ROGERS (R) 

R 

W 

1 WILLIAMS, PAT (D) 

A 

A 

6 HOPKINS (R) 

A 

A 

2 MARLENEE (R) 

W 

R 

7 PERKINS (D) 

R 

R 

NEBRASKA 



LOUISIANA 



1 BEREUTER (R) 

W 

W 

1 LIVINGSTON (R) 

W 

W 

2 HOAGLAND (D) 

R 

R 

2 JEFFERSON (D) 

R 

W 

3 BARRETT (R) 

W 

W 

3 TAUZIN (D) 

R 

W 




4 MCCRERY (R) 

W 

W 

NEVADA 



5 HUCKABY (D) 

W 

W 

1 BILBRAY (D) 

R 

R 

6 BAKER (R) 

W 

W 

2 VUCANOVICH (R) 

W 

A 

7 HAYES, JAMES A. (D) 

W 

R 




8 HOLLOWAY (R) 

R 

R 

NEW HAMPSHIRE 






l ZELIFF (R) 

W 

W 

MAINE 



2 SWETT (D) 

R 

R 

1 ANDREWS, THOMAS (D) R 

R 




2 SNOWE (R) 

W 

R 

NEW JERSEY 






1 ANDREWS, ROBERT (D) 

R 

R 

MARYLAND 



2 HUGHES (D) 

R 

W 

1 GILCHREST (R) 

W 

W 

3 PALLONE (D) 

R 

R 

2 BENTLEY (R) 

R 

R 

4 SMITH, CHRISTOPHER(R) W 

R 

3 CARDIN (D) 

W 

W 

5 ROUKEMA (R) 

R 

W 

4 MCMILLEN, TOM (D) 

W 

W 

6 DWYER (D) 

R 

R 

5 HOYER (D) 

R 

W 

7 RINALDO (R) 

W 

W 

6 BYRON (D) 

W 

W 

8 ROE (D) 

R 

R 

7 MFUME (D) 

R 

R 

9 TORRICELLI (D) 

W 

W 

8 MORELLA (R) 

W 

W 

10 PAYNE, DONALD (D) 

R 

R 




1 1 GALLO (R) 

W 

W 

MASSACHUSETTS 



12 ZIMMER (R) 

W 

W 

1 VACANCY 



13 SAXTON (R) 

W 

W 

2 NEAL. RICHARD (D) 

R 

R 

14 GUARINI (D) 

W 

W 

3 EARLY (D) 

R 

R 




4 FRANK, BARNEY (D) 

R 

R 

NEW MEXICO 



5 ATKINS (D) 

W 

W 

1 SCHIFF(R) 

W 

W 

6 MAVROULES (D) 

R 

R 

2 SKEEN (R) 

W 

W 

7 MARKEY (D) 

W 

R 

3 RICHARDSON (D) 

W 

W 

8 KENNEDY. JOSEPH (D) 

R 

R 




9 MOAKLEY (D) 

W 

R 

NEW YORK 



10 STUDDS (D) 

R 

R 

1 HOCHBRUECKNER (D) 

W 

R 

1 1 DONNELLY (D) 

R 

W 

2 DOWNEY, THOMAS (D) 

W 

W 




3 MRAZEK (D) 

W 

W 

MICHIGAN 



4 LENT (R) 

W 

W 

l CONYERS (D) 

R 

R 

5 MCGRATH (R) 

A 

W 

2 PURSELL (R) 

W 

W 

6 FLAKE (D) 

R 

R 

3 WOLPE (D) 

R 

R 

7 ACKERMAN (D) 

R 

R 

4 UPTON (R) 

W 

W 

8 SCHEUER (D) 

R 

R 

5 HENRY (R) 

R 

W 

9 MANTON (D) 

R 

R 

6 CARR (D) 

R 

R 

10 SCHUMER (D) 

W 

W 

7 KILDEE (D) 

R 

R 

1 1 TOWNS (D) 

R 

R 

8 TRAXLER (D) 

R 

R 

12 OWENS, MAJOR (D) 

R 

R 

9 VANDER JAGT (R) 

W 

W 

13 SOLARZ (D) 

W 

W 

10 CAMP (R) 

W 

W 

14 MOLINARI, SUSAN (R) 

W 

w 

1 1 DAVIS, ROBERT (R) 

W 

W 

15 GREEN (R) 

W 

w 

12 BONIOR (D) 

W 

R 

16 RANGEL, CHARLES (D) 

R 

R 

13 COLLINS, BARBARA (D) R 

R 

17 WEISS (D) 

R 

R 

14 HERTEL (D) 

R 

R 

18 SERRANO (D) 

W 

R 

15 FORD, WILLIAM (D) 

R 

R 

19 ENGEL (D) 

R 

R 

16 DINGELL (D) 

W 

R 

20 LOWEY, NIT A (D) 

R 

R 

17 LEVIN, SANDER (D) 

R 

R 

21 FISH (R) 

W 

W 

18 BROOMFIELD (R) 

W 

W 

22 GILMAN (R) 

W 

R 




23 MCNULTY (D) 

W 

R 

MINNESOTA 



24 SOLOMON (R) 

W 

R 

1 PENNY (D) 

W 

W 

25 BOEHLERT (R) 

W 

W 

2 WEBER(R) 

W 

W 

26 MARTIN, DAVID (R) 

W 

W 

3 RAMSTAD (R) 

W 

W 

27 WALSH (R) 

W 

W 

4 VENTO (D) 

R 

R 

28 MCHUGH (D) 

R 

W 

5 SABO (D) 

R 

R 

29 HORTON (R) 

W 

W 

6 SIKORSKI (D) 

R 

R 

30 SLAUGHTER, LOUISE (D) W 

R 

7 PETERSON, COLLIN (D) 

R 

R 

31 PAXON (R) 

W 

W 

8 OBERSTAR (D) 

R 

R 

32 LAFALCE (D) 

R 

R 




33 NOWAK (D) 

R 

R 

MISSISSIPPI 



34 HOUGHTON (R) 

W 

W 

1 WHITTEN (D) 

W 

R 




2 ESPY (D) 

R 

W 

NORTH CAROLINA 



3 MONTGOMERY (D) 

W 

W 

1 JONES, WALTER (D) 

W 

R 

4 PARKER (D) 

w 

W 

2 VALENTINE (D) 

W 

R 

5 TAYLOR, GENE (D) 

R 

R 

3 LANCASTER (D) 

R 

R 


170-91; REP: 21-140; IND: 1-0). 

Key: R— right; W— wrong; A— absent, did not vote 
or make position known; I— not in office. 


4 PRICE, DAVID (D) 

W 

W 

TENNESSEE 



5 NEAL, STEPHEN (D) 

R 

R 

1 QUILLEN (R) 

W 

R 

6 COBLE (R) 

R 

R 

2 DUNCAN, JR. (R) 

W 

R 

7 ROSE (D) 

W 

R 

3 LLOYD (D) 

R 

R 

8 HEFNER (D) 

W 

R 

4 COOPER (D) 

W 

W 

9 MCMILLAN, ALEX (R) 

w 

W 

5 CLEMENT (D) 

W 

W 

10 BALLENGER (R) 

w 

R 

6 GORDON (D) 

W 

W 

1 1 TAYLOR, CHARLES (R) 

R 

R 

7 SUNDQUIST (R) 

W 

W 




8 TANNER (D) 

W 

W 

NORTH DAKOTA 



9 FORD, HAROLD (D) 

R 

R 

1 DORGAN, BYRON (D) 

W 

R 







TEXAS 



OHIO 



1 CHAPMAN (D) 

W 

W 

1 LUKEN, CHARLES (D) 

R 

W 

2 WILSON, CHARLES (D) 

W 

W 

2 GRADISON (R) 

W 

W 

3 BARTLETT (R) 

I 

I 

3 HALL, TONY (D) 

W 

W 

3 JOHNSON, SAM (R) 

w 

w 

4 OXLEY (R) 

W 

W 

4 HALL, RALPH (D) 

w 

w 

5 GILLMOR (R) 

W 

W 

5 BRYANT, JOHN (D) 

R 

w 

6 MCEWEN (R) 

W 

W 

6 BARTON (R) 

W 

w 

7 HOBSON (R) 

W 

W 

7 ARCHER (R) 

W 

w 

8 BOEHNER (R) 

w 

W 

8 FIELDS (R) 

W 

w 

9 KAPTUR (D) 

w 

R 

9 BROOKS (D) 

W 

R 

10 MILLER, CLARENCE (R) W 

R 

10 PICKLE (D) 

W 

W 

1 1 ECKART (D) 

w 

R 

1 1 EDWARDS, CHET (D) 

W 

W 

12 KASICH (R) 

w 

W 

12 GEREN (D) 

w 

w 

13 PEASE (D) 

R 

R 

13 SARPALIUS (D) 

w 

w 

14 SAWYER (D) 

R 

W 

14 LAUGHLIN (D) 

w 

w 

15 WYLIE (R) 

W 

W 

15 DE LA GARZA (D) 

w 

w 

16 REGULA (R) 

R 

W 

16 COLEMAN, RONALD (D] 

1 w 

w 

17 TRAFICANT (D) 

R 

R 

17 STENHOLM (D) 

w 

w 

18 APPLEGATE (D) 

R 

R 

18 WASHINGTON (D) 

R 

R 

19 FEIGHAN (D) 

R 

R 

19 COMBEST (R) 

W 

W 

20 OAKAR (D) 

R 

R 

20 GONZALEZ (D) 

R 

R 

21 STOKES (D) 

R 

R 

21 SMITH, LAMAR (R) 

W 

W 




22 DELAY (R) 

W 

W 

OKLAHOMA 



23 BUSTAMANTE (D) 

W 

W 

1 INHOFE (R) 

W 

W 

24 FROST (D) 

w 

R 

2 SYNAR (D) 

W 

W 

25 ANDREWS, MIKE (D) 

w 

w 

3 BREWSTER (D) 

R 

R 

26 ARMEY (R) 

w 

w 

4 MCCURDY (D) 

W 

W 

27 ORTIZ (D) 

w 

w 

5 EDWARDS, MICKEY (R) 

W 

W 




6 ENGLISH (D) 

R 

R 

UTAH 






1 HANSEN (R) 

w 

w 

OREGON 



2 OWENS, WAYNE (D) 

w 

w 

1 AUCOIN (D) 

R 

R 

3 ORTON (D) 

R 

w 

2 SMITH, ROBERT F. (R) 

W 

W 




3 WYDEN (D) 

W 

W 

VERMONT 



4 DE FAZIO (D) 

R 

R 

1 SANDERS (I) 

W 

R 

5 KOPETSKI (D) 

W 

W 







VIRGINIA 



PENNSYLVANIA 



1 BATEMAN (R) 

W 

W 

1 FOGLIETTA (D) 

W 

R 

2 PICKETT (D) 

w 

W 

2 GRAY, WILLIAM (D) 

W 

R 

3 BLILEY (R) 

w 

w 

3 BORSKI (D) 

R 

R 

4 SISISKY (D) 

R 

R 

4 KOLTER (D) 

R 

R 

5 PAYNE, LEWIS (D) 

W 

R 

5 SCHULZE (R) 

W 

W 

6 OLIN (D) 

W 

W 

6 YATRON (D) 

R 

R 

7 SLAUGHTER, D. F. (R) 

W 

W 

7 WELDON (R) 

R 

W 

8 MORAN (D) 

R 

W 

8 KOSTMAYER (D) 

W 

W 

9 BOUCHER (D) 

W 

W 

9 SHUSTER (R) 

W 

R 

10 WOLF (R) 

W 

W 

10 MCDADE (R) 

R 

R 




1 1 KANJORSKI (D) 

R 

R 

WASHINGTON 



12 MURTHA (D) 

W 

R 

1 MILLER, JOHN (R) 

W 

w 

13 COUGHLIN (R) 

W 

W 

2 SWIFT (D) 

W 

w 

14 COYNE, WILLIAM (D) 

W 

W 

3 UNSOELD (D) 

R 

R 

15 RITTER (R) 

W 

W 

4 MORRISON, SID (R) 

W 

W 

16 WALKER (R) 

W 

W 

5 FOLEY (D) 

S 

S 

17 GEKAS (R) 

W 

W 

6 DICKS (D) 

W 

W 

18 SANTORUM (R) 

W 

W 

7 MCDERMOTT (D) 

W 

W 

19 GOODLING (R) 

w 

R 

8 CHANDLER (R) 

w 

W 

20 GAYDOS (D) 

R 

R 




21 RIDGE (R) 

W 

W 

WEST VIRGINIA 



22 MURPHY (D) 

R 

R 

1 MOLLOHAN (D) 

R 

R 

23 CLINGER (R) 

w 

W 

2 STAGGERS (D) 

R 

R 




3 WISE (D) 

R 

R 

RHODE ISLAND 



4 RAHALL (D) 

R 

R 

1 MACHTLEY (R) 

w 

w 

WISCONSIN 



2 REED (D) 

w 

R 

1 ASPIN (D) 

W 

R 




2 KLUG (R) 

W 

W 

SOUTH CAROLINA 



3 GUNDERSON (R) 

W 

W 

1 RAVENEL (R) 

w 

R 

4 KLECZKA (D) 

R 

R 

2 SPENCE (R) 

R 

R 

5 MOODY (D) 

R 

R 

3 DERRICK (D) 

W 

R 

6 PETRI (R) 

W 

W 

4 PATTERSON (D) 

W 

R 

7 OBEY (D) 

R 

R 

5 SPRATT (D) 

R 

R 

8 ROTH, TOBY (R) 

W 

W 

6 TALLON (D) 

R 

R 

9 SENSENBRENNER (R) 

W 

W 

SOUTH DAKOTA 



WYOMING 



1 JOHNSON. TIM P. (D) 

W 

R 

1 THOMAS, CRAIG (R) 

w 

W 


The key vote on U.S.-N/ 

the Senate was 

on S. Re 

Ernest Hollings 

(D-S.C.). 

ALABAMA 


HEFLIN (D) 

R 

SHELBY (D) 

R 

ALASKA 


MURKOWSKI (R) 

W 

STEVENS (R) 

W 

ARIZONA 


DECONCINI (D) 

W 

MCCAIN (R) 

W 

ARKANSAS 


BUMPERS (D) 

R 

PRYOR (D) 

A 

CALIFORNIA 


CRANSTON (D) 

A 

SEYMOUR (R) 

W 

COLORADO 


BROWN (R) 

w 

WIRTH (D) 

w 

CONNECTICUT 


DODD (D) 

R 

LIEBERMAN (D) 

W 

DELAWARE 


BIDEN (D) 

W 

ROTH, WILLIAM (R) 

w 

FIX)RIDA 


GRAHAM, BOB (D) 

w 


SENATE VOTE 

“fast-track” procedures. The AFL-CIO favored the 
Hollings resolution, which was rejected 36-59 
(DEM: 31-23; REP: 5-36). 


Key: R-right; W-wrong; A-absent, did not vote or 
make position known. 


MACK (R) 


GEORGIA 


MAINE 


NEBRASKA 


OHIO 


FOWLER (D) 

A 

COHEN (R) 

R 

EXON (D) 

R 

GLENN (D) 

R 

NUNN (D) 

W 

MITCHELL, GEORGE (D) 

W 

KERREY, BOB (D) 

W 

METZENBAUM (D) 

R 

HAWAII 


MARYLAND 


NEVADA 


OKLAHOMA 


AKAKA (D) 

R 

MIKULSKI (D) 

R 

BRYAN, RICHARD (D) 

W 

BOREN (D) 

W 

INOUYE (D) 

R 

SARBANES (D) 

R 

REID (D) 

R 

NICKLES, DON (R) 

W 

IDAHO 








CRAIG (R) 

W 

MASSACHUSETTS 


NEW HAMPSHIRE 


OREGON 


SYMMS (R) 

W 

KENNEDY, EDWARD (D) 

W 

RUDMAN (R) 

W 

HATFIELD (R) 

W 



KERRY, JOHN (D) 

W 

SMITH, ROBERT C. (R) 

W 

PACKWOOD (R) 

W 

ILLINOIS 








DIXON, ALAN (D) 

R 

MICHIGAN 


NEW JERSEY 


PENNSYLVANIA 


SIMON (D) 

R 

LEVIN, CARL (D) 

R 

BRADLEY (D) 

W 

SPECTER (R) 

R 

INDIANA 


RIEGLE (D) 

R 

LAUTENBERG (D) 

W 

WOFFORD (D) 

R 

COATS (R) 

W 







LUGAR (R) 

W 

MINNESOTA 


NEW MEXICO 


RHODE ISLAND 




DURENBERGER (R) 

W 

BINGAMAN (D) 

W 

CHAFEE (R) 

W 

IOWA 


WELLSTONE (D) 

R 

DOMENICI (R) 

W 

PELL (D) 

w 

GRASSLEY (R) 

W 







HARKIN (D) 

R 

MISSISSIPPI 


NEW YORK 


SOUTH CAROLINA 


KANSAS 


COCHRAN (R) 

W 

DAMATO (R) 

W 

HOLLINGS (D) 

R 

DOLE (R) 

W 

LOTT (R) 

A 

MOYNIHAN (D) 

R 

THURMOND (R) 

R 

KASSEBAUM (R) 

W 









MISSOURI 


NORTH CAROLINA 


SOUTH DAKOTA 


KENTUCKY 


BOND (R) 

W 

HELMS (R) 

A 

DASCHLE (D) 

R 

FORD, WENDELL (D) 

R 

DANFORTH (R) 

W 

SANFORD (D) 

R 

PRESSLER (R) 

W 

MCCONNELL (R) 

W 







LOUISIANA 


MONTANA 


NORTH DAKOTA 


TENNESSEE 


BREAUX (D) 

w 

BAUCUS (D) 

W 

BURDICK (D) 

R 

GORE (D) 

W 

JOHNSTON, BENNETT (D) 

R 

BURNS (R) 

W 

CONRAD (D) 

R 

SASSER (D) 

R 


TEXAS 
BENTSEN (D) 
GRAMM, PHIL (R) 

UTAH 
GARN (R) 

HATCH (R) 

VERMONT 
JEFFORDS (R) 
LEAHY (D) 

VIRGINIA 
ROBB (D) 

WARNER (R) 

WASHINGTON 
ADAMS (D) 
GORTON (R) 

WEST VIRGINIA 
BYRD, ROBERT (D) 
ROCKEFELLER (D) 

WISCONSIN 
KASTEN (R) 

KOHL (D) 

WYOMING 
SIMPSON (R) 
WALLOP (R) 


W 

W 


W 

W 


W 

W 


R 

W 


R 

W 


W 

W 


W 

W 







Issues in health care strikes 


Decrease benefits (5%) 


Shift total cost to employees (5%) 



Increase employee’s cost share (90%) 
(Including changes in dependent coverage 10%) 


o 

LL 

< 

DC 

0 

CD 

§ 

UJ 

z 

0 

0 

Jl 

11 

< 


Source: AFL-CIO Department of Employee Benefits 


Health care 
woes pushing 
Solidarity Day 

Continued from Page 1 

The teleconference will open with 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and 
will include briefings by Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue; COPE 
Director John Perkins, who is coor- 
dinating Solidarity Day activities; 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten; and Employee Benefits 
Director Karen Ignagni. 

Ignagni will present the major find- 
ings of the health care-striker replace- 
ment study, which “shows the cold 
reality of the risk of job loss in a strike 
over health care,” she said. 

The Department of Employee Bene- 
fits also found the problem of striker 
replacements is much more severe than 
previously reported by the General Ac- 
counting Office. 

Combining an AFL-CIO survey of 
local unions with the GAO survey and 
figures compiled by the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, “it is possible to 
estimate that 1 1 percent of the workers 
participating in large strikes were per- 
manently replaced in 1990 — a decided 
jump above the General Accounting Of- 
fice’s findings of three percent in 
1989,” the study said. 

The difference lies in the particular 
nature of the major strikes in 1990, 
some of which resulted in near total job 
loss for the workers involved. 

“We estimate that two-thirds of 1990 
strikes involving permanent replace- 


Continued from Page 1 

Health Care Committee, termed the in- 
itiative a positive response to the pleas 
of union members and all workers in 
calling for federal leadership in resolv- 
ing the health care crisis. 

The White House has not offered a 
health care reform plan, insisting that 
relevant studies on the issue have not 
been completed. 

But in outlining the measure, Mitchell 
pointed out that studies clearly docu- 
ment the glaring problems of the ex- 
isting system: 

• The number of Americans 
without health insurance, estimated at 
37 million, is rising every year. Sixty 
million have health insurance that is 
inadequate to cover serious illness. 

• Health care costs came to $671 
billion in 1990 and continue to rise at 
double-digit rates each year. The explo- 
sion of health cares costs is a growing 
economic burden on the average Amer- 
ican family, as well as on workers and 
employers. 

Under the HealthAmerica plan, 
which would be phased in over five 
years, employers would be required to 
provide health care insurance or con- 
tribute to the federal-state AmeriCare 
plan. 


ments eliminated the jobs of more than 
half of the unionized workers (e.g. 
Eastern was liquidated and Greyhound 
is in bankruptcy court limbo while 
union claims on the jobs continue 
through the legal process).” 

More than half, or 55 percent, of the 
workers on strike in 1990 struck over 
health care issues. 

In all of these cases, employers were 
attempting to shift the costs of health 
care benefits to workers, and in 90 per- 
cent of the cases, employers were seek- 
ing to increase employees’ out-of- 
pocket costs. 

“Until Congress enacts national 
health care reform, the pressures from 


AmeriCare would replace Medicaid, 
except for long-term care services. 

The secretary of health and human 
services would set the amount employ- 
ers would pay into AmeriCare. The 
legislation leaves it to congressional 
committees to determine how to fund 
the plan. 

Workers would have to accept cov- 
erage for themselves and their families 
if offered by their employers, and pay 
a share of the premium as well as co- 
payments and deductibles if required by 
the employer’s plan. 

A similar obligation would be as- 
sumed by workers whose employers 
contribute to the federal-state plan. 

The legislation sets maximums in 
cost-sharing for workers. The limits 
include: 

• 20 percent of the premium. 

• Deductibles of $250 per in- 
dividual and $500 per family. 

• Co-payments of 20 percent — ex- 
cept for outpatient mental health serv- 
ices, which would be 50 percent. 

• Out-of-pocket catastrophic cap on 
liability for covered services of $3,000. 

• For low-income workers, the 
premium share, co-payments and de- 
ductibles would be subsidized by the 
federal-state plan. 


health care bargaining will continue to 
fuel labor-management strife,” Ignagni 
said. 

The practice of permanently replac- 
ing striking workers further exacerbates 
labor-management relations. If struck 
in 1991, 82 percent of employers in- 
dicated they would consider replacing 
or attempting to replace their work- 
force, according to a report by the 
Bureau of National Affairs. 

The complete study, “The Permanent 
Replacement of Workers Striking Over 
Health Care Benefits in 1990,” is 
available from the AFL-CIO, Room 
209, 815 16th St. N.W., Washington, 
D.C. 20006. 


If an employer provides coverage, all 
employees who work 17.5 hours or 
more per week and their families must 
be covered. The employer may choose 
to contribute to the public plan for 
workers employed less than 17.5 hours 
a week. 

Meanwhile, a study conducted by the 
General Accounting Office concluded 
that health care could be extended to the 
millions of uninsured Americans and 
still save money if the United States 
adopted a coordinated, national system. 

GAO estimated that if the universal 
coverage and cost-containment features 
of the Canadian plan were used, the 
short-run U.S. savings on insurance 
overhead would be $34 billion and 
another $33 billion could be saved on 
hospital and administrative costs. 

In releasing the report, Comptroller 
General Charles A. Bowsher told the 
House Committee on Government Op- 
erations that certain elements of the 
Canadian system should be incor- 
porated into the U.S. system. They in- 
clude universal health insurance, 
uniform reimbursement rules, as well 
as systemwide spending controls with 
lump-sum budgeting for hospitals and 
uniform fee schedules for physician 
services. 


UFCW strike 
at Giant Eagle 
ends with pact 

By Candice Johnson 

A fter six weeks on the picket lines at 
Giant Eagle food stores in the Pitts- 
burgh area, union workers gained a 
wage increase, better job conditions for 
full- and part-time workers and job 
ments,” but the company soon “real- 
More than 5,000 members of two 
units of Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 23 are covered by the agreement. 
Grocery clerks voted for the settlement 
1,126 to 132 and meat department 
workers approved it 360-93. The agree- 
ment will be in effect through June 25, 
1994. 

The settlement followed six weeks of 
on-again, off-again negotiations, the in- 
volvement of a federal mediator and 
solidarity demonstrations that brought 
thousands of union members out in sup- 
port of the UFCW strikers. 

The agreement provides an hourly 
wage increase of $1 . 15 over the three- 
year contract term for more senior 
workers and an hourly increase of up 
to $1.75 over the term for less senior 
employees. More senior employees get 
a $1,000 signing bonus. 

Health benefits extended 

It also provides health benefits for 
part-time workers who work full-time 
hours, adds dental and vision coverage 
for part-time workers. The agreement 
includes a pledge by Giant Eagle that 
it will keep its corporate-owned stores 
in operation for at least a year if a fran- 
chise store is opened nearby. 

Before the strike, Giant Eagle talked 
about hiring “permanent replace- 
ments,” but the company soon “real- 
ized the error that would be,” said Glen 
Plummer, director of communications 
for UFCW Local 23. 

Pittsburgh union members turned out 
for several solidarity demonstrations, 
including a march through the city and 
a rally at Giant Eagle’s corporate 
headquarters. 

The UFCW workers had the backing 
of Pittsburgh residents during the 
walkout, with a telephone poll of 1 ,321 
shoppers by Direct Opinions Inc., a 
market research group, showing that 
nearly two-thirds of those who shopped 
at Giant Eagle before the strike boycot- 
ted the chain during the dispute. 

Plummer said that among the union’s 
goals was winning a pledge from the 
supermarket chain that it would con- 
tinue investment in its corporate-owned 
stores. Of the Giant Eagle food 
markets, 31 are owned by the corpora- 
tion and 46 are franchises. 

Other bargaining priorities included 
reclassification for workers considered 
part-time despite their working more 
than 40 hours a week; improvement of 
health and welfare coverage, with ad- 
ditional benefits extended to part-time 
workers on a full-time schedule and 
narrowing wage differentials. 


Health care cost containment crucial issue 


AFL-CIO decries light penalty in mercury poisoning case 


New York 

T he lenient sentences given the owners 
of Pymm Thermometer, convicted of 
exposing dozens of workers to mercury 
poisoning, sends the wrong message to 
employers who flaunt safety laws, the 
AFL-CIO said. 

“If employers aren’t going to be held 
accountable for actions that are clearly 
criminal, then we’ll see more Pymm 
Thermometer cases,” predicted Peg 
Seminario, the federation’s director of 


occupational safety and health. “The 
courts must start treating injuries to 
workers as the crimes they really are. ” 
Two brothers, William and Edward 
Pymm, president and vice president of 
Pymm Thermometer, were sentenced 
May 28 to six months of weekends in 
jail and $10,000 in fines on second- 
degree assault and falsifying records. 
They received four-month weekend 
sentences, to run concurrently with the 
six-month sentences, on misdemeanor 


charges of conspiracy and reckless 
endangerment. 

Justice Thaddeus Owens of the state 
Supreme Court, who earlier threw out 
the 1987 convictions of the Pymms only 
to be overturned by an appeals court 
and the U.S. Supreme Court, dismissed 
a first-degree assault charge that carried 
a minimum of 18 months in jail and up 
to 15 years. 

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. 
Hynes said his office will appeal the 


sentence. “It does no justice for the vic- 
tim . . . who was slowly poisoned by 
mercury and whose life has been un- 
alterably changed by the brain damage 
he has sustained.” 

The case began in 1985 when the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration found the Pymms were 
recycling mercury by having workers 
crush broken thermometers in a win- 
dowless basement room the company 
had kept secret from OSH A inspectors. 






Stronger worker protections top ILO agenda 


By Steven Slezak 

W orldwide concerns with workplace 
standards in hotel and restaurant 
jobs, workers’ fate in bankruptcy pro- 
ceedings and the impact of technology 
on agricultural workers top the agenda 
for the annual conference of the Inter- 
national Labor Organization in Geneva. 

Because of poor labor standards 
prevalent in the hotel and restaurant in- 
dustry globally, the ILO last year began 
to draw up a convention on those work- 
ing conditions. A convention setting 
standards on hours (including split shifts 
and overtime), wages and tips, annual 
leave, comparable worth and training 
is expected to be adopted in this session. 

The explosive growth of business 
failures in the past 20 years has 
prompted the ILO to renew its examina- 
tion of bankruptcy to determine how in- 
ternational labor standards may be 
strengthened. Although ILO Conven- 
tion 95 on the protection of wages 
already gives priority to the payment of 


wages due workers by a bankrupt 
employer, current ILO standards do not 
go far enough to protect workers’ in- 
terests in cases of insolvency. 

In agriculture, the advances in 
biotechnology and farm equipment have 
raised questions about their impact on 
agricultural workers, specifically in 
terms of employment, training needs 
and occupational safety and health. The 
ILO also will look at the effects of these 
new technologies on the environment 
and on their potential for reducing 
poverty in the world. 

The labor, business and government 
delegates from 149 nations at the 78th 
session of the International Labor Con- 
ference also will consider a report 
issued by ILO Director-General 
Michael Hansenne on what is known as 
the “informal sector’’ of the world 
economy — unregulated, low-produc- 
tivity, and low-income jobs that are 
especially prevalent in less-developed 
countries. 


The International Labor Conference 
is the legislative arm of the ILO, an 
agency of the United Nations. Found- 
ed in 1919 as part of the old League of 
Nations, it is the only international body 
that is tripartite — the meeting of 
representatives of labor, business, and 
government as equals to define areas of 
common interest and to create solutions 
to common problems. 

The ILO also is the only UN body 
devoted to the protection of the rights 
of workers. Samuel Gompers, founder 
and first president of the AFL, headed 
the commission that gave birth to the 
ILO. American labor has been active in 
its affairs ever since. 

The ILO’s purpose is to create and 
enforce labor standards worldwide in an 
effort to improve the lives of workers, 
to promote basic human rights, and to 
provide much-needed research and 
technical assistance to countries that 
need it. 

ILO conventions are the world’s labor 


laws; they have the force of international 
treaties among those countries that 
ratify them. 

The United States delegation numbers 
51 delegates, deputies, advisers, and 
observers, 23 of whom represent the 
AFL-CIO. The American worker dele- 
gation is headed this year by the U.S. 
worker delegate, Jim Baker, the AFL- 
CIO European representative. Charles 
Gray, executive director of the AFL- 
CIO ’s Asian- American Free Labor In- 
stitute, is the U.S. deputy worker 
delegate. 

In addition, the American labor 
delegation includes AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland; AFL-CIO Vice Presi- 
dent John T. Joyce, president of the 
Bricklayers; Leon Lynch, vice presi- 
dent of the Steelworkers; Vincent 
Sirabella, director of organization at the 
Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees, and Marcello Salcido, 
president of Food and Commercial 
Workers Local 126. 


Turbulent airline bargaining 
linked to deregulation flaws 



Adrian Karatnycky/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland meets with Boris Yeltsin, left, president of 
the Russian republic, during Kirkland's visit to Moscow for the Sakharov 
conference on human rights. Yeltsin took Kirkland on a tour of the Kremlin 
and expressed a desire that he, like Sakharov, come to the AFL-CIO dur- 
ing his upcoming U.S. visit. 

Impasse panel takes up issues 
in long-stalled railroad talks 


By Candice Johnson 

U nion members continue to be buf- 
feted by the turbulence in the airline 
industry. 

Over the 13 years since airline 
deregulation, more than 150 airlines, 
including major carriers like Eastern, 
have folded. Others, overburdened by 
massive debt incurred through mergers 
or leveraged buyouts, have a shaky 
finanical future. 

A report by the Air Line Pilots shows 
that deregulation, trumpeted by pro- 
ponents as the best way to bring com- 
petition — and new airlines — into the 
industry, instead has resulted in the 
market concentration of just a few car- 
riers and higher fares for many pas- 
sengers. 

But experience has proven AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland correct in his 
analysis then that what deregulation 
would teach is “why those industries 
were regulated in the first place,’’ 
because the carriers would cannabalize 
each other. 

Meanwhile, unions are finding tough 
bargaining with airline employers bent 
on cutting wages and benefits and 
slashing jobs while scrambling to in- 
crease fares and passengers. 

At United Airlines, about 15,000 
Flight Attendants are waiting for the 
National Mediation Board to act on the 
union’s petition for a 30-day “cooling 
off period.” 

Last week, the NMB was unable to 
bring the parties back to negotiations. 
The attendants, negotiating with United 
since 1987, have not had a raise in five 
years. AFA leaders are holding infor- 
mational meetings at home bases. 

At Trans World Airlines, owner Carl 
Icahn was scheduled to meet separately 
with union workers and management in 
St. Louis on the carrier’s financial 
situation. 

Icahn has called for concessions from 
the Machinists, Pilots and unaffiliated 
attendants, but union officials noted that 
previous concessions had been squan- 
dered by Icahn. The unions said they 
would not be likely to offer him the 
same $137 million package offered to 
Tracinda Corp. to bolster its buyout 
bid. 

The unions and St. Louis city officials 
have taken their fight to stop the sale 
of three TWA London routes to federal 
appeals court, which has agreed to issue 


an order before July 1 , the date the sale 
to American takes effect. 

In other industry developments: 

• The IAM won an overwhelming 
vote in a representation election at 
Northwest Airlines, defeating a chal- 
lenge from an unaffiliated mechanics 
association by a 4,157-2,800 vote. 

• ALPA has petitioned the NMB 
for recognition to represent 2,300 pilots 
at Federal Express Corp., which has 
consistently resisted unionization. 

In its report, “Airlines in Crisis: 
Deregulation and Globalization in the 
1990s,” ALPA outlined several union 
concerns on the problems in the now 
not-so-friendly skies. 

Pointing out that the Department of 
Transportation retained the right under 
deregulation to intervene in sales and 
mergers if those actions would weaken 
competition, ALPA charged that DOT 
has chosen to take no action while the 
industry continues to experience serious 
problems. 

The union took issue with Transpor- 
tation Secretary Samuel Skinner’s 
statements that airline contract settle- 
ments may not be “consonant and con- 
sistent with market forces” and that 
labor costs constitute a major part of the 
industry’s problems. 

ALPA offered to provide Skinner 
with correct wage statistics, but the 
transportation secretary continues to ig- 
nore labor’s contributions to productivi- 
ty and wage reductions, which have 
kept labor costs static or even reduced 
under deregulation, ALPA President 
Randy Babbitt said. 

Babbitt said it is nothing less than ab- 
surd “for Secretary Skinner to state — 
before the backdrop of a decade of total 
DOT inaction and recent staggering 
losses caused by war, recession and fuel 
prices — that airline labor costs are the 
source of the industry’s problems.” 

The pilots union also noted that low 
wages had little effect on a airline’s pro- 
fitability, noting that Pan Am and Con- 
tinental, with the lowest labor costs in 
the industry have filed for bankruptcy 
protection, with TWA, also a low labor 
cost carrier, in critical condition. Yet 
Delta, with the industry’s highest costs, 
is one of the more profitable carriers. 

ALPA also criticized Skinner’s pro- 
posal to allow foreign governments to 
own as much as 49 percent of a domes- 
tic carrier, up from 25 percent. 


By Arlee C. Green 

A special board empowered to impose 
a settlement in the two-year-old rail 
contract dispute, has begun hearing 
arguments by the rail industry and eight 
unions representing more than 150,000 
workers. 

The deliberations focus on changes 
sought in the contract recommendations 
made last January by a presidential 
emergency board. 

The special board, authorized by 
Congress in legislation that ended a one- 
day nationwide rail shutdown on April 
17, has until July 28 to issue its binding 
recommendations, which will not be 
subject to judicial review. 

The panel, appointed by President 
Bush, is headed by Robert O. Harris, 
who also chaired the emergency board; 
Margery Gootnick, an attorney and 
labor arbitrator in Rochester, N.Y., and 
George S. Ives, a part-time arbitrator 
in Sarasota, Fla. 

On June 4, the special board heard re- 
quests for clarification or interpretation 
of PEB recommendations and was to 
issue a report soon afterward. A second 
round of hearings will focus on requests 
for modification of the emergency 
board’s recommendations. 

The emergency board’s report in 
January was followed by a 30-day cool- 
ing off period. The unions succeeded in 


adding another 60 days because of the 
Persian Gulf War before they struck 
April 17. 

The eight unions that struck were the 
TCU’s Carmen division, Locomotive 
Engineers, Maintenance of Way Em- 
ployees, Boilermakers, Electrical 
Workers, Firemen and Oilers, Sheet 
Metal Workers, and the United 
Transportation Union. 

Three unions reached tentative ac- 
cords in the hours just prior to the 
strike — the Railroad Signalmen, Train 
Dispatchers and the Transportation 
Communications Union’s white-collar 
and clerical division. All three agreed 
to terms close to those recommended by 
the emergency board. 

The wage provision calls for a $2,000 
lump-sum signing payment, 3 percent 
increases in July 1991 and 1993, a 4 
percent raise in July 1994, additional 
lump-sums equal to 3 percent of annual 
pay in July 1992 and January 1993 and 
1994, and 2 percent in January 1995. 
A cost-of-living mechanism, capped at 
2.5 percent each six months, will be 
triggered in January 1995 when the 
agreements reopen for negotiations. 

Employee payments toward health in- 
surance, a major issue for the unions, 
will begin in 1993. TCU estimated its 
members will pay $45 a year in 1993 
and $52 in 1994. 





Jobs, earnings indicators show no sign of recovery 


CEO pay soars during recession 

Executives have ‘best of times’ during 1 worst’ for workers, 1980 - 1990 


Q. 

o 


300 % 

260 % 

220 % 

180 % 

140 % 

100 % 


1980 


1990 


Changes as a 
percent of CPI 
1980 = 100 % 
gross 


H n = real' 



1 

L 


EXECUTIVE 



t 


FACTORY WORKER 


312.5% 


98.5% 


1980 


* Earnings after adjustment for inflation 


1990 


$ 15,000 


$ 23,000 


CEO pay 42 
times 

factory worker’s 


■ 


$ 625,000 


Factory 

Worker 


CEO 


CEO pay 85 
times 

factory worker’s 



$ 1 , 953,000 


Source: Business Week and Bureau of Labor Statistics 


By John R. Oravec 

G overnment economic reports show 
several critical sectors picked up in 
April from the previous month — but 
not the indicators critical to wage 
earners. 

AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy 
Oswald warned that unless there are 
marked increases in employment and 
workers’ earnings there cannot be a 
recovery. 

In May, the nation’s jobless rate 
jumped to 6.9 percent, the highest yet 
in the current Bush recession. 

Oswald noted that two other key in- 
dicators for workers were still turned 
down in April. Payroll jobs declined 
and real weekly earnings slipped. Even 
when a recession bottoms out, unem- 
ployment generally stays high for a long 
time, he said. 

Average weekly earnings, adjusted 
for inflation, fell by 0. 1 percent in April 
and were 2.2 percent lower than in 
April 1990, Oswald pointed out. 

The overall performance of the 
economy was still running far below 
pre-recession levels. 

An example of sputtering economic 
performance was reflected in the Com- 
merce Department’s report on new 
orders for durable goods in April, 
which rose 3 percent from March to 
$115.4 billion. Although that was the 
first gain in four months, the orders 
were down substantially from the 
$130.9 billion of last October. 

Orders for non-durable goods also 
edged up 0.7 percent in April to $115.1 
billion, their first advance since 
December, but still 7.3 percent below 
the $124.1 billion in October. 

Overall factory orders rose 1.8 per- 
cent in April to $230.5 billion, well 
below the $255-billion pace in October. 

Industrial production also increased 
0.1 percent in April, after six straight 
months of declines. Yet, that was 6.7 
percent below September 1990. 

Factory layoffs eased to 40,000 in 
April, considerably less than the 
average of 1 15,000 in the previous five 
months. The lessening job losses are of 
little comfort to displaced workers. 

In electronics manufacturing, 
100,000 jobs were wiped out in the year 
ended March 31, the American Elec- 
tronics Association reported. Over the 
12-month span, industry payrolls were 
trimmed to 2.46 million, including a 
cutback of 10,000 jobs in March. 

Industry officials blamed unfair 
Japanese trade tactics for the layoffs, 
citing a continued flow of imports while 
U.S. firms encounter a persistent bar- 
rier to Japan’s technology market. 


Meanwhile, the overall slackening 
demand for imports eased the merchan- 
dise trade deficit on a balance-of-pay- 
ments basis to $18.4 billion during the 
first quarter of the year — the lowest 
since 1983, when the U.S. economy 
was on the heels of the Reagan reces- 
sion. The Commerce Department said 
the deficit was down 33 percent from 
the shortfall of $27.7 billion in the last 
quarter of 1990. 

The narrowing trade gap in the first 
quarter came from a combination of 
U.S. exports increasing 0.2 percent to 
$100.8 billion, helped by stepped up 
corn shipments to the Soviet Union, 
while imports fell 7. 1 percent to $1 19.2 
billion. 

A part of the decline was attributed 
to a six-month drop in prices for im- 
ported goods. In April, the price of 
imports were down 0.7 percent from 
March, bringing the total decline since 
last October to 5.3 percent, the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics reported. 

Over the year ended in April, import 


prices increased 2.6 percent — a sharp 
deceleration from the 7.4 percent rise 
for all of 1990. BLS said the prices of 
U.S. exports edged up only 1 .7 percent 
during the 12-month span ended in 
April. Some trade analysts saw this as 
a key factor for the increase in U.S. 
exports. 

The problems of the recession reach 
beyond the business sector, Oswald 
noted. Finances of state and local 
governments are in a squeeze with 
many public employees facing layoffs, 
essential programs curtailed and taxes 
are being raised to meet fiscal 
emergencies. 

In a revised report, the Commerce 
Department said the gross national 
product slipped 2.6 percent during the 
first quarter — slightly better than the 
2.8 percent contraction it reported 
earlier. The GNP fell 1 .6 percent in the 
last quarter of 1990. 

The sputtering economy cut into 
business performance during the three- 
month period as after-tax corporate 


profits fell 5.6 percent. The Commerce 
Department said that was the sharpest 
decline in profits since the 5.9 percent 
drop in the third quarter of 1989. 

Meanwhile, the government’s index 
of leading economic indicators rose 0.6 
percent in April. 

The index, which tracks 1 1 segments 
of the national economy in an attempt 
to forecast future performance, also 
posted gains in February and March — 
during the same period when the overall 
economy skidded 2.6 percent. 

Some analysts warned that the recent 
rise in the index could be just another 
glitch, pointing out that the govern- 
ment’s economic barometer had ad- 
vanced last May and June — just before 
the Bush recession began to take hold. 

Consumer confidence in the economy 
slipped sharply during May, the Con- 
ference Board said. According to the 
business research group’s monthly 
index, consumer confidence dropped 
from a rating of 79.4 in April to 74.2 
in May. 


IUD organizing program nets string of victories for unions 


T he Industrial Union Department’s cooperative 
organizing program has posted a string of vic- 
tories in the first half of 1991. 

Out of 18 campaigns held or resolved in 1991, 
11 resulted in election victories, one employer 
agreed to recognition and three elections were 
resolved in the unions’ favor in litigation. 

The organizing efforts brought union represen- 
tation to more than 2,000 workers. 

Among the victories was the Food and Commer- 
cial Workers’ campaign for 631 workers at Con- 
agra Poultry in Athens, Ala. The UFCW won the 


National Labor Relations Board election, 344-226. 

Other victories included Graphic Comminica- 
tions Union at Areata Graphics in Nashville; the 
Machinists at Gruman Technical Services in Meri- 
dian, Miss; the Paperworkers at Georgia Pacific in 
Palatka, Fla.; and the Electronic Workers at Crown 
Leisure in Maxton, N.C. 

The Service Employees gained 72 new members 
when the city of Clarksville, Tenn., agreed to 
recognize the union as the bargaining agent for ci- 
ty workers. 

In contested elections held last year, the IAM 


became the bargaining agent for workers at AAA 
Alternator Rebuilders by a 35-28 vote, after im- 
pounded ballots were opened, while ACTWU’s 
close win at Irvin Automotive in Dandridge, Tenn., 
was upheld in litigation over the election at the 
250-member unit. 

About two dozen international unions participate 
in the Atlanta-based program. Participating affiliates 
agree in advance on target companies and on which 
union will represent the workers. Organizers work 
out of field offices in North Carolina, Alabama, 
Tennessee and Mississippi. 





The Labor Department is undergoing 
major personnel changes under new 
Labor Secretary Lynn Martin. Nom- 
inated to be assistant secretary for labor- 
management standards is Robert 
Michael Guttman, a former assistant 
to Vice President Dan Quayle. If con- 
firmed by the Senate, he will succeed 
Mary Sterling, who left the post in 
September 1990 to become inspector 
general at the Transportation Depart- 
ment. Martin has named Virginia 
Lamp Thomas, formerly of the 
Chamber of Commerce, as deputy as- 
sistant secretary for congressional and 
intergovernmental affairs. Meanwhile, 
Deputy Secretary of Labor Roderick 
DeArment, the No. 2 official at the 
department, announced his resignation. 

Rev. Joseph J. Pijanowski was 
named the chaplain of the Worcester- 
Framingham, Mass., AFL-CIO. Pija- 
nowski is a former president of the 
Communications Workers local in Clin- 
ton, Mass., whose father and several 
uncles belong to the Steelworkers and 
whose mother and brother were mem- 
bers of the UAW. He was ordained a 
priest in 1985 and is associate pastor at 
Our Lady of the Angels parish. 

Robert Maxwell, owner of the New 
York Daily News, predicted the paper 
will turn a profit by the first quarter of 
1992. Speaking at the National Press 
Club in Washington, D.C., Maxwell 
said the paper’s circulation and adver- 
tising have rebounded to nearly the 
same level as before its 2,300 unionized 
employees were forced out on strike last 
Oct. 25. 

He said the paper could make a profit 
by the end of the year, adding that 
anyone could make a profit with the $3 
million a week in concessions he re- 
ceived from the striking unions. If the 
paper does not make a profit, it will die, 
he said, vowing never to sell it. Max- 
well plans to introduce color production 


at the paper within two to three years, 
a promise the former owner, the 
Tribune Co. , had made four years ago, 
but did not fulfill. 

AWARDS 

UAW President Owen Bieber, an 
AFL-CIO vice president, will be 
awarded the 1991 Spirit of Life Award 
by the City of Hope’s Detroit Metro- 
politan Council at a dinner in his honor 
Nov. 8, 1991. The group’s highest 
award will honor Bieber’s lifetime 
achievements. 

City of Hope conducts research and 
pioneering treatment programs for 
leukemia and other forms of cancer, 
heart, blood and lung diseases, 
diabetes, AIDS, and hereditary and 
metabolic disorders. Since 1913, 
America’s trade unions have provided 
broad support to its research activities. 

The United Way of Greater Tucson 
honored Gracie Carroll, assistant 
director of AFL-CIO Region XI, for 
outstanding service. Carroll served as 
a federation field representative for 1 1 
years before becoming an assistant 
regional director in 1986. 

The 1990 Sidney Hillman Prize 
awards were presented at a luncheon in 
New York on May 22. They honor 
social responsibility in the work of 
reporters, writers, radio and television 
commentators and others who form 
public opinion. The awards were 
presented to: 

• Author and critic Irving Howe, 
the founder and co-editor of Dissent 
magazine, for lifetime public service. 
He is a professor emeritus at the 
Graduate Center of the City University 
of New York. 

• Lisa Glazer, a special housing 
award, for her article, “Mixed Bless- 
ings: Life After the Welfare Hotels,” 
that appeared in City Limits magazine. 
Glazer is associate editor of the 
magazine. 

• Andrew Revkin, for “Burning 
Season,” a book about the life and 
murder of Chico Mendes, a rubber tap- 
per and activist who fought to save the 
Amazon rain forest. 

• Frank Clancy for “Healing the 
Delta” and “Burnout in L.A.” in 
American Health magazine, articles that 
show the linkage between poverty and 
poor health conditions of African 


Americans in the Mississippi Delta and 
Los Angeles. The stories feature health 
care workers. 

• Charlayne Hunter-Gault for 

“Through the Safety Net,” a series on 
the PBS MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour 
about the effects of poverty. 

• Joan Beuckman for “Medical 
Costs: A Dangerous Diagnosis,” for 
KMOX-CBS Radio in St. Louis. The 
series was a comprehensive look at the 
crisis in health care costs, highlighting 
the uninsured and underinsured and the 
effects of health care costs on labor 
negotiations. 

• The Detroit Free Press for 

“Workers at Risk,” a series that 
documented the staggering number of 
preventable injuries and deaths in 
Michigan’s auto parts plants. 

Jon Bickford, a letter carrier from 
Yarmouth, Maine, was named the Na- 
tional Hero of the Year by the Letter 
Carriers for his rescue of a truck driver 
whose chemical tanker truck had over- 
turned on fog-shrouded 1-295 in Port- 
land. 

Other winners announced by NALC 
President Vincent R. Sombrotto in- 
clude Paul W. Collier, a member of 
Syracuse, N.Y., Branch 134, who was 
named National Humanitarian of the 
Year. Collier for the past five years has 
spent his Sundays, holidays and days off 
cooking hot meals for nearly 100 needy 
people at the Oxford Street Inn home- 
less shelter in Fulton, N.Y. 

Regional heroes are: Eugene Parker 
of Virginia Beach, Va., member of 
NALC Branch 2819, who rescued an 
8-year-old girl from the jaws of a pit 
bull; George L. Girard of 
Menomonie, Wis., a member of NALC 
Branch 1033, who organized a human 
chain to rescue a 15-year-old who had 
fallen through the ice in a lake; and 
Jerry Ratliff of Anchorage, Alaska, 
who halted a runaway automobile to 
save a young girl. 

The NALC Branch Service Award 
goes to Connecticut Merged Branch 20, 
of Meriden, Conn., which challenges 
its members to “Catch the Christmas 
Spirit” by adopting local needy 
families, assessing their needs and pro- 
viding holiday toys and other 
necessities. 

Food and Commercial Workers Lo- 
cal 1776 President Wendell W. Young 


III presented the Philadelphia local’s 
first annual Rerum Novarum Award for 
Social Justice to the Sisters of the 
Blessed Sacrament on May 15, the 
100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’ s 
Rerum Novarum. Philadelphia Mayor 
W. Wilson Goode issued a proclama- 
tion declaring that the Sisters of the 
Blessed Sacrament are “daughters of 
Philadelphia who have carried forth the 
message of hope to the needy of our na- 
tion and the world.” 


DEATHS 

Jacob dayman, a past president of 
the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Depart- 
ment and of the National Council of 
Senior Citizens, died of a heart attack 
May 24 at his home in Silver Spring, 
Md. He was 86. 

In a letter to his widow, Helen, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland and Sec- 
retary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue 
said, “Jake dedicated his entire career 
to building a better society by helping 
workers, consumers and the elderly 
gain a voice. He tenaciously fought for 
social and economic justice through the 
advancement of trade union principles 
and the vigilant defense of civil rights 
and civil liberties of all people.” 

dayman, who was at the IUD from 
1960 to 1979, served as its ad- 
ministrative director, secretary- 
treasurer and president. He then 
became president of the NCSC, a post 
he held until retiring in 1989. 

While at the IUD, dayman was the 
chief organizer behind the 1975 Jobs 
Now rally in Washington to protest high 
unemployment and to push for passage 
of a Full Employment Act. He helped 
the senior citizens win several impor- 
tant legislative battles and, in 1981, led 
a rally of 10,000 on the steps of the 
Capitol to protest President Reagan’s at- 
tempt to eliminate the Social Security 
minimum benefit. 

dayman was a founder of the Con- 
sumer Federation of America, serving 
as its first president and remained on its 
board of directors. He was also on the 
board of the Leadership Conference on 
Civil Rights and was chairman of the 
National Civil Liberties Clearing 
House. 

He is survived by his widow, two 
daughters, four grandchildren and two 
great-grandchildren . 


Novelty Workers convention 
spurs labor’s legislative goals 

Focus on health care, strikebreaker ban 


Lake Buena Vista, Fla. 

T he needs for national health care 
reform, a ban on striker replace- 
ments and a congressional check on the 
proposed U.S. -Mexico trade agreement 
were among the concerns expressed by 
delegates to the Novelty and Production 
Workers convention. 

The 150 delegates unanimously re- 
elected Julius Isaacson as president and 
Miles E. Nekolny as secretary-treas- 
urer, and re-elected by acclamation four 
vice-presidents and five members of the 
general executive board. 

The delegates also approved a series 
of constitutional changes, including a 
20-cent increase in the per capita, to 
$2.50 per month, and the establishment 
of a $500 death benefit. 

Health care is the workplace issue 
that will dominate union concerns in the 
1990s, AFL-CIO COPE Director John 
Perkins told the convention. “Health 
care must be moved to the arena of 
public policy because it has laid upon 
collective bargaining a burden it can- 
not safely bear.” 


The proposed U.S. -Mexico “free 
trade” agreement was assailed by 
Maritime Trades Department President 
Michael Sacco, who noted that the same 
people who are “the self-proclaimed 
guardians of free trade” are those who 
uphold the rights of “scab-herding 
employers to permanently replace 
workers when they strike to protect 
their livelihoods.” 

He pointed out that anti-union 
employers increasingly have come to 
see collective bargaining “as a means 
of ridding themselves of their unionized 
workforce through the recruitment of 
scabs.” 

Dennis L. Kivviko, manager of the 
AFL-CIO Union-Industries Show, con- 
trasted for delegates the growing desire 
of citizens to “Buy American” rather 
than foreign products with the trend 
toward foreign companies “buying up 
America.” 

He noted that in the 1980s, the United 
States changed from the world’s largest 
creditor nation to the world’s largest 
debtor nation. 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Muscular dystrophy national poster child Drew Johnson gets some tips from 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland on reading a ship's compass. Drew, who 
is 6 years old, just completed kindergarten in his hometown of Zachary, 
La. He's had the disease since age 2. 




Want ad for 100 openings draws 28,000 job-seekers 



After a long wait, thousands file into Kansas City employment office for job applications. 


Susan Pfannmuller 


High unemployment! Just right for your business 


Johnstown, N.Y. 

H igh unemployment is good for 
business, according to a brochure 
issued by Fulton County’s economic 
development agency. 

The new promotional pamphlet 
does not try to cover up the county’s 
severe jobless rate of 12.7 percent; 
it flaunts it. 

Wording across the cover of the 
three-by-eight-inch booklet calls on 


business to “Capitalize on an Afford- 
able Value,” Underneath, in bold 
script is the declaration: “12.7 per- 
cent unemployment.” 

While not saying so directly, 
Fulton County officials surely are 
suggesting that there are plenty of 
desperate unemployed workers 
available in the Johnstown area for 
rock-bottom wages. 

When it comes to competing in 


high unemployment rates, Fulton 
County has a number of other com- 
munities to contend with. They in- 
clude, according to Bureau of Labor 
Statistics data, Grand Rapids, Mich., 
at 17.2 percent; Modesto, Calif., 
17.1 percent; Kokomo, Ind., 13.9 
percent; Fall River and New Bed- 
ford, Mass., both at 16.3 percent, 
and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, 
Texas, at 19.8 percent. 


By John R. Oravec 

T imes are tough when more than 
28,000 persons apply for just 100 
production jobs. That is what happened 
in Kansas City, Mo., the last three days 
of May after a Ford plant announced the 
openings. 

It is another clear sign of how the 
onslaught of the recession is infecting 
the nation’s economy and afflicting 
American workers. 

Although Kansas City’s official 
unemployment rate has been creaking 
along slightly below the national 
average of 6.6 percent, “It takes 
something like this to bring home how 
many unemployed people are out 
there,” said Jacquelyn Jackson, 
manager of the Missouri Employment 
Security Division’s downtown office. 

Lines of job-seekers began forming 
not long after the first edition of the 
Kansas City Star hit the streets. The 
newspaper carried a Ford Motor Co. 
want ad for 100 workers. Under the 
UAW contract, assembly line jobs at 
Ford’s Claycomo plant have a starting 
pay of $13.70 an hour, plus cost-of- 
living adjustments and benefits. 

A day after the ad ran, more than 
16,000 job-seekers picked up applica- 
tions at four Missouri state employment 
offices in the Kansas City area. State of- 
ficials said another 12,100 forms were 
handed out the following two days, for 
a total of 28,100. 

Outside the Gladstone area unem- 
ployment office, nearly 1,000 people 
were lined up at 7 a.m. — an hour 
before it opened. Many had camped out 
in the parking lot the night before, said 
office manager Carolyn Londerholm. 

On the first day, the downtown of- 
fice gave out 4,500 applications. The 


Gladstone office distributed 5,000. Two 
other area offices issued another 6,500 
applications. 

Jackson and Londerholm said the ap- 
plicants were somber. 

“They were very solemn, very 
quiet,” Jackson told the Kansas City 
Star. “They looked very serious. They 
looked sad.” 

Daniel J. McVey, president of the 
Missouri AFL-CIO, said “there are 
many more jobless and under-employed 


workers who are not counted on the 
unemployment rolls. And there are not 
enough jobs to go around to take up the 
slack.” 

McVey noted that the metropolitan 
areas of Kansas City and St. Louis have 
seen thousands of good-paying jobs dis- 
appear in recent months. “We’re go- 
ing to see more of that in coming 
months,” he warned. 

State employment specialists were not 
startled by the heavy turnout of ap- 


plicants. They readily admitted that 
there are far more jobless workers in 
the workforce than are registered by of- 
ficial unemployment rate. Tens of 
thousands are holding part-time jobs 
because they cannot find full-time 
work. 

Under a UAW contract clause, ap- 
plicants who had been laid off at other 
Ford facilities in other parts of the coun- 
try would receive priority consideration 
for the job openings. 


INSIDE 

Health care stand 
costs workers dearly 

More than two-thirds of workers who 
were permanently replaced last year 
were striking over employer attempts to 
shift health care costs, an AFL-CIO 
study found. 

House vote boosts 
civil rights remedies 

The House passed a labor-backed civil 
rights bill that would restore job pro- 
tections and remedies for victims of 
discrimination that were restricted by 
the Supreme Court. 





Congress investigates 
Ravenswood action 

Ravens wood Aluminum Corp., which 
“permanently replaced” 1,700 
Steelworkers, comes under congres- 
sional scrutiny for turning away federal 
safety inspectors. 

Deny China trade 
benefits, AFL-CIO says 

Congress should not reward China’s 
brutal oppression of workers and 
children with most-favored-nation trade 
status, the AFL-CIO told a Senate 
foreign relations subcommittee. 




Supreme Court rebuffs 
agency fee challenge 

The Supreme Court upheld the use of 
agency fees to support the activities of 
state and national unions, while two 
federal judges ruled in favor of NFL 
players seeking free agency. 

Workers see wages, 
jobs slipping away 

While some sectors posted a gain in 
April over the previous month, key 
economic indicators for workers, in- 
cluding number of payroll jobs and real 
weekly earnings, slipped. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


6 / 10/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 








VOLUME 36, NUMBER 13 


JUNE 24, 1991 



Campaign speaks 
workplace fairness 

Multi-media drive puts issue 
of replacements in spotlight 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he campaign for legislation to ban 
“permanent replacements” for strik- 
ing workers will intensify over the next 
few weeks with media advertising that 
will greet many members of Congress 
in Washington, then follow them to 
their home districts during the July 4 
recess. 

Besides television and radio ads and 
printed advertisements aimed at key un- 
committed members of Congress, the 
campaign will include requests by union 
members for meetings during the re- 
cess, and another flurry of mailgrams 
and postcards, all urging support for the 
Workplace Fairness Bill, H.R. 5 in the 
House and S. 55 in the Senate. 

At a news conference June 20 to an- 
nounce the stepped-up campaign, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland noted that 
the legislation is intended to close a 
loophole in labor law and end the legal 
paradox whereby workers have a right 
to strike but can be “permanently 
replaced” if they exercise that right. 

To a growing number of employers, 
Kirkland said, “this loophole is actually 


for 


Machinists President George 

Kourpias and AFL-CIO 
Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue 
look over nearly a 
half a million 
postcards from 1AM 
members urging 
passage of H.R. 
5 and S. 55. 


Jobs lost, 
workers 
tossed 


an incentive to provoke a strike in order 
to be able to replace union workers with 
a more pliant, non-union workforce.” 
“This transforms what is supposed to 
be a system of resolving differences into 
a larger, life-or-death confrontation 
over whether the union will continue to 
exist,” he said. “And it destroys the 


balance of bargaining power that brings 
reason, moderation and compromise in- 
to the process.” 

H.R. 5 has cleared three committees 
and is slated for a mid- July vote in the 
House. The Senate version was mark- 
ed up June 19 by the Labor and Human 
Resources Committee, the first of 


several committees that will consider 
the bill. Thus, the Senate timetable will 
be running well behind the House , 
schedule. 

The first phase of the media campaign 
was scheduled to begin June 22, the 
Saturday prior to Congress’s last week 

Continued on Page 8 


Public employees march for rights 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

P ublic employees, denied the right to 
organize and bargain collectively in 
almost half the states in the nation, have 
a special message to deliver when they 
come to Washington on Solidarity Day 
’91: Freedom of association should be 
a right for all Americans, including 
employees of state and local govern- 
ments. 

Public employees in 24 states are still 
fighting for this freedom and they will 
come by the thousands to press for their 
rights. 

Public employees in Oklahoma, a 
state with no collective bargaining law, 
will travel via chartered bus and 
airplane. The Oklahoma AFL-CIO has 
made arrangements with American 
Airlines for a special round-trip fare of 
$258 for workers traveling from 
Oklahoma and bus transportation for 
$150 round-trip. 

While public workers in New York 
City and other localities have the right 
to bargain collectively, budget crunches 
in which elected officials think “layoffs 
first’ ’ have forced them to fight for their 
jobs, a fight they will bring to Solidarity 
Day. 





' ■ 


In New York, Amtrak has coordi- 
nated the sale of 2,400 seats and tickets 
with the Central Labor Council, said 
Brian McLaughlin, assistant to New 
York City AFL-CIO President Thomas 
P. Van Arsdale. 

Anyone interested in obtaining a 
ticket should make the check payable to 
Amtrak and send it to the New York 
City AFL-CIO at Suite 601, 386 Park 
Ave. South, New York, N.Y. 10016. 
Numerous unions, labor councils, and 


state federations have made similar 
arrangements. 

Freedom of association is one of the 
major themes of Solidarity Day. The 
others are national health care reform 
and legislation banning the permanent 
replacement of strikers. 

Arne Anderson, senior research 
analyst for the Service Employees, said 
officials must recognize the union’s 
strength, even if there are no collective 
bargaining laws covering the 
employees. But public employees 
should have the same freedom of 
association as employees in the private 
sector, he said. 

Don Wasserman, AFSCME’s direc- 
tor of collective bargaining services, 
said that in the absence of a federal col- 
lective bargaining law for all public 
employees, workers have “tried to 
achieve a de facto relationship with 
local and state governments.” 

But a federal law is needed to give 
all public employees “equal rights,” he 
said. Currently, some public employees 
enjoy collective bargaining rights while 
others are excluded. 

For example, in Florida only state 
Continued on Page 4 


Postal unions 
retain COLAs, 
get pay raise 

By Arlee C. Green 

U nions representing 560,000 U.S. 

Postal Service employees hailed an 
arbitration panel’s four-year contract 
award that includes basic wage in- 
creases and cost-of-living protections 
that management had sought to strip 
away. 

“We are pleased the award preserves 
our primary objectives — continuation 
of our traditional (cost-of-living) pro- 
tection and annual wage increases,” 
said Letter Carriers President Vincent 
R. Sombrotto. 

Postal Workers President Moe Biller 
agreed. “In a time when concessionary 
contracts, lump-sum payoffs and 
bonuses are infecting the psyche of 
American labor unions, the APWU pre- 
vailed in convincing the arbitrators that 
postal workers deserve more because 
they’re worth more,” he said. 

“As a result, we won an award that 
will increase postal workers’ base pay 
Continued on Page 2 







AFA board 
elects Maki 
as president 


Members of the Seafarers march behind the banner of 
"America's Merchant Marine" during the National Vic- 
tory Celebration Parade in Washington June 8. Other 
unions joining in the march were: Marine Engineers 


siu 

District 1 and MEBA District 2; Longshoremen; Masters, 
Mates and Pilots; Sailors Union of the Pacific; Marine 
Firemen and Oilers, as well as members of the 
Watertenders and Wipers. 


hail new 4-year contract 


By Candice Johnson 

D ee Maki, a 27-year attendant at 
US Air, was elected president of the 
Flight Attendants, defeating Susan 
Bianchi-Sand in a special election. 

Members of the AFA’s board of 
directors voted 13,187-11,895 for 
Maki. Ballots were cast based on local 
union membership. 

The election was scheduled follow- 
ing the board of directors meeting last 
November, when no candidate received 
a majority of votes cast. The union’s ex- 
ecutive board then established runoff 
procedures for electing national 
officers. 

Also elected were R. Frederick Casey 
as vice president and Sharon Madigan 
as secretary-treasurer. Casey had been 
serving as secretary-treasurer since 
1989 and Madigan was an officer with 
the AFA’s United Airlines master ex- 
ecutive council. 

Maki headed the union’s USAir 
master executive council from 1986- 
1989, serving during several mergers 
and five contract negotiations. Bianchi- 
Sand, who has been an AFL-CIO vice 
president since 1989, was elected presi- 
dent of the AFA in 1986 after serving 
as vice president since 1979. She served 
as an attendant with United. 

United avoids bargaining 

At United, the AFA charged that the 
carrier made yet another effort to avoid 
good-faith bargaining when it mailed 
letters to 16,000 flight attendants urg- 
ing them to accept earlier contract 
proposals. 

United mailed the letters and released 
them to reporters in an effort to bypass 
the negotiating committee, the AFA 
said, noting that the carrier refused to 
make any formal offer in the most re- 
cent bargaining session held last month. 

Bobbie Pilkington of the union’s 
United MEC called the move “a trans- 
parent attempt” to avoid negotiating 
with the union and “to mollify the peo- 
ple on Wall Street through the press.” 
United’s latest tactics simply “con- 
firm that the parties are at an impasse 
and what is warranted now is a release 
by the National Mediation Board,” the 
MEC said. 

The attendants have petitioned the 
board to begin the “30-day cooling off 
period,” after which they would be free 
to strike the carrier. 

The United attendants are seeking a 
6 percent annual wage increase over a 
42-month agreement, as well as con- 
tract improvements, seniority guaran- 
tees and the elimination of body weight 
restrictions. 


>i m aiiiiii 11 iiii 

APWU, NALC 

Continued from Page 1 

by nearly 6 percent over the life of the 
new contract and will continue to give 
us uncapped cost-of-living adjustments 
as well,” Biller added. 

The NALC and APWU Joint Bar- 
gaining Committee (JBC) negotiated 
through the Nov. 20, 1990, expiration 
of the old contracts without getting the 
Postal Service to resolve any issues on 
the table. The matter was then submit- 
ted to binding arbitration, as is required 
under law. 

The five-member board, headed by 
arbitrator Richard Mittenthal of Detroit, 
imposed the four-year settlement on the 
APWU and NALC. The award pro- 
vides general wage increases of 1 .2 per- 
cent, effective this month, followed by 
1.5 percent increases in November 
1991 and 1992. A final 1 .6 percent raise 
goes into effect in November 1993. 

The contracts are retroactive to last 
Nov. 20, but a lump-sum of $351 will 
be paid to members in lieu of retroac- 
tive pay or cost-of-living allowance, the 
unions said. 

The panel retained the unions’ 
previous cost-of-living formula of a 
1-cent hourly increase for each 0.4 
point rise in the consumer price index 
for urban and clerical workers 


(CPI-W). There will be seven COLA 
payments over the next three years. The 
NALC estimated those adjustments 
would total $3,900 for its members if 
inflation averages 5 percent annually, 
or about $3,200 if inflation goes up 4.2 
percent a year. 

The impact of automation was a key 
concern for the APWU, as was the 
USPS’s demand for an increase in the 
use of part-time workers. 

Biller said that “the panel imposed 
what I believe to be an unnecessarily 
heavy hit on APWU members, based 
on management’s supposed limitations 
in the area of flexibility. It appears that 
the panel’s decision reflects the fact that 
our members are more seriously im- 
pacted by management’s inefficient 
deployment of automation than other 
postal employees.” 

The board altered the full-time/part- 
time worker ratio to 80 percent full- 
time/20 percent part-time for APWU’s 
combined bargaining units and to 88/12 
for the NALC. It also established a new 
entry-level pay step for Grades 1-10 at 
10 percent below the current wage 
scale. 

The panel also established a new 
category of non-career, transitional 
employee to fill jobs that ultimately will 


be phased out by automation. Other 
aspects of this new classification will be 
considered by separate APWU and 
NALC task forces. If they cannot agree 
by October 1991, the matter will be 
referred to separate final and binding 
arbitration. 

No changes were made in health 
benefit provisions, but a task force will 
be established to study ways to limit the 
USPS’s exposure to rising health care 
costs. If the task force cannot agree, the 
arbitration panel will reconvene before 
Oct. 15, 1991 , to render a binding deci- 
sion on that issue. 

Other joint JBC/USPS tasks forces 
will examine provisions on job reas- 
signment and excessing, interlevel job 
bidding by clerks, and the respon- 
sibilities of the new clerk crew chief 
position, the unions said. 

In other changes, the employee assis- 
tance program will be expanded and im- 
proved; grievance language is clarified; 
a program is set up to allow employees 
to donate leave to fellow workers who 
suffer from “serious personal health 
conditions;” the annual leave carryover 
limit is increased to 440 hours from 
320; and step increases will not be 
withheld for reason of unsatisfactory 
performance, the unions said. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 13 ®<sgH §| s >3 MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


. rtOR COMMUKfc^ , 

m 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





m 


IfflSLfflON 


Labor flexible on health care reform 


By John R. Oravec 

L abor is keeping an “open mind” on 
the basic method or structure to 
achieve the immediate goals of reform- 
ing the nation’s ailing health care 
system, AFL-CIO Vice President John 
J. Sweeney told the House Government 
Operations Committee. 

But the control of runaway costs 
hinges on the establishment of an all- 
payer reimbursement system now used 
by the governments of many nations, 
stressed Sweeney, president of the 
Service Employees and chair of the 
federation’s Health Care Committee. 

When it comes to paying for health 
care, “we have much to learn from 
other countries,” he noted. “Figures 
for 1989 show that the United States, 
on a per-person basis, spent 40 percent 
more than Canada. Other industrialized 
countries have achieved even greater 
control over costs. We out-spent 
Sweden by 73 percent, Germany by 91 
percent and Japan by 127 percent.” 
Despite the far higher U.S. per capita 
spending, more than 37 million Amer- 
icans have no health insurance and mil- 
lions of others are underinsured, 
Sweeney pointed out. 

Citing the findings of a study by the 
AFL-CIO Health Care Committee on 
the reform process, Sweeney said that 
an all-payer reimbursement mechanism 
is essential to contain costs. 

“Despite great variation in institu- 
tions, culture and financing, every other 
industrialized country employs uniform 
reimbursement, a national health budget 


By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO has urged Congress to 
change several provisions in the 
Bush administration’s banking reform 
package, saying the proposals would 
erode, not improve public confidence 
in the nation’s financial system. 

Robert McGlotten, the federation’s 
legislative director, in a letter to Rep. 
Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas), said the 
“health of the nation’s financial system 
is of critical importance to the AFL- 
CIO and working people.” But the cur- 
rent legislation contains several “objec- 
tionable” provisions. Gonzalez chairs 
the House Banking, Finance and Urban 
Affairs Committee. 

The AFL-CIO opposes the portions 
of the bill that “would preclude or 
drastically restrict the Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from ex- 
tending ‘pass-through’ insurance to 
pension plan participants and benefici- 
aries,” McGlotten said. 

The federation also urged the panel 
to oppose provisions to permit banks to 
own insurance and securities firms. 

The letter called for the committee to 
reject amendments that weaken the 
Community Reinvestment Act by al- 
lowing small banks to return to “redlin- 
ing,” or refusing to make loans in 
older, inner city and minority neighbor- 
hoods. McGlotten pointed out that was 
exactly what CRA was created in 1977 
to prevent. 

Finally, McGlotten said the Congress 
must protect the rights and benefits of 
bank workers by ending FDIC authority 
to abrogate the terms of collective 
bargaining contracts. The FDIC can 


and capital controls,” said Sweeney. 

Under an all-payer reimbursement 
system, he said, “every payer — 
government program, employer, pri- 
vate insurer or individual — would pay 
the same price for a unit of service,” 
and the private and public purchasers 
would be combined into a single pur- 
chaser that would negotiate with health 
care providers. 

He also cited a survey by the Robert 
Wood Johnson Foundation showing a 
majority of Fortune 500 chief executive 
officers agreeing that health care costs 
cannot be controlled without govern- 
ment intervention. 

“With employer health benefit costs 
projected to hit $22,000 per employee 
by the year 2000,” Sweeney said, “it’s 
not surprising to see the growing recep- 
tivity within the business community to 
a regulatory approach.” 

He however expressed concern that 
many business leaders still resist action 
at the federal level because of long- 
standing “ideological opposition” to a 
role for government. 

“If business leaders wish to burn up 
their profits on the altar of free-market 
ideology, that’s their business,” 
Sweeney said. “But in the case of out- 
of-control health care costs, it’s the 
workers who are paying the price for 
their myopia.” 

Noting that although organized labor 
has traditionally supported a pure social 
insurance approach to health care, 
Sweeney told the committee that the 
AFL-CIO “has decided not to make this 


abrogate contract terms it judges are not 
in the best interest of the bank — but 
stripping workers of health or pension 
benefits should not be treated the same 
as other contracts, McGlotten noted. 

McGlotten ’s letter is the latest in an 
ongoing drive by the federation to 
reform the nation’s banking system at 
a time when the cost of the savings and 
loans bailout is escalating and banks are 
failing at an alarming rate. 

Workers have a great deal at stake in 
the debate about the health of the finan- 
cial system, said Sheldon Friedman of 
the AFL-CIO Economic Research De- 
partment. Jobs depend on a well- 
functioning financial system that serves 
businesses and individuals while 
safeguarding depositors, he said. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council has 
said banking reform should include 
“stronger and more effective govern- 
ment regulation, a viable deposit in- 
surance program, the assurance of 
banking services to consumers and local 
businesses, and proper safeguards for 
bank employees affected by closings 
and mergers.” 

The AFL-CIO prefers a plan that 
would increase federal regulation of 
banks through an updated version of the 
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 
which could inject capital into the bank- 
ing system in return for appropriate 
guarantees, Friedman said. 

The federation also wants the legisla- 
tion to bring non-bank financial institu- 
tions under a common regulatory um- 
brella and to ensure that bank lending 
practices emphasize job-creating and 
socially responsible investments. 


a prerequisite for its endorsement of 
comprehensive health care reform leg- 
islation.” 

Also testifying before the House 
committee was AFL-CIO Vice Presi- 
dent Gerald McEntee, president of 
AFSCME. 

The federation has welcomed the in- 
troduction of “HealthAmerica” legisla- 
tion by Senate Democratic leaders as a 
move toward needed reform of the ex- 
isting system, which excludes 37 
million people from coverage. 

“We applaud this Senate effort to 
provide access for all Americans, 
assure quality of service and develop a 
workable structure to secure cost con- 
tainment,” the federation said. But it 
stressed that cost-containment features 
in the package must go beyond volun- 
tary compliance to be effective. 

Two former federal health secre- 
taries, Joseph Califano and Elliot 
Richardson, voiced their support for the 
Democratic proposal at hearings by the 
Senate Labor and Human Resources 
Committee. 

Richardson, who served under 
former President Richard M. Nixon, 
called on fellow Republicans to lend 
their backing to the proposal to resolve 
the health care crisis. 

Califano, who served in former Pres- 
ident Jimmy Carter’s Cabinet, said the 
Health America measure “would stop 
the rationing of care by the size of peo- 
ple’s wallets and take cost-containment 
steps to avoid rationing by any means 
in the future.” 


Meanwhile, two recent reports point 
out the tragic consequences of ten years 
of conservative economic policies. 

According to the National Planning 
Association, virtually every sector of 
the economy is more unstable than a 
few years ago. 

High debt levels could make it dif- 
ficult to reduce unemployment and end 
the current recession, said Richard S. 
Belous, NPA’s senior economist, who 
co-authored the report with Robert 
Dunn, a George Washington University 
professor. The report is entitled “A 
Time For Action: Ensuring the Stabil- 
ity of the U.S. Financial System.” 

The chances of a repeat of the 1929 
financial panic and resulting depression 
are very low, the authors said, but the 
potential for economic stress is great 
because many families and businesses 
lack the financial cushion needed to ab- 
sorb a large shock. 

In a report for the Economic Policy 
Institute, Jane D’Arista says the ag- 
gregate savings of individuals should be 
insured up to a given amount instead of 
single accounts. She also proposes that 
transaction accounts — those used by 
employers, or state and local govern- 
ments for payrolls, purchases and other 
bills — be insured for the full amount. 

D’Arista, associate director of the 
Morin Center for Banking Law Studies 
at Boston University, said Bush’s bank- 
ing reform plan would further 
deregulate the industry, increase tax- 
payer liability and require more govern- 
ment bailouts. Her report is entitled 
“No More Bank Bailouts: A Proposal 
for Deposit Insurance Reform.” 


i 


Capitol Digest 


U nions are backing legislation that 
would curb secret electronic work- 
place monitoring. Some 10 million 
American workers are monitored daily 
for everything from the number of 
keystrokes performed on computers to 
their trips to the bathroom. 

H.R. 1218 would require that em- 
ployers notify workers through the use 
of a tone or signal light when they are 
being monitored at their computer ter- 
minals, through their headsets or at 
other work stations. 

‘ ‘ Electronic surveillance invades 
workers’ privacy and erodes their sense 
of dignity. In addition, it frustrates their 
efforts to do high quality work by plac- 
ing a simple-minded emphasis on speed 
and other purely quantitative mea- 
sures,” said AFL-CIO Legislative 
Director Robert M. McGlotten. 

“Workers can be listened to without 
even the courtesy of notification, but 
people suspected of criminal behavior 
by the FBI” are protected by the law, 
which requires a court order before 
their phones are tapped, said Rep. Pat 
Williams (D-Mont.), the bill’s sponsor. 
The House Education and Labor sub- 
committee on labor-management rela- 
tions, which Williams chairs, recently 
held hearings on the bill. 

The bill would require that surveil- 
lance be relevant to a worker’s job per- 
formance. It also would give employees 
the right to see the information gathered 
by the monitoring. It would limit the 
employer’s use of the information and 
would bar employers from collecting 
information when an employee is exer- 
cising First Amendment rights, includ- 
ing contacts with union representatives. 
In other action on Capitol Hill: 
CARGO PREFERENCE - Con- 
gress gave a boost to the U.S. Merchant 
Marine when the Senate Foreign Rela- 
tions Committee adopted an amendment 
to the fiscal year 1992 foreign aid 
authorization backed by the AFL-CIO. 
The amendment would reform the cash 
transfer program and require that more 
of U.S. foreign aid be used to purchase 
goods and commodities that were 
grown, produced or manufactured in 
the United States and shipped accord- 
ing to the Cargo Preference Act of 
1954. The authorization was passed by 
the House. The Senate will act later. 

GOVERNMENT LAYOFF 
NOTICES - The House Post Office 
and Civil Service Committee approved 
a bill which would require the govern- 
ment to notify federal employees in 
writing 60 days in advance of a layoff. 
Current regulations require a 30-day 
notice. Civilian workers of companies 
with 100 more employees receive 
60-day notices under the 1988 Plant 
Closing Notification Act. 

RECESS — The House and Senate 
will recess for the week of July 1-7. The 
AFL-CIO urges trade unionists to use 
this holiday break to contact their re- 
presentatives in district and local offices 
and to seek support for labor backed 
bills including striker replacement, civil 
rights and family and medical leave. 


Worker protections sought in bank reform 






AFSCME photo 


Some 3,000 public employees rally at the Illinois state plan to lay off 1,400 state workers and cut more than 
capitol to protest Gov. James Edgar's proposed budget $500 million from vital state programs. 


State, local 
workers fight 
for livelihoods 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

P ublic employees are locked in tense 
battles with cities and states across 
the country, with jobs and public serv- 
ices on the line. 

In New York, Gov. Mario Cuomo 
used a line-item veto to slash $899 
million worth of appropriations from 
the state budget, saying the state can- 
not afford an unbalanced spending plan. 

But the governor and state legislature 
have not come up with any plans to 
avert layoffs of approximately 8,000 
public employees who received pink 
slips last week. The lay offs become ef- 
fective at the end of the month. The 
scheduled layoffs and tax hikes are to 
plug a $3.5 billion gap in a $29 billion 
budget. 

AFSCME District Council Executive 
Director Stanley Hill called the layoffs 
an “economic and human tragedy,” add- 
ing that municipal unions would not be 
likely to make concessions while fac- 
ing job cuts. 

The United Federation of Teachers/ 
AFT said an early retirement incentive 
plan awaiting Cuomo’s signature would 
save approximately 8,000 jobs. The 
Teachers union incorporated a no-layoff 
provision in their contract for the cur- 
rent fiscal year. However, the new 
fiscal year begins July 1 and “that is 
another story.” 

New York AFL-CIO President Ed- 
ward Cleary rejected both Cuomo’s cuts 
and revenue measures such as borrow- 
ing, surcharges on parking tickets, and 
regressive and counterproductive taxes 
on energy products. “They will make 
the state less competitive in the new 
global economy and contribute to the 
suffering of the family of New York.” 
“The budget dance begins again,” 
Teachers President Sandra Feldman 
said. “Our concern is that when the 
music stops, will we still have decent 
public schools in New York City?” 
The Teachers, negotiating their con- 
tract before the fiscal chaos, received 
a 5.5 percent increase in salary for some 
65,000 educators in New York. 
However, the Teachers also agreed to 
loan $40 million dollars of their salaries 
to the city. The city will repay the loan 
in 1995. 

In the midst of budget battles in the 
state legislature, Mayor David Dinkins 
and unions are making progress at 


snails pace. At the last session, union 
leaders were furious at the mayor for 
consigning the talks to his regular labor 
negotiating team, rather than taking 
charge personally, and for allowing his 
staff to draft furlough legislation. 

David Baker, Service Employees 
director of the public employee divi- 
sion, said, “Our employees are under 
seige. A lot of states’ activities against 
public employees are fueled by the 
retrenchment of the federal govern- 
ment’s role.” 

SEIU’s California State Employees 
Association, which negotiates on behalf 
of about 100,000 state employees, 
picketed the state capitol in Sacramen- 
to, protesting Gov. Pete Wilson’s pro- 
posal to balance the budget through cuts 
in their pay and benefits. California 
faces a $14.3 billion budget deficit. 

In Illinois, some 3,000 workers were 
joined by the poor and homeless as they 
took their message to the state capitol 
carrying signs with such slogans as 
“Edgar Scissorhands is After My Job” 
and “It’s Crazy to Cut the Mental 
Health Budget.” 

State AFL-CIO President Richard 
Walsh and AFSCME Council 31 Ex- 
ecutive Director Steve Culen warned 
that pay freezes and reduced medical 
benefits proposed in Gov. James 
Edgar’s budget plan would only hurt 
state workers’ productivity. 


Edgar’s spending plan includes lay- 
offs of more than 1 ,400 state workers 
and cuts of more than $500 million from 
state agencies and welfare programs. 

In New Jersey, unions were planning 
to file an unfair labor practice charge 
against Human Services Commissioner 
Alan Gibbs, who placed a letter in all 
state employees’ paychecks warning 
that 6,000 workers would be laid off if 
the state does not receive $370 million 
in wage deferrals, health benefit copay- 
ments and unpaid furloughs. 

AFSCME Council 1 Executive Di- 
rector Robert Angelo called the letter 
“an obvious scare tactic destined to 
backfire on the administration.” 

Talks between the unions and the ad- 
ministration of Gov. James Florio broke 
down June 5. However, Florio is seek- 
ing the concessions before July 1 , when 
the state must enact a balanced budget. 

Gov. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut 
and unions tentatively reached an agree- 
ment on the day that layoffs would have 
begun for the first of more than 2,600 
state workers. 

According to the Tom Carusello, 
director of communications for the 
Connecticut AFL-CIO, 20 of 29 unions 
have ratified the agreement, which calls 
for wage deferrals for fiscal years 
1991-92 and 1992-93 and pension de- 
ferrals for 1991-92. 

“This settlement represents a victory 


not only for state employees, but for all 
of Connecticut’s working families,” 
said Connecticut AFL-CIO President 
John W. Olsen. “Public employee 
unions have done their share to solve 
our state’s fiscal woes, to defend the 
programs that meet our citizens’ needs, 
and to uphold wage and benefit stan- 
dards for all of Connecticut’s workers. 
Now the legislature must do its part by 
passing a fair and adequate budget.” 

The Connecticut legislature is now in 
special session to pass a budget and tax 
plan to alleviate a $2.8 million deficit. 

In Massachussets, a part-time public 
employee figured out how to balance 
the budget, but Gov. William Weld 
continues to stall contract negotiations 
for public employees who have been 
without raises for four years. 

A part-time employee, Kathleen 
Betts, discovered a way the state could 
qualify for additional federal Medicaid 
reimbursements. 

Betts sent a memorandum to the 
state’s Medicaid director. After a long 
process, state officials said they had 
assurances from Washington that $489 
million would be in hand by June 30. 

As a result, the state will not be 
forced to shut down later this month to 
close a $460 million gap in its $13.5 
billion budget. Nor will it have to lay 
off workers, raise taxes or borrow 
money, as it has done since 1988. 


Public employees seek freedom of association here at home 



This hand-cancel will be used on mail sent from a U.S. Postal Service mobile 
station to be set up on the Mall on Solidarity Day '91. 


Continued from Page 1 

and local employees are covered under 
the state’s collective bargaining law. 
Teachers, police, and fire fighters are 
excluded. 

“We lobby very heavily in state 
legislatures for collective bargaining 
rights, especially in Ohio, which was 
the most recent state to pass a collec- 
tive bargaining law,” said Randy 
Hudgins, the Fire Fighters’ research 
director. 

“With the failure of collective 
bargaining laws this year in New Mex- 
ico and North Dakota, we realize now 
more than ever before that federal 
legislation is imperative,” Hudgins 
pointed out. 

Lou Nayman, Teachers’ Department 
of Organization field director, said, “At 
a time when democracies are forming 
throughout the world, this marks a good 
time to make sure public employees en- 
joy the basic democratic right of free- 
dom of association. This would also be 
a concerted action for public employees 


to improve their lives and the people 
they serve.” 

Federal employees also need laws to 
protect them. Non-postal employees, 
unlike employees of state and local 
governments, were granted limited 
rights to organize and negotiate on 
work-related issues by a 1962 presiden- 
tial executive order and a 1978 federal 
law that established the Federal Labor 
Relations Authority. 

These workers have the right to nego- 
tiate work conditions but cannot 


negotiate their wages and benefits. 

Beth Moton, Government Employ- 
ees’ legislative representative, said the 
union is urging Congress to pass legisla- 
tion allowing non-postal employees the 
right to bargain for wages and benefits. 

The need for legislation is under- 
scored in a report by the AFL-CIO 
Public Employee Department, which 
shows that government workers, given 
the opportunity to organize and bargain 
collectively, will choose unions to 
represent their interests. 


In states that have laws to protect 
public employees, workers join unions 
at a much higher rate than in states 
where workers are denied organizing 
and collective bargaining rights, ac- 
cording to the study, “Rates of Collec- 
tive Bargaining.” 

Twenty-six states and the District of 
Columbia have passed laws allowing 
public employees to organize and bar- 
gain collectively. In those states, 57 
percent of the public employees are 
represented by unions, according to the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the 24 
states without protections, only 11 per- 
cent of public employees are members 
of unions. 

States without comprehensive bar- 
gaining laws include Alabama, 
Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, 
Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, 
Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New 
Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, 
North Dakota, Oklahoma, South 
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, 
Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 






New Grain Millers President Larry Jackson (left) and 
Secretary-Treasurer Howard Roe acknowledge 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

applause from delegates to the union's convention, 
following their election to four-year terms. 


Grain Millers elect new officers 


Las Vegas 

T he Grain Millers convention elected 
Larry R. Jackson to a four-year term 
as president, replacing Robert Willis, 
who retired and becomes president 
emeritus. 

Delegates also elected Howard Roe 
as secretary-treasurer, Larry Barber as 
executive vice president and Jack Lick 
as a new vice president. 

All other executive board members 
were re-elected. The new terms for all 
officers begin on July 1 . 

Willis had served as president since 
1983, when he was elected president 
and Jackson was elected secretary- 
treasurer. Roe has served as the ex- 
ecutive vice president and Barber was 
a vice president. 

In his final address to the convention, 
Willis reported that through organizing 
efforts the union posted an increase in 
membership last year, reversing a 
decade of contraction. 

Willis advised the convention that 


Seattle 

M embers of the Longshoremen and 
Warehousemen will elect a new 
president in a runoff referendum to suc- 
ceed James R. Herman, who is retiring 
after heading the ILWU since 1977. 

Nominated to the top post by dele- 
gates to the union’s triennial convention 
were Randy Vekich, incumbent vice 
president who comes out of Local 24 
in Aberdeen, Wash., and David Arian, 
former president of Local 13 in Wil- 
mington, Calif. 

The 400 delegates elected Leon 
Harris as secretary-treasurer without 
opposition. Harris, secretary -treasurer 
of Local 6 in San Francisco, will suc- 
ceed Curtis McClain following his 
retirement in September. 

In other action, the convention voted 


unions that ignore or choose not to par- 
ticipate in labor-management programs, 
such as quality circles, team concepts, 
quality of work life and other such pro- 
grams will not survive. 

The convention’s 256 delegates 
adopted resolutions calling for passage 
of national health care and for legisla- 
tion banning the permanent replacement 
of strikers, and stated their opposition 
to further increases in trade taxes, such 
as the labor maintenance tax and vessel 
tonnage tax, that affect exports. The 
convention also voiced its opposition to 
the siting of hazardous waste disposal 
facilities near food production plants. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue described how the 
slumping U.S. economy has affected 
workers. He pointed out that American 
employers spend less than $30 billion 
a year on training, with most of that go- 
ing to managers, professionals, super- 
visors and technicians. Only 14 percent 
of the money goes to training for 


to establish a second vice presidency 
with jurisdiction for Hawaii. Elected 
without opposition to the new office was 
Thomas Trask, ILWU’s regional direc- 
tor for Hawaii. 

A runoff election also will determine 
the winner of the contest for the main- 
land vice president between Brian 
McWilliams, secretary-treasurer of 
Local 34 in San Francisco, and Joe 
Ibarra, regional director for southern 
California and a member of Local 29 
in San Diego. 

Balloting for the union’s top offices 
will begin in late July and is expected 
to be completed in August. Officers are 
to be installed at a meeting of the ILWU 
executive board Sept. 1 1 in San Fran- 
cisco. The terms of office are three 
years. 


workers like the grain millers, auto 
workers, and laborers, Donahue said. 

He contrasted that record with the 
records in Germany, where employers 
contribute more than 3 percent of their 
annual payroll to public training and 
employment programs, and in Sweden, 
where 2.5 percent of payroll plus 10 
percent of profits go to funds that cover 
job training. 

Other guest speakers included AFL- 
CIO Food and Allied Service Trades 
Department President Robert Harbrant; 
Union Label and Service Trades De- 
partment Secretary-Treasurer Richard 
Perry; Theatrical Stage Employees 
Secretary -Treasurer James J. Riley; 
Nevada AFL-CIO President Walt 
Elliot; Roy Lukens, executive assistant 
to the president of the Aluminum, Brick 
and Glass Workers; Robert Thaler, 
senior vice president of the Union 
Privilege Benefit Programs; and Lester 
Null, assistant to the president of the 
Glass, Molders and Pottery Workers. 


Convention speakers included AFL- 
CIO Secretary -Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue and federation regional direc- 
tors David Sickler and Edward Collins. 
Also attending the convention was a 
Soviet delegation from the USSR In- 
dependent Federation of Water Trans- 
port Workers. 

The 50,000-member ILWU repre- 
sents dock workers at West Coast ports 
including Canada, as well as workers 
in Hawaii’s hotel, sugar, pineapple and 
tourism industries. 

The ILWU was founded in 1937 and 
affiliated with the AFL-CIO in 1987. 
Herman, who is 66, succeeded the late 
Harry Bridges as president in 1977. 

McClain, who also is 66, has served 
as secretary-treasurer of the union for 
the past 14 years. 


IBFO renews 
commitment 
to organizing 

Miami Beach 

D elegates to the 32nd conven- 
tion of the Firemen and Oilers 
declared solid support for 
organizing, “the union’s top 
priority,’’ IBFO President Jimmy 
L. Walker said. 

“Simply put, we have to 
organize to survive,’’ Walker 
said. “The more we are, the 
stronger we are . . . stronger to 
better serve our members, 
stronger when we have to take on 
management.’’ 

Walker noted that the IBFO has 
experienced a net growth in 
membership since its previous 
convention five years ago, with 
many of the union’s gains made 
among workers in the South 
“where conventional wisdom 
says organizing is toughest.’’ 
Walker said the relocation of 
the union’s headquarters to At- 
lanta in 1989 allowed the union 
“to better tap into the organizing 
potential of the fast-growing 
Southeast.’’ He said IBFO organ- 
izing efforts in the area have been 
bolstered by the AFL-CIO In- 
dustrial Union Department co- 
operative organizing program, 
which also is based in Atlanta. 

Walker also cited significant 
membership gains among public 
employees in Boston, Chicago, 
Philadelphia and in Florida, and 
among industrial and service sec- 
tor workers in other localities. 
The gains have offset member 
losses in the union’s railroad sec- 
tor, Walker said. 

Delegates unanimously re- 
elected Walker, Secretary-Treas- 
urer Michael A. Matz, and the 
union’s five international vice 
presidents — John M. Code, 
George J. Francisco Jr. , Anthony 
Ottobre, Dawn Bonard, Domenic 
Mancini, and Frederick 
Winters — to five-year terms. 

Delegates also approved a 
three-stage per capita increase, 
raising monthly dues 50 cents in 
January 1992, 50 cents in January 
1994 and a like amount a year 
later. The increases will raise the 
monthly per capita payment from 
$6 to $7.50 for railroad and com- 
mercial union members and from 
$8 to $9.50 for all others. 

Among the speakers at the con- 
vention were Joseph Shantz, 
director of the AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Organization and Field 
Services; Shirley Carr, president 
of the Canadian Labour Con- 
gress; Paul Bumsky, president of 
the AFL-CIO Metal Trades De- 
partment; Elmer Chatak, IUD 
secretary-treasurer; Charles J. 
Chamberlain, the Railroad 
Retirement Board’s labor 
member; Norman Hill, president 
of the A. Philip Randolph In- 
stitute; and Joshua Javits, chair- 
man of the National Mediation 
Board. 


Candidates set for ILWU runoff election 






Jobs lost, workers tos 

Practice of ‘permanently replacing' strikers costs c 


“ The company says , ‘Hey, 
we don’t care about you 
putting in 36 years. We 
just want to replace you 
with somebody 
younger.’” 

J ames Meredith dropped out of high school when 
he was 17 years old and went to work at Arvin Industries 
in Columbus, Ind., to help his sisters complete their 
education. 

Meredith, 55, now is out of a job and trying to get his 
high school equivalency degree. When Electrical Workers 
Local 1331 went on strike in 1989, Arvin “permanently 
replaced” him despite his 36 years of service to the 
company. 


“I’m just disgusted about the whole thing,” he said. “I 
can’t find work because nobody will hire a man my age 
and I’m getting farther behind in my bills.” 

“I filled out applications, sent in resumes. . .it dossal- 
seem to make any difference.” 

The hardest part of the whole situation, Meredith i=aid, 
is the callousness of Arvin. “If I had it to do over again, 
I’d never work for a company that long. The company says 
‘Hey, we don’t care about you putting in 36 years. We just 
want to replace you with somebody younger.’ ” 
Meredith had planned to retire when he turned 60, but 
the money he and his wife had saved is fast disappearing 
to pay bills. 

“I have an old coin collection I was going to leave to 
my seven grandchildren,” Meredith said, but that, too, is 
going. 

When he lost the job, Meredith lost his health insurance. 
Today, Meredith makes do with food stamps, food dona- 
tions from area churches, and money from his children. 

His daughter, who barely makes minimum wage, is pay- 
ing his house note. 


U nion members from every part of the country, in 
nearly every industry, have seen their jobs and their 
families’ security disappear at the hands of employers who 
bring in “permanent replacements.” Over the past 
decade, companies large and small have exploited this 
loophole in labor law that allows them to rid themselves 
of their union workforces. 

The stories on these pages are only a few of the in- 
stances in which greedy employers have taken away the 
livelihood from working people and their families — no 
matter how many years of service or how faithful that 
service in building the company. They speak volumes on 
the need to pass H.R. 5 and S. 55, legislation that would 
ban the “permanent replacement” of strikers and restore 
fairness to the workplace. 

A record of dishonesty 

When workers arrived at PRC Recording on May 12, 
1982, they found barrels and cars encircling the parking 
lot and guards with M-16 rifles on the roof. 

The Richmond, Ind., company had locked out the 250 
members of Electrical Workers Local 2043 and overnight 
had implemented a new contract to replace the one that 
had expired some months before. 

Within a few weeks, the company began hiring “perma- 
nent replacement” workers at $3 an hour, instead of the 
$5.60 and $7 that union members were earning. The 
replacement workers also were promised a $200 annual 
bonus. 

But they did not have nearly the benefits that the union 
had won. Holidays were cut and health insurance benefits 
were cut. 

The union, which had been negotiating with PRC 
management on a new contract, finally won an unfair 
labor practice complaint with the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board over the lockout, but not until 1990, eight 
years later. 

PRC also tried to deny retired workers their pensions, 
but a court in 1986 forced the company to pay pensioners 
and their families. In 1986, the company phased out the 
larger record department, which employed 150 people, 
and kept only the tape department. 

But PRC, so far, has escaped paying the NLRB settle- 
ment by declaring bankruptcy last year and selling out 
to ARP Enterprises, a Canadian firm. 

“PRC screwed us. Then they went bankrupt and came 
out smelling like a rose,” said Christina Tate, who was 
president of the IBEW local at the time of the lockout. 

The company also treated the replacement workers 
poorly. There was high turnover, Tate said, with workers 
being fired, rehired, then fired again. Many were not paid 
what they were promised. 

Even the replacement workers eventually realized the 
value of a union, Tate said, and in 1988 they voted the 
IBEW back in, ending the lockout. 

The lockout deeply divided the town. Guards at the plant 
shot into a union member’s car and another time beat up 
a union member. The town fathers labeled the unions 
“radical,” she said, and many of the former workers had 
to leave town to find work because nobody would hire 
them. 

The bitterness still lingers. Of the 250 people who were 


locked out in 1982, only 13 have returned to work in the 
plant. 

Threats and coercion 

In the summer of 1987, 3,500 Machinists in San Diego 
were forced to strike at a division of General Dynamics 
Corp. when the aerospace firm demanded cutbacks in 
medical benefits and seniority rights. 

Even before the final strike vote was taken, General 
Dynamics was threatening the members of IAM Local 
1125, issuing handbills that told workers they would be 
“permanently replaced” if they struck and instructing 
union members on how to withdraw from the IAM. 

During the second week of the strike, the company car- 
ried out its threat and resorted to scare tactics and coer- 
cion, cutting off workers’ health benefits and pressuring 
union members to cross the picket lines. 

Those workers who did return to their jobs were 
directed to call IAM members at home, reminding them 
of the company’s threat to “permanently replace” them. 

After the strike was finally “settled,” nearly 700 union 
members had been “permanently replaced.” They were 
forced to wait on a recall list for a year or more just for 
a chance at a job. During that time, IAM members ex- 
hausted their savings, lost their cars, homes and some- 
times their families as they struggled to help each other. 

Community in turmoil 


social impact of “permanent replacement” workers as 
families were torn apart when International Paper Co. 
forced 2,300 members of Paperworkers Local 14 out of 
work in 1988. 

Those workers were nearly half the 5,000 people in Jay_ 
The “permanent replacements,” sought in IP adver- 
tisements a full week before Local 14 went on strike, came 
from as far away as Louisiana and the Carolinas to take 
those union jobs. 

As a result of the tension among workers, their families 
and the community, said Town Manager Charles Noonan, 
the police budget was increased fourfold for almost half 
a year and the city was forced to increase the property 
tax rate. He sought to air the problems through a special 
town meeting. 

The paper mill accounted for nearly $60 million in 
employee payroll, Noonan said. A large portion of this 
money was spent within Jay by union workers. Now, the 
workers don’t have the money to spend and the replace- 
ments, who aren’t from Jay, chose not to frequent business 
establishments within the community. 

During the time International Paper Mill managers were 
asking union workers to take contract concessions, the 
company saw revenue rise by 133 percent. In 1986, $305 
million came through its doors. In 1987, the year of the 
strike, that figure rose to $407 million. 

Although the Maine plant is not as profitable as it was 
before the permanent replacements were brought in, IP 
is acknowledged as the most profitable paper mill com-^ 
pany in the industry, last year posting a whopping $706 
million net profit. ^ 

Noonan said the scars from the IP union-busting adven- 
ture will take time to heal. Father was pitted against sonf 
mother against daughter. Local bingo games, church ac- 
tivities and shopping excursions became times when 
former friends ignored and shunned one another. 

“What Jay once was, a proud, caring community, is now 
a divided, closed society which judges each individual on 
the basis of which side you may have taken in this labor 
dispute,” Noonan said. 

Signs of the times 

For more than 50 years, the sign manufacturing business 
in Portland, Ore., was profitable for workers, manage- 
ment and the community. 

But in the mid 1970s a “cancer began to spread across 
the industry,” said Jerry Bruce, business representative 
for Electrical Workers Local 48, which represented about 
100 sheet metal workers, painters and electricians at 11 
of the area’s 13 sign companies. 

The cancer began in 1973 when Valley Sign Co. ex- 
panded its operations from Yakima, Wash., by building, 
a non-union plant in Portland. Close on the heels of that, 
Heath-Northwest, a longtime unionized Portland co m- n 


The town of Jay, Maine, has felt the economic and 


“When you’re being 
productive citizens, and 
then get tossed aside, 
it hurts.” 

"you can strike — - that’s legal. Then you get 

I replaced — that’s not moral,” declares Alan 
Hesson, president of the Glass, Molders and Pot- 
tery Workers Local 72 in Evansville, Ind. 

Hesson worked in the tank room at Bootz Plumb- 
ingware, where he mixed enamel paint for bathtubs 
the company produced. Ninety workers were forced 
on strike there May 20, 1990, and they were 
permanently replaced. 

“This wasn’t a company that was losing money,” 
says Hesson, describing the company’s demands for 
a $l-an-hour pay cut, higher medical payments for 
the workers and reduced holidays. 

Management hired security guards six months 


before the contract was up and placed ads in the 
local papers, “testing the waters to see how many 
people they could get to work for less than the 
average $9 hourly pay we were getting,” Hesson 
said. 

The company first said it needed the money to 
buy a production furnace, he said. “When I found 
out they’d already bought it, I confronted them. 
Then they said they needed the money for installa- 
tion of the furnace. Basically, they just wanted us 
out of there.” 

“I’m 34 and I’m being blackballed. I can’t prove 
it though. But it’s the older members — the ones 
with 30-40 years’ seniority — and the children of 
the strikers who are being hurt the most. 

“We still have rallies every Monday and picket 
the plant every day. This is a strong union area; 
other local unions come down and support us. They 
gave us a Christmas party and their donations have 
helped prevent anyone from losing their house. But 
when you’re being productive citizens and then get 
tossed aside, it hurts.” 



ssed aside 

communities , families 



.y- James Meredith scans the help wanted ads at his 


home in Columbus, Ind. 


pany, opened a non-union shop, coincidentally, in 
Yakima. 

At about the same time, large national sign customers 
like the Big Three automakers and Goodyear started job- 
^Jaip.g out their sign manufacturing to plants in “right-to- 
work” states in the South and West. They then shipped 
the signs to Portland and Seattle for maintenance and 
installation work. 

As the more profitable manufacturing jobs went South, 
local sign makers began cutting back jobs. To make mat- 
ters worse, corporate giant Sylvania began importing non- 
union workers from out of state to perform maintenance 
jobs. Because Sylvania paid such low wages, other con- 
tractors began to force their wage levels down in order 
to compete. 

By 1981, the companies that had signed a Tri Trades 
agreement with the IBEW were demanding a three-tier 
wage scale to replace the flat, across-the-board $16 per 
hour wages under the union contract. The new scale made 
$16 the high and ranged down from there. 

When workers refused the demand, the companies 
forced them out on strike and began hiring replacements. 

The cancer became fatal in 1987 when Heath-North- 
west, which did not sign the Tri Trades pact, was bought 
by Pattison Signs, a Canadian company that specializes 
in non-union shops. Pattison demanded wages cuts and 
an end to the union pension and health plans. After months 
of negotiations and mediation, workers were forced to 
accept the company’s offer. 

-* Today, the workers have no union and no defined pen- 

sion plan and the company is its own health insurer, charg- 
ing high deductibles on very limited coverage, Bruce said. 

Bruce said the competition has gotten so cutthroat that 
“unskilled and untrained’’ workers are installing and 
maintaining the signs. In recent months, there have been 
incidents of signs causing electrical fires in shopping malls 
and a fire fighter was almost electrocuted by a sign while 
battling another fire, he said. 

Foreign labor strategy 

In 1983, the Salerno Magowan Biscuit Co. in Niles, 
111., was sold to Generale Biscuit, a French multinational 
firm. For the more than 300 members of Bakery, Con- 
fectionery and Tobacco Workers Local 1 , the sale meant 
a radical change in labor relations. 

At the first bargaining session with the new owners, 
the head of the company’s bargaining team, a union- 
busting attorney, told the workers they would have to take 
a $3-per-hour wage cut or the plant would close. The 
union was willing to discuss the company’s situation and 
possible concessions but the attorney refused. 

In the interim, the company made an attempt to hold 
^ the maintenance mechanics, workers whose skills it knew 


was indispensable, by offering them a 60-cent-per-hour 
increase. In so doing, it sought to divide them from the 
union members who had been told to take it or leave it 
on the cutbacks. Once the company realized the mechanics 
would not break ranks, they began hiring replacements 
and the union began to strike. 

The company had difficulty keeping the equipment run- 
ning because they were unable to replace the mechanics. 
The company returned to the bargaining table and by 
Christmas 1983 the workers reluctantly agreed to accept 
pay cuts ranging from $1.50 to $1.75 per hour. 

Buyout and concession demands 

In 1986, Kraft bought SS Pierce in Boston, making it 
the largest food distributor in the Northeast region. The 
company had 27 plants, 18 of which employed workers 
represented by the Teamsters. 

In September 1989, Kraft management demanded con- 
cessions from its union workers, including forfeiting over- 
time, changing the medical plan and substituting the Kraft 
pension plan for the existing plan. 

One union member said the proposed Kraft plan would 
lower his pension from $2,000 a month to $500. 

After the first meeting, members of Teamsters Local 
829 said they felt it would come down to the pension 
benefits — benefits they were not willing to negotiate. 
Kraft began advertising for “permanent replacements’’ 
and, two weeks later, on Sept. 27, 1989, 188 members 
went on strike. They were all “permanently replaced.’’ 

The union members handbilled various restaurants 
every weekend for 18 months, asking the public not to 
eat in places in which food was supplied by scab labor. 
Union members said their efforts were successful, caus- 
ing Kraft to lose 60-70 percent or $150 million in lost 
sales. 

The union action in Boston had an effect halfway across 
the country in St. Louis, where a strike was averted when 
management backed down and left the pension program 
intact. 

“What we were doing was effective for others,’’ said 
Local 829 member David Dostert. “We had to take the 
hit to help others.” 

Paybacks are hell 

In 1984, workers at U.S. Graphite in Saginaw, Mich., 
gave their troubled employer a big loan, in the form of 
drastic wage cuts, to help the company survive. But when 
they pressed to recoup those cutbacks in subsequent 
negotiations, they were met by a stone wall. 

The 138 workers, represented by UAW Local 537, 
finally struck the company on July 5, 1990. Five days 
later, they were “permanently replaced” by 72 scabs 
imported by the company. 

Besides refusing to give the workers a pay raise, U.S. 
Graphite had not contributed to the employees 401(k) plan 
three months prior to the strike. An NLRB ruling required 
the company to pay its portion of the plan. 

The company also demanded that workers pay for their 
own health insurance and wanted to eliminate seniority. 
Most of the workers are over 50 and still out of work. 

Understanding unrewarded 

As workers at Saia Electric in Baton Rouge, La., ap- 
proached contract talks in 1985, they understood that 
recession had hit their industry and they were willing to 
do their part to keep their employer from going under. 

The members of Electrical Workers Local 995 already 
had agreed in 1984 to help about 20 companies in the area 
through an “economic recovery program,” which includ- 
ed taking a pay cut from $17.65 an hour plus fringes to 
$13.70 plus fringes. After a year, the union members 
voted to end the givebacks because the program was not 
working, said Rodney Ourso, who was Local 995 business 
manager at the time. 

But the contractors wanted more concessions. They told 
the union as contracts talks approached that they no longer 
would bargain as a group as they had done in the past, 
but would negotiate individual contracts. 

Saia, which had been unionized for about 20 years, 
began its negotiations with a union-busting lawyer at the 
table, Ourso said. The company objected to almost every 
provision in the contract in an effort to reach impasse, 
he said. Saia claimed, without documentation, that it could 
not be competitive with the union wage scale. 

After negotiating for eight weeks, the company ter- 
minated its collective bargaining agreement and im- 
plemented a new non-union contract. It paid the 50 


' ' ' 


“They pitted poor 
against poor over a 
stinking $3 job. If 
you're a single parent 
and got kids to feed 
and rent to pay . . . 
you need that job." 

C hristina Tate had worked for five years in PRC 
Recording’s tape department when the company 
locked her and her co-workers out in May 1982. 

Tate, who was president of her Electrical 
Workers local at the time, was shocked. The union 
and the company had been negotiating a contract 
to replace one that had expired a few months before. 

“One day I was making $5.60 an hour, the next 
1 day I was making $3,” she said, after the company 
unilaterally implemented a new contract and started 
hiring “permanent replacement” workers. 

Eventually the 250 workers walked out and were 
all replaced. They were left with no jobs or pros- 
pect for a job. “Nobody would hire you when they 
found out you were a PRC striker,” she said. 

“People thought we were overpaid union people. 
The newspaper never printed the truth about us. It 
called us radicals. 

“They pitted poor against poor over a stinking 
$3 job,” she said. “If you’re a single parent and 
got kids to feed and rent to pay . . . you need that 
job.” 

Tate, whose husband works, said her family “sur- 
vived” the six years she was out of a job, but others 
were not so fortunate. “People lost their cars and 
their homes. Some had to move to find work,” Tate 
said. 

Some lost even more than that. Many of the ma- 
terials used in the plant were hazardous and caused 
cancer, she said. The company had required 
workers to sign statements that they knew the 
materials could cause death. 

Because the strikers had no strike benefits and no 
health insurance, those with cancer received little 
or no treatment and just died, she said. 

Even today, three years after the lockout ended 
and the union was voted back, the bitterness lingers. 
“It will never be forgotten — the way the paper 
lied, the way people were treated,” Tate said. “If 
the people calling us names had gone through the 
same things that we did, they would have done the 
same thing.” 


employees $12.50 an hour, including fringes. All but two 
or three of the workers refused to accept the cut and were 
replaced. 

After forcing the workers out, the company even pro- 
tested their unemployment benefits claims, but the 
workers won that dispute when the state officials ruled 
Saia had wrongfully changed the terms and conditions of 
the workers’ employment. 

The company changed its name to Saco and has been 
operating without a union ever since. Later that year, the 
local negotiated a wage package of $12.50 plus fringes 
with the other local contractors, a deal worth about $14.00 
all together, Ourso said. 

But the union faced more problems. Even though the 
workers took concessions, the contractors and the major 
industries in the area began to freeze out union workers. 
The contractors began “double-breasting” — setting up 
parallel union and non-union operations. Major industries 
in the area, such as Exxon and Dow Chemical, began 
awarding contracts to the non-union operations. Only 
about 250 union workers are regularly employed now, 
instead of the 600-800 that worked in 1985, Ourso said. 

Because the industry was already depressed, workers, 
some with 15-20 years seniority, could not find jobs and 
have spent the last six years travelling around the coun- 
try seeking work wherever they could find it, Ourso said. 
Some had to give up their homes and others are barely 
making ends meet, said Ricky Russell, assistant business 
manager for Local 995. 



Elizabeth Wilson/Georgia AFL-CIO 


Future of work explored by religion-labor panels 


Labor and religious leaders met in Atlanta as part of 
the continuing dialogue between the two groups on the 
condition of workers. 

In a workshop on the future of women and minority 
workers, Thomas Shellabarger of the U.S. Catholic Con- 
ference addressed participants, along with Norman Hill, 
A. Philip Randolph Institute; Judith Heh, Pennsylvania 
AFL-CIO; and Jose LaLuz, Clothing and Textile 
Workers. 

The two-day conference was attended by several 


leading theologians, including Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, 
president of the Southern Christian Leadership Con- 
ference; Bishop John Hurst Adams, 6th Episcopal District 
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Rabbi Sharon 
Kleinbaum, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; 
and Bishop John McCarthy, Catholic Diocese of Austin, 
Texas. 

Joining them were AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue and Mine Workers President Richard 
Trumka. 


Labor scores win with NLRB relocation rules 


Ads to follow 
Congress home 
during recess 

Continued from Page 1 

of work before the July 4 recess, with 
a Washington-area TV ad showing a 
worker getting a pink slip — “fired” 
for standing up for his family. The radio 
ads that follow use the voices of 
“permanently replaced” workers — a 
Steelworker from Ravenswood and an 
Electrical Worker from Indiana. 

The electronic media campaign will 
be accompanied by ads in congressional 
specialty outlets— Congressional Quart- 
erly, National Journal and Roll Call, the 
twice-a-week congressional tabloid in 
which an early, two-page ad appeared 
June 17. 

Print ads also are scheduled for The 
Washington Post, The New York 
Times and the Washington editions of 
Time and Newsweek magazines. 

Unionists tell their stories 

Using the theme “Americans have 
the right to protect their jobs,” the 
advertising tells the stories of union 
members from around the country who 
were forced on strike by their employ- 
ers and then were “permanently” 
replaced. 

The message will follow members of 
Congress home to 21 of the nation’s 50 
states during the July 4 recess. In those 
states with a concentration of members 
of Congress uncommitted on H.R. 5, 
local TV and radio stations will greet 
them with the same message, “VOTE 
FOR H.R. 5.” During that time, union 
members will be arranging meetings 
with their legislators to ask their sup- 
port for the bill. 

“H.R. 5 Media Campaign,” a video- 
tape including the television and radio 
spots and footage from the press con- 
ference, is available for $10 from the 
Labor Institute of Public Affairs, 815 
16th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20006. Phone 1-800-242-UNION. 
Reference: LVBS-018. 

Grassroots effort 

Meanwhile, other unions and the 
AFL-CIO have postcard and mailgram 
projects in the field, bombarding swing- 
vote members of Congress on the need 
to restore fairness to the workplace. 

Describing the practice of hiring 
“permanent” replacements as “an 
American tragedy,” the Machinists 
have collected almost a half a million 
postcards from their members telling 
senators and representatives that 
workers need their jobs and the secur- 
ity that goes along with being produc- 
tive employees. 

Similarly, the UAW has more than 
a million postcards in the field for send- 
ing the message to Congress. The AFL- 
CIO grass-roots campaign also includes 
more than a million postcards. 

At the state level, Minnesota legis- 
lators have petitioned the state Supreme 
Court to overturn Republican Gov. 
Arne H. Carlson’s veto of state legisla- 
tion to ban the “permanent replace- 
ment” of strikers. The Democratic- 
Farmer-Labor legislative leaders claim 
the governor failed to deliver the 
“picket line peace bill” back to the 
Minnesota House in a timely manner 
and that the measure should become 
law. 

The Wisconsin Assembly also passed 
a bill banning the hiring of “perma- 
nent” replacements, which now goes to 
the state Senate to iron out differences 
between the two bills. Gov. Tommy 
Thompson (R) has said he will veto the 
legislation. 


By James B. Parks 

I n a victory for organized labor, the 
National Labor Relations Board 
issued new guidelines for employers to 
bargain with workers before they 
relocate their operations. 

The board ruled unanimously that 
Dubuque Packing Co. violated the Na- 
tional Labor Relations Act by refusing 
to bargain with Food and Commercial 
Workers Local 150 A over the com- 
pany’s decision to relocate over 500 
jobs in its hog kill and cut operations 
from Dubuque, Iowa, to a new plant in 
Rochelle, 111. 

‘ ‘It’s an important forward step as far 
as unions are concerned,” said Eugene 
Cotton, the attorney who represented 
the UFCW in the case. 

“The ruling does not stop companies 
from threatening to relocate to lower- 
wage areas in order to gain wage con- 
cessions,” Cotton said, but it does 
require them to “negotiate with the 
union before they make any decision to 
move.” 

Under the new standards, employers 
must bargain with the workers over 
proposed relocations if there is no 
“basic change in the nature of the 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

S upport for legislation to ban “perma- 
nent replacement” of strikers con- 
tinues to pour in from the religious 
community. 

The Executive Committee of the Na- 
tional Jewish Community Relations Ad- 
visory Council, an umbrella organiza- 
tion for 1 1 national and 1 15 local Jewish 
agencies, unanimously endorsed the 
striker replacement ban. 

“There was no opposition to the leg- 
islation because it is consistent with the 
organized Jewish community’s tradi- 
tional commitment to social and 


employer’s operation” at the new 
factory. 

Negotiations would not be required 
if work at the new plant “varies 
significantly” from work at the old 
plant, if work at the old plant is 
“discontinued entirely and not moved 
to the new plant,” or if the decision in- 
volves a “change in the scope and 
direction of the enterprise.” 

The company also could avoid nego- 
tiations by proving that labor costs were 
not the reason for the move, or if the 
advantages of the move were so great 
that the union could not have offered 
enough concessions to change the com- 
pany’s decision. 

The ruling also ordered Dubuque to 
pay the affected workers one year of 
back wages, less any earnings they 
received during that period. The back 
pay was limited because Dubuque 
closed the Rochelle plant in 1982, one 
year after making the move. 

In other labor-related cases, the U.S. 
Supreme Court let stand an appeals 
court ruling from last year involving the 
Teamsters. The U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit 
ruled in Yellow Bus Lines vs. Teamsters 


economic justice,” said Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store Union 
President Lenore Miller, who is presi- 
dent of the Jewish Labor Committee, 
which submitted the proposal to the 
NJCRAC. 

“There was a recognition that this bill 
not only restores a basic workers’ right, 
it also serves the public interest by 
preserving a collective bargaining 
system that worked well until the union- 
busting era of the 1980s,” Miller said. 

The AFL-CIO Industrial Union 
Department is continuing its efforts to 
drum up grass-roots support for H.R. 


Local 639 that the union did not violate 
the law because the union was not in- 
volved in the ‘ ‘conduct of the affairs of 
the company” during the strike. 

Arguing against Supreme Court re- 
view, lawyers for the union said federal 
labor laws were “crafted to strike a 
delicate balance between labor and 
management interests.” Allowing an 
employer to convert activities protected 
under the law to racketeering by bring- 
ing cases under RICO (Racketeer In- 
fluenced and Corrupt Organizations 
Act) would “disrupt the integrity 
of . . .the system created by Congress.” 

In another case, the Supreme Court 
by a 5-4 margin, narrowed the respon- 
sibility of an employer to let an ar- 
bitrator settle disputes with workers 
after a union contract expires. 

The court ruled in Litton Financial 
Printing Division vs. NLRB that the 
Taft-Hartley doctrine forbidding 
unilateral changes in working condi- 
tions does not keep an arbitration clause 
in effect after the contract expires. 

The case arose when Litton did not 
follow seniority in 1980 layoffs after the 
contract with the Printing Specialties 
District Council No. 2 expired. 


5 and S. 55, scheduling a dozen news 
conferences with religious leaders, par- 
ticularly in the South. 

“As leaders from diverse religious 
traditions, we join together in calling 
for this nation to restore the rights of 
its working people,” said Rev. Donn 
Walters, executive director of the 
Presbyterian Urban Council during an 
Arkansas press conference. 

“American workers are facing a 
crisis. They are being fired from their 
jobs when they exercise their lawful 
right to engage in collective bargain- 
ing,” he stressed. 


Religious groups backing strikebreaker ban 





Yeltsin hailed for commitment to free unions 


By Michael Byrne 

B oris Yeltsin, the first democratic- 
ally elected president of a republic 
in the Soviet Union, received a warm 
welcome from the AFL-CIO, which 
praised his recognition and promotion 
of free trade unions. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
introduced Yeltsin to the Executive 
Council by saying Yeltsin’s over- 
whelming June 12 election as president 
of the Russian republic “gives a body 
to that voice” calling for freedom and 
democracy in the Soviet Union. 

Yeltsin demonstrated his popular ap- 
peal during a brief welcoming cere- 
mony when he turned away from the 
television cameras in the AFL-CIO 
headquarters lobby to address the 
federation staff and other trade unionists 
who came to greet him. The move 
brought cheers from the crowd around 
him and the packed balcony above as 
the camera people scrambled for new 
positions. 

Kirkland said he invited Yeltsin to 
AFL-CIO headquarters when he met 
with him in the Kremlin in May because 
so many of the leaders of the emerging 
trade unions in the Soviet Union “told 
me of their support for Boris Yeltsin 
and his commitment to fundamental 
economic and democratic reform.” 
“In my discussion with President- 
elect Yeltsin, I was impressed by his 
keen concern for protection of the un- 
fortunate — the impoverished, the 
unemployed, the elderly and the sick,” 
Kirkland said. 

“I also sensed his interest in reaching 
out to the emerging democratic institu- 
tions in his country — free trade unions 
among them — in the task of rebuilding 
a society that has been torn asunder by 
decades of repression and fear.” 
Yeltsin, who was personally negoti- 
ating with striking Soviet coal miners 
while his political rival, Soviet Presi- 
dent Mikhail Gorbachev, was presiding 
over a protest- filled May Day parade in 


John Oravec/AFL-CIO News 

Boris Yeltsin is greeted by AFL-CIO President Kirkland, Secretary-Treasurer Donahue and the press. 


Moscow, vowed to continue fighting 
Gorbachev’s ban on strikes. While 
strikes may be extreme measures, he 
said, he considers them to be a legiti- 
mate civil right for working people. 

Yeltsin noted that, with the support 
of the Russian parliament, he has raised 
the minimum wage and retirement pen- 
sions by 50 percent, increased annual 
paid leave from 15 days to 24 days, 
reduced the workweek to 40 hours and 
boosted scholarships for students and 
pay for teachers. He said he also would 
push for legislation for cost-of-living 
adjustments. 

Yeltsin criticized the government- 
controlled ‘ ‘ official ’ ’ trade unions , 
which he said merely provided leverage 
for the Communist Party, and wel- 
comed the rise of independent and 


democratic unions that would concen- 
trate on looking after the interests of 
working people. 

The AFL-CIO recently launched a 
relief fund for striking Soviet miners 
and their families with a $25,000 con- 
tribution and an appeal to its affiliates 
to contribute. The plight of the Soviet 
miners, who first struck in November 
1989 in Vorkuta, was brought force- 
fully to U.S. attention by Kazimieras 
Uoka of the Lithuanian Workers Union, 
who joined a delegation of 1989 AFL- 
CIO convention delegates to the Soviet 
embassy. 

Russia’s coal miners agreed to end the 
strike May 10 after Gorbachev handed 
jurisdiction of the mines to the Russian 
republic. The move followed a land- 
mark agreement in which Gorbachev 


promised to acknowledge the sov- 
ereignty of the republics and begin a 
process of decentralization of power. 

The growing wave of strikes by 
workers pressing for democracy played 
a decisive part in forcing Gorbachev 
from a path of repression he had sanc- 
tioned in the winter of 1990. 

During his May 20-26 tour of the 
Soviet Union, Kirkland met with 
leaders of the Donetsk coal miners 
strike committee, as well as leaders of 
other democratic worker movements, 
including: Pavel Shushpanov, chairman 
of the Independent Miners Union; pilots 
and air traffic controllers; Stepan 
Khmara, a member of the Ukrainian 
parliament arrested on trumped-up 
charges; and the workers movement in 
the Kuznetsk Basin of western Siberia. 


Worker delegates battle attempts to gut ILO standards 


“There are no flexibility clauses for freedom 
or for human and trade union rights. They are 
universal standards which must be applied 
without fear or favor. ” 

— Jim Baker 
U.S. Worker Delegate 


By Steven Slezak 

T he American labor delegation has 
been working through several 
forums of the International Labor Con- 
ference in Geneva to foil attempts by 
employer groups to dilute the effec- 
tiveness of the International Labor 
Organization as a guarantor of interna- 
tional labor standards. 

The 1991 conference has been char- 
acterized by efforts of the world’s 
employer delegations to undermine the 
supervisory machinery of the ILO. This 
supervision — principally through the 
Committee of Experts, the Committee 
on the Freedom of Association and the 
Committee on the Application of Stan- 
dards — monitors the observance of 
scores of ILO conventions defining in- 
ternational labor standards. 

The employers group, joined in some 
instances by government delegations, 
has throughout the conference ques- 
tioned the ability of the supervisory 
machinery to define international labor 
standards. This position has been ex- 
pressed most evidently in reference to 
the right to strike, which is protected 
across the board by several conventions 
of the ILO, with the exception of a few, 
specific cases regarding police and na- 
tional security. 

The employers group has attempted 
to erode these conventions by arguing 
that the right to strike is too narrowly 
interpreted by the ILO and that employ- 
ers and governments have the right to 
disagree with the ILO’s interpretations. 
In response to these challenges, the 


workers group — constituting all work- 
ers delegations participating in the con- 
ference — has made repeated reference 
in committee and plenary sessions to the 
need to defend the supervisory machin- 
ery from all attempts to weaken it. 

The workers argue that any unilateral 
rejection by employers or governments 
of ILO standards is tantamount to 
undermining the very essence of the 
ILO. Such disagreements are, in effect, 
assaults on the entire body of work ac- 
cumulated by the ILO in over 70 years 
of existence. 

“The clear mission (of the ILO) is to 
protect and promote the interests and 
rights of working people,” said Jim 
Baker, the U.S. worker delegate and the 
AFL-CIO ’s European representative, 
at the conference plenary on June 18. 
“There are no flexibility clauses for 
freedom or for human and trade union 
rights. They are universal standards 
which must be applied without fear or 
favor.” 

Baker was addressing the problems 
of the “informal sector” of workforces 
around the world, noting they have been 


discovered “by the ILO and others” 
recently but that “there is nothing new 
about unstructured, unregulated, in- 
secure and precarious employment” 
that leaves a working poor. Regular, 
protected employment and union rep- 
resentation “have extended freedom to 
those not privileged enough to have 
been born into aristocracies,” Baker 
said. 

He asked whether the ILO was go- 
ing to fulfill its mission to protect 
workers “or is it the IMF and the 
World Bank who have the exclusive 
franchise for economic policy, for in- 
dustry and for the public sector, leav- 
ing the ILO with the role of ambulance 
crew, trying to keep the hearts of the 
victims beating?” 

The working poor will continue to be 
exploited as long as “economic decis- 
ion-making, industrial policy or plann- 
ing” are by default turned over to 
“market forces,” those entities that 
have “the tremendous advantage of no 
names, no faces, and they can neither 
be elected nor removed from office.” 

“Moral force is not enough, but that 


is the principal tool currently at the 
disposal of the ILO,” Baker added. 
“That force can only remain strong if 
it is employed without trimming, shad- 
ing, or tampering.” 

The employers’ destructive strategy 
has been having an adverse effect on the 
work of the various ILO committees. 
In the two technical committees — on 
hotel and restaurants and on workers’ 
claims in insolvency cases — members 
of the employers group are putting up 
strong and coordinated resistance 
against movement towards new ILO 
conventions covering these areas. 

In another effort to come to the aid 
of the ILO, the American labor delega- 
tion participated in a special sitting of 
the plenary organized around the theme 
of the situation of workers in the oc- 
cupied Arab territories. U.S. Deputy 
Workers Delegate Charles Gray argued 
that the special sitting and Director 
General’s report on this topic was un- 
necessary and represented a “circum- 
vention of all the supervisory machin- 
ery” of the ILO. 

Gray, who is the executive director 
of the AFL-CIO Asian- American Free 
Labor Institute, urged ILO members 
“to follow the due process through the 
existing supervisory machinery” to 
solve grievances within the ILO’s 
structure. 

“I ask you realistically to think about 
where this matter might be today if it 
had been pursued through the regular 
supervisory machinery from its very in- 
ception,” he said. 





Unemployment soars to 6.9% 
as Bush recession grinds on 



By John R. Oravec 

T he nation’s recession-driven jobless 
rate surged to 6.9 percent in May 
from April’s 6.6 percent with 8.6 
million workers counted as officially 
unemployed, the most in seven years. 

Another 5.9 million were in part-time 
jobs because they could not find full- 
time work, the Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics reported. And 1 million discour- 
aged workers, who are not counted as 
jobless because they have given up 
looking for work, brought the number 
affected by total or partial unemploy- 
ment to 15.5 million. 

The BLS household survey showed 
unemployment increased by 370,000 to 
bring the “official” count to the 8.6 
million level. That is the highest since 
the 8.7 million in April 1984, AFL-CIO 
economist Markley Roberts noted. 

Only 3.4 million jobless workers 
qualified to collect unemployment com- 
pensation in mid-May, leaving about 5 
million of the officially unemployed 
without benefits. 

Millions of others who were ineligi- 
ble under the stringent limitations of the 
federal-state unemployment insurance 
system or had exhausted their 26 weeks 
of regular benefits, took part-time jobs 
in desperate efforts to make ends meet. 

The day the BLS issued the unem- 
ployment report, religion, civil rights 
and children’s advocacy groups joined 
the AFL-CIO in prodding Congress to 
overhaul the flawed UI system. 

“In past recessions, the federal 
government moved promptly to assist 
unemployed workers,” a group of 25 
of national Protestant, Roman Catholic, 
Orthodox and Jewish leaders said in a 
statement. “Yet, 11 months into a 
recession and with unemployment likely 


A 2. 9-percent jump in gas pump prices 
fueled a rise in the government’s 
consumer price index of 0.3 percent in 
May, while food, beverage and enter- 
tainment costs held steady, the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics reported. 

But workers can expect further retail 
prices hikes in coming weeks as the 
BLS wholesale price index climbed 0.6 
percent last month, triggered by a 
5.2-percent surged in gasoline prices. 

Over the past 12 months, BLS said 
the index for urban wage earners 
(CPI-W) was up 4.9 percent — ranging 
from a rise of 2.6 percent for clothing 
to 8.6 percent for medical care. Most 
other index components — food and 
beverages, housing, transportation and 
entertainment advanced more than 4 
percent from May 1990. 

After adjustment for inflation, BLS 
said real weekly earnings rose 1 percent 
in May, following a drop of 0.5 percent 
in April. And although weekly wages 
increased 2.8 percent over the year, the 
4.9-percent rise in the CPI chopped real 
wages 2 percent below the May 1990 
level. 

The erosion is even worse over the 
decade. AFL-CIO economist Anne 
Draper noted that real weekly earnings 
were 5.8 percent below May 1981 as 
inflation totally wiped out wage gains 


to remain at high levels for a con- 
siderable period of time, Congress has 
not acted on a program to extend 
benefits to the long-term unemployed, 
or to reform the unemployment in- 
surance system.” 

Along with the Coalition on Human 
Needs, the religious leaders called for 
congressional action on a labor-backed 
measure sponsored by Rep. Thomas 
Downey (D-N.Y.) that would widen 
eligibility standards and provide ex- 
tended benefits to the long-term jobless. 

“Even if the recession were to end 
today,” said AFL-CIO legislative 
representative William J. Cunningham, 
“the need for unemployment insurance 
reform will be with us for a long time 
to come.” 

One bright spot in the BLS report was 
the gain of 59,000 payroll jobs from 
April — the first pick-up in 1 1 months. 
But even at 108.8 million, private in- 
dustry payrolls were 1 .5 million below 
May 1990. 

Payrolls rose in May by 19,000 in the 
goods-producing sector and 40,000 in 
the services sector, BLS said. In 
manufacturing, recalls of laid-off auto 
workers were offset by more layoffs in 
industrial machinery and instruments. 

During the first quarter of 1990, 
employment declines averaged 240,000 
a month and the revised payroll job loss 
in April was 180,000, BLS said. 

The BLS payroll survey showed lit- 
tle change for the month in most in- 
dustry sectors. But since May 1990, job 
losses totaled 507,000 in construction; 

814,000 in manufacturing; 522,000 in 
wholesale and retail trade; 110,000 in 
government; 25,000 in finance, in- 
surance and real estate; and 8,000 in 
mining. The only major sectors show- 


in the last 10 years and even disin- 
tegrated earlier improvements. 

Among energy components in May, 
heating oil prices declined again by 2.8 
percent, but natural gas and electricity 
rates rose 0.6 percent from April. Over 
the year, heating oil was up 3.4 percent; 
gas and electric, 3.5 percent; and gas- 
oline, 8.6 percent. 

Food and beverage prices were un- 
changed in May after surging 0.7 per- 
cent in April. They rose 4.8 percent 
over the last 12 months. 

When energy and food components 
are excluded, the CPI-W rose 5.1 per- 
cent since May 1990. Some analysts 
viewed this as sign that the core infla- 
tion rate continues to climb despite the 
recession — now in its 12th month. 

In other economic reports: 

• Industrial production rose 0.5 per- 
cent in May after edging up 0.3 percent 
in April to snap a six-month string of 
declines, the Federal Reserve Board 
reported. Despite the two-month 
pickup, industrial output was still 3.3 
percent below the May 1990 mark. 

The May advance was generated by 
gains of 5 percent in auto and truck pro- 
duction, and 3.9 percent in utility out- 
put as demand for residential energy in- 
creased with rising temperatures. 

• As the recession grinds on, a 



1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

ing over-the-year gains were services, 

110.000 jobs, and transportation and 
utilities, 2,000. 

BLS Commissioner Janet Norwood 
told the Joint Economic Committee of 
Congress that the April and May data 
indicate a leveling off in the labor 
market, and the situation “is better to- 
day than it was earlier in the year. ’ ’ But 
when pressed by JEC Chairman Sen. 
Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), Norwood 
said, “we can’t read a recovery into 
these data.” 

For major worker groups, the jobless 
rates were: adult men 6.5 percent; adult 
women, 5.8 percent; teenagers, 19.1 
percent; whites, 6.1 percent; blacks, 13 
percent; and Hispanics, 9.7 percent. 

Large states with jobless rates above 
the national average in May included 
California, 7.7 percent; Florida, 7.5 
percent; Massachusetts and Michigan at 
9.6 percent; New York, 7.4 percent; 
and Pennsylvania, 7.7 percent. 

In Michigan, extended jobless bene- 
fits for the long-term unemployed trig- 
gered off despite its 9.6-percent rate and 

435.000 on the unemployment rolls. 
The extended benefits triggered on in 
March when the state had 503,000 
workers in the unemployment lines. 


surge in consumer spending to spur eco- 
nomic recovery is at best a long-shot 
because of the heavy toll of unem- 
ployment on about one fifth of the popu- 
lation, the Conference Board found. 

In nearly 20 percent of the nation’s 
households — about 19 million homes 
— at least one family member was 
unemployed for a period during the past 
12 months, according to the board’s 
survey of 5,000 households. 

Unemployment hurt families in a 
number of ways, the business research 
and consulting group said. In 32 per- 
cent of the families hit by unemploy- 
ment, the husband lost his job. In 28 
percent of the cases, the wife was 
jobless. In 35 percent of the homes, it 
was either a son, daughter or other 
family member who was laid off. In 
5 percent of the families, both the hus- 
band and wife were out of work. 

For many of those who found new 
jobs, their paychecks were skimpier. 
The survey found that 47 percent of the 
men and 28 percent of the women said 
they were earning less in their new jobs. 

• Retail sales rose 1 percent in May 
to a seasonally adjusted $152.5 billion 
after dropping 0.4 percent in April. But 
May sales were only 2.5 percent higher 
than a year earlier — not enough to 
cover the 4.9-percent rise in inflation. 


Trade deficit 
widens on new 
import surge 

T he U.S. merchandise trade deficit 
widened by $710 million in April to 
$4.8 billion after narrowing in the two 
preceding months, the Commerce De- 
partment reported. 

Imports increased by $2.2 billion to 
$40.3 billion while exports grew by 
$1.5 billion to a record $35.6 billion. 
Manufactured goods accounted for $3.3 
billion of the imbalance with imports of 
$31.8 billion and exports of $28.5 
billion. 

Leading the rise in imports were in- 
dustrial supplies and materials, con- 
sumer goods, as well as autos, parts and 
engines. Economists said overall im- 
ports were more than $4 billion below 
the record high of $44.5 billion because 
of waning demand due to the recession. 

Crude oil imports amounted to $2.8 
billion in April, virtually the same as 
in March. But the volume of imports 
rose from 166 million barrels to 177 
million, while the per-barrel price 
dropped by 75 cents to $16.40. 

For the first four months, the over- 
all trade deficit adds up to $21.7 bil- 
lion — $12.1 below the comparable 
1990 period. At the current pace, the 
trade deficit for the year would amount 
to $65 billion. The 1990 deficit totaled 
$101.7 billion. 

Economists estimate that for each $1 
billion deficit, 25,000 U.S. jobs are 
wiped out. 

Short-term swing 

AFL-CIO economist Mark A. 
Anderson warned that the improved 
trade picture is a short-term phenom- 
enon resulting from the continuing Bush 
recession. 

“When the economic downturn final- 
ly hits bottom and recovery gets under 
way, all signs point to a new surge of 
imports in the longer term,” Anderson 
said. “We also can expect oil prices to 
start heading back up, adding millions 
of dollars to our monthly import 
charge.” 

In transactions with major countries, 
the United States ran a $3.3 billion trade 
deficit with Japan in April, down $300 
million from March. But the nation had 
a surplus of $2. 1 billion with Western 
Europe. 

Other deficits posted in April were 
with the OPEC countries, $980 million; 
Canada, $292 million; China, $669 
million; and Taiwan, $721 million. The 
United States ran a $81 million surplus 
in trade with Mexico on exports of 
$2.76 billion and imports of $2.68 
billion. But more than half of the ex- 
ports to Mexico are components that are 
assembled at border maquiladora plants 
for shipment back to the United States. 

The Commerce Department said the 
United States posted a trade surplus of 
$10.2 billion in the first quarter of the 
year under the current account arrange- 
ment, the first such surplus since 1982. 

The primary reason for the reversal 
stemmed from payments of $22.7 bil- 
lion by Saudi Arabia, Japan and other 
countries for the costs of the Persian 
Gulf war. 

The current account is the broadest 
measure of trade, including goods, 
services, banking and investment. 


Gas pump prices lead rise in living costs 



Meany Center 
schedule for 
July, August 

T he George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies will offer 13 workshops dur- 
ing July and August. The schedule: 
Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation (July 21-26) — A 
workshop presenting mock cases before 
professional arbitrators. Sessions will 
be videotaped. 

College Degree Program (July 
27-Aug. 2) — Members of AFL-CIO 
affiliates remain in residence at the 
George Meany Center while working 
on a Bachelor of Arts Degree from 
Antioch University. 

Teaching Techniques for Labor 
Education (Aug. 4-9) — Dem- 
onstrating techniques commonly used in 
labor education for those who teach 
union conferences, summer schools or 
night classes. 

Organizing II (Aug. 4-9) — An in- 
stitute cosponsored by the AFL-CIO 
Department of Organization and Field 
Services for experienced union staff. 
Topics include internal private sector 
organizing, issue-oriented campaigns 
and training union members. 

UCLEA Southern School for Union 
Women (Aug. 11-16) — Ten work- 
shops will be offered to union women 
from across the South. Some of them 
are: Mobilizing the Membership, To- 
day’s Challenges for Working Women, 
and Organizing the Unorganized. 

Newswriting and Editing for Union 
Publications (Aug. 18-23) — For 
union editors who want coaching on the 
basics of publishing readable, in- 
teresting and credible publications. 

AFL-CIO affiliates and departments 
using the campus in July are AFSCME, 
July 7-12; BC&T, July 7-12; AIFLD 
Bermudans, July 13-20; Carpenters, 
July 14-19; Flight Attendants, July 
14-18; Organizing Institute, July 19-21; 
ATU/ Advanced arbitration, July 20-25; 
SEIU, July 20-26. 

For more information, contact the 
Registrar’s office, George Meany 
Center, 10000 New Hampshire Ave., 
Silver Spring, Md. 20903. Telephone 
301/431-6400. Fax 301/434-0371. 



The Railway Labor Executives’ As- 
sociation re-elected to new three-year 
terms Richard I. Kilroy as chairman, 
V.M. “Butch” Speakman as vice 
chairman, and James J. Kennedy as 
executive secretary-treasurer. RLEA 
represents 1 5 transportation-related 
unions. Kilroy is president of the 
Transportation Communications Union 
and the AFL-CIO Transportation 
Trades Department (TTD). Speakman 
is president of the Railroad Signalmen 
and Kennedy is executive director of the 
TTD. 

Noting that rail unions face crucial 
legislative issues while a national board 
works to settle their two-year-old con- 
tract disputes, Kilroy said, “I’m 
honored to have been re-elected by my 
colleagues in rail labor. Despite the fact 
that we are at different stages in the na- 
tional negotiation process with the 
railroads, RLEA continues to provide 



Some 30,000 volunteers from 15 Building and Construc- 
tion Trades unions manned collection buckets at street 
corners and shopping malls across the country June 
13-15 to raise donations for the Dollars Against 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Diabetes campaign. Here, President Jake West of Iron 
Workers (left) joins union members in Washington. In 
the last four years, the DAD's Day volunteers collected 
$3.8 million for the Diabetes Research Institute. 


st 


CONFERENCES 

The AFL-CIO’s 29th Conference on 
Community Services will be held in 
Washington July 21-26. The late Rep. 
Mickey Leland will be honored post- 
humously with the 1991 AFL-CIO 
Murray-Green-Meany Award for out- 
standing service to humanity. Contact 
the AFL-CIO Department of Com- 
munity Services, 815 16th St. N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20006. 

The AFL-CIO and Cornell Univer- 


sity will co-sponsor a union-university 
symposium on economic and worker 
problems Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the 
Masters, Mates and Pilots School in 
Linthicum Heights, Md. Contact the 
AFL-CIO Department of Economic Re- 
search, 815 16th St. N.W., Washing- 
ton, D.C. 20006. 

The AFL-CIO Department of Educa- 
tion and the George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies is sponsoring Teaching 
Techniques for Labor Education 
Aug. 4-9 at the Center’s Silver Spring 
campus. A $35 deposit and $99 room 
and board fee are due by July 22. Con- 
tact Susan Washington at 202/637-5156 
or Diana Linton at 301/431-6400. 

PUBLICATION 

The Dayton Daily News recently 
completed an excellent 20-part series on 
the state of the Occupational Safety and 


Health Act, which helps to make the 
AFL-CIO’s case for reform of the act. 
The Daily News spent eight months 
analyzing 1.8 million OSH A computer 
tapes and fleshed out the status of the 
law with a variety of interviews. Single 
copies of the reprint free from AFL- 
CIO Pamphlet Division, 815 16th St. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 

TESTIMONY 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
testified before the Committee on Public 
Works and Transportation on the state 
of the economy and importance of in- 
frastructure in enhancing productivi- 
ty and U.S. competitiveness. No. 91-8. 

William Cunningham, AFL-CIO leg- 
islative representative, testified before 
the Senate Finance Committee on 
unemployment insurance problems. 
No. 91-19. 


all of us an important forum in which 
we can work in unity.” 

Ron Silver has been elected president 
of Actors’ Equity succeeding Colleen 
Dewhurst, who had served in the post 
six years and did not seek re-election. 
Silver has been on the union’s govern- 
ing council since 1988. Others elected 
include: Conrad Fowkes, treasurer; 
Lynn Archer, recording secretary; 
Patrick Quinn, first vice president; 
Richard Warren Pugh, second vice 
president; Arne Gundersen, third vice 
president; and Werner Klemperer, 
fourth vice president. 

Elected by the membership as stage 
manager is Sue Jane Stoker; as prin- 
cipal for a two-year term is Mary Lou 
Westerfield; and as principal for five- 
year terms are Barbara Callander, Gil 
Rogers, Edith Meiser, Mary Lee, 
Maureen Moore, Ivar Brogger, Paul 
Lipson, Cleo Quitman, Irma Rogers 
and Will Stutts. 

The presidents of five unions met 
recently with Labor Secretary Lynn 
Martin to discuss the education and 
training goals of the Bush adminis- 
tration’s America 2000 Education strat- 
egy. Meeting with Martin were: Mor- 
ton Bahr of the Communications 
Workers; John J. Barry of the Elec- 
trical Workers; Susan Bianchi-Sand of 
the Flight Attendants; Marvin Boede 


of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters; and 
Keith Geiger of the unaffiliated Na- 
tional Education Association. 

AWARDS 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
received the Midwest Labor Press 
Association’s 1991 Eugene V. Debs 
Award at MLPA’s conference on June 
13 in Traverse City, Mich. Kirkland 
was honored for his outstanding con- 
tribution to the labor press, in the tradi- 
tion of Debs, a Midwest native who was 
a labor editor and a founder of the 
Socialist Party of America. The award 
was accepted by Kirkland assistant 
Dennis Beal. In the past, the award has 
gone to Vice President Hubert H. 
Humphrey, former Machinists Presi- 
dent William W. Winpisinger, 
Steelworkers President Lynn R. 
Williams and Mine Workers President 
Richard Trumka. 

The UMWA’s Trumka was 
presented the Workers Defense 
League’s David L. Clendenin Award at 
a dinner May 13. He told guests that 
winning striker replacement legislation 
must be augmented by the building of 
a labor coalition with allies like the 
Workers Defense League, to turn “the 
victims of this economy into the leaders 
of the fight to change it.” 


Leon Lynch, president of the 
Workers Defense League and vice pres- 
ident of the Steelworkers, also pre- 
sented distinguished service awards to 
Catherine Lewis, former executive 
director of the WDL and Connie Kope- 
lov, former WDL program staffer. 

Among those attending the awards 
dinner were: President Jay Mazur of 
the Ladies’ Garment Workers, who 
presented the Clendenin award to 
Trumka; President Jack Sheinkman of 
the Clothing and Textile Workers; 
President Lenore Miller of the Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store 
Union; Transport Workers local union 
president Sonny Hall; President Joyce 
Miller of the Coalition of Labor Union 
Women; and President Dennis Rivera 
of the unaffiliated New York Hospital 
and Health Care Workers Local 1199. 

Ernest R. Grecco, president of the 
Baltimore AFL-CIO, is the 1991 reci- 
pient of the American Red Cross’s 
Samuel Gompers National Labor 
Award, which recognizes outstanding 
volunteer service to the American Red 
Cross. The award, established in 1990, 
is named for the first president of the 
American Federation of Labor, who 
was also the first labor representative 
to serve on the governing board of the 
American Red Cross. Grecco is a mem- 
ber of Distillery Workers Local 34. 





Telecast on labor issues calls for grass-roots action 



By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO previewed Solidarity 
Day ’91 and updated members on 
campaigns for health care reform and 
a ban on the permanent replacement of 
strikers via a national teleconference. 

The June 11 teleconference, which 
was viewed by 2,500 union members 
at 19 regional sites, originated from the 
Labor Institute of Public Affairs studio 
in the federation’s Washington head- 
quarters. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
described the urgent need for union 
members to get involved in the fight for 
legislation to ban the use of “permanent 
replacements’’ for strikers, which will 
be voted on in the House in a few 
weeks. The Senate battle likely will be 
tougher, he said, but “we will keep this 
effort in high gear and we’re counting 
on your help to rally support among the 
rank-and-file.’’ 

Congress needs to understand just 
how important the striker replacement 
issue is for labor, said AFL-CIO Sec- 
retary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, 
who urged members to talk to employ- 
ers who might endorse the bills in an 
effort to garner more support. 

Robert McGlotten, the AFL-CIO ’s 
legislative director, said the bills, 
H.R. 5 and S. 55, have picked up 210 
co-sponsors in the House, including 3 
non- voting delegates, and 31 in the 
Senate. 

The bill’s opponents are misrepre- 
senting it, said Ernest DuBester, a 
federation legislative representative, us- 
ing “scare tactics’’ to say the bill would 
cause more strikes and apply to non- 
union workplaces, both of which are 
untrue, he said. 

Labor is pressing for health care 
reform because “costs are skyrocketing 
out of control,” Donahue said. “Em- 
ployers are shifting health costs to their 
workers and reducing their bene- 
fits . . . and the government is turning its 


back on those who need its help.” 

Karen Ignagni, the federation’s direc- 
tor of employee benefits, outlined the 
nationwide union effort to bring about 
reform. 

Labor must set the agenda for discus- 
sion of health care, Ignagni said. She 
and Claudia Bradbury, an employee 
benefits policy associate, outlined steps 
to get business involved in the effort. 

They also urged state federations and 
central labor councils to begin organiz- 
ing health care committees to educate 
members on the issue and to mobilize 
grassroots support for labor’s goals of 
universal access to health care and cost 
containment. 

In response to viewers’ questions, 
Ignagni and McGlotten said the federa- 
tion wants health care legislation that 
also addresses the problems of high 
overhead costs and long-term care. 


As for Solidarity Day ’91, Kirkland 
said the event gives organized labor the 
opportunity to repeat the success of the 
first Solidarity Day ten years ago. 
“Let’s get a big turnout and demon- 
strate to this administration, this Con- 
gress and our employers that ‘We Are 
One.’ ” 

Solidarity Day coordinator and 
COPE director John Perkins outlined 
plans for the Aug. 31 march. Bumper 
stickers, decals and posters already 
have been sent to central body offices. 
Groups can order videos and other pro- 
motional materials, he said, by calling 
1-800-LABOR-91 . 

Perkins and Solidarity Day transpor- 
tation coordinator Vincent O’Brien and 
logistics coordinator Kevin Kistler 
outlined the plans for moving the 
massive number of people expected for 
the march. 


In answer to phoned-in questions, 
Perkins and McGlotten said the 
Solidarity Day ’91 march will be a show 
of labor’s strength and have a impact 
on Congress. 

Donahue told viewers that despite 
narrowly losing the fight on fast-track 
authority for a North American free 
trade agreement, labor “did succeed in 
raising concerns about. . .what its 
results would be. And we succeeded in 
making the administration aware that 
any agreement ... is going to be fully 
examined by the Congress — fast track 
or not — and maybe that knowledge 
will keep the negotiators on their toes. ’ ’ 

Video copies of the telecast are avail- 
able at $10 each from the Labor In- 
stitute of Public Affairs, 815 16th St. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. Tele- 
phone 1-800-242-UNION. Reference: 
LVBS-017-V. 


Among those appearing on the national teleconference 
were (from left): Legislative Representative Ernest 
DuBester, Legislative Director Robert McGlotten, 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, 


Steve Yarmola/APL-UU News 


Employee Benefits Director Karen Ignagni, and 
Employee Benefits Policy Associate Claudia Bradbury. 
Donahue served as the moderator for the two-hour 

r»ri+ion\A/i rlo tolprn«5t 


INSIDE 

Media campaign airs 
workplace fairness 

The AFL-CIO ’s fight for legislation to 
ban the “permanent replacement” of 
striking workers is heating up, with a 
media campaign and grass-roots effort 
aimed at members of Congress. 

Solidarity ’91 urges 
public worker rights 

Public employees, who are denied the 
right to organize and bargain in many 
states, will make their voices heard on 
Solidarity Day ’91, when union mem- 
bers urge freedom of association for all. 





AFL-CIO seeks review 
of health cost systems 

The United States can learn much from 
other countries in its efforts to reform 
the nation’s ailing health care system, 
AFL-CIO Vice President John J. 
Sweeney testifies. 

Jobs, services at risk 
in budget battles 

In cities and states across the country, 
public workers face layoffs and public 
services are set for drastic cuts, as 
governors and state legislatures battle 
over their budgets. 




Labor law loophole 
unsettles families 

In a growing number of cases, 
employers are unsettling families and 
communities by exploiting a loophole 
in federal labor law to “permanently 
replace” strikers. 

Worker delegates fight 
move to undercut ILO 

The U.S. labor delegation to the Inter- 
national Labor Conference is working 
to block efforts by employer groups to 
weaken international labor standards, 
particularly the right to strike. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


6 / 24/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






VOLUME 36, NUMBER 14 


JULY 8, 1991 




Union members ‘fired up’ to win big on H.R. 5 


Legislative campaign 
moves at grass roots 


Cries for trade union freedom ring around the world 


AFL-CIO mortgage program opens door to home ownership 


By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO is opening the doors to 
home ownership for union members 
who are locked out of the housing 
market. 

The federation’s Union Privilege and 
the Federal Home Loan Mortgage 
Corp. (Freddie Mac) announced a pro- 
gram for first-time home buyers that in- 
cludes lower down payments and en- 
sures a secondary market for the fixed- 
rate mortgages originated through the 
program. 


The program “represents a new 
thrust for the AFL-CIO,” said federa- 
tion Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue. “It reflects our long term 
commitment to affordable housing and 
our determination to provide a wide 
range of services for our members.” 
The desire among union members for 
home ownership is strong, Donahue 
said. A survey by the American Afford- 
able Housing Institute at Rutgers 
University showed that some 83 percent 
of union members who rent say that 


buying a home is either a very impor- 
tant priority or their top financial 
priority. 

But the biggest obstacle to home 
ownership is that families cannot afford 
the down payment. 

The program addresses that problem, 
Donahue said, by lowering the down 
payment to 5 percent of the purchase 
price rather than the standard 10 per- 
cent. The buyer only has to come up 
with 3 percent of the purchase price up 
front and the other 2 percent could 


come in an unsecured loan from the 
Amalgamated Bank of New York, the 
nation’s oldest union-owned bank. The 
loan would be at the same rate and term 
as the mortgage. 

The program also features lower clos- 
ing costs or the borrower could choose 
a mortgage with no points as a slightly 
higher interest rate. The initial cost of 
the private mortgage insurance would 
be reduced by about 40 percent. The re- 
quirement that the buyer have a two- 
Continued on Page 6 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he drive to assure passage of H.R. 

5 and S. 55, Workplace Fairness 
legislation, is percolating at the grass 
roots, as union members lined up dur- 
ing the July 4 recess to address the issue 
with their congressional representatives 
while they are at home. 

“Everyone is in the process of try- 
ing to secure meetings,” said Tommy 
Owens of the AFL-CIO ’s legislative 
department. “Our state AFL-CIOs are 
setting up individual meetings or town 
meetings. Everyone is fired up.” 
That enthusiasm has been bolstered 
by continuing support from commun- 
ity and religious groups, and the forma- 
tion of additional coalition groups who 
are fighting for the legislation, in coor- 
dination with the AFL-CIO ’s Industrial 
Union Department. 

The most recent endorsement comes 
from the Hispanic Leadership Commit- 
tee for Workplace Fairness, which said 
the use of “permanent replacements” 
is “most devastating in that it denies full 
opportunity for the most disadvantaged 
Continued on Page 3 


By James B. Parks 

T rade unionists from around the world 
will be represented in Washington on 
Solidarity Day ’91 to proclaim that even 
as the winds of freedom sweep across 
the globe, much remains to be done. 

In more than 70 countries, workers 
face the prospect of imprisonment, ha- 
rassment or death for demanding fun- 
damental worker rights. 

Their presence in the march will spot- 
light the AFL-CIO’s long commitment 
to freedom of association for workers 
in all countries, regardless of what 
ideology their particular tyrants 
practice. 

A recent survey by the International 
Confederation of Free Trade Unions 


ing the emerging independent, demo- 
cratic trade unions of Central and 
Eastern Europe — will take an honored 
place in the Solidarity Day ’91 line of 
march. 

The visitors will include Imre 
Palkovics, chairman of the Hungarian 
Workers Councils; Roman Kovac, 
chairman of the Czech and Slovak 
Trade Union Confederation; and 
recently released Cuban labor leader 
Ernesto Diaz Rodriquez. 

Other organizations that plan to send 
delegations include the Polish Solidar- 
nosc, the Beijing Autonomous Workers 
Union from China, the Chilean Demo- 
cratic Trade Union, the Lithuanian 
Continued on Page 8 


Steelworkers President Lynn Williams addresses rally in 
front of the Swiss Embassy in Washington, D.C., in sup- 
port of 1 ,700 Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. employees 
who were locked out and "permanently replaced." The 
marchers protested the business practices of Swiss- 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

based commodities traders such as Willy Strothotte, 
who partially owns RAC, and fugitive Marc Rich, who 
is rumored to have links to RAC. The union wants both 
men to direct RAC management to return to the 
bargaining table. 


(ICFTU) puts the worker rights prob- 
lem in perspective. Between January 
1990 and this past March, 264 labor ac- 
tivists were killed around the world for 
trying to promote workers’ rights, ac- 
cording to the survey. More than 2,400 
trade unionists were detained or ar- 
rested for their activities. 

“The story of freedom — and what 
it takes to get it — is not about glasnost 


or perestroika. It does not take place in 
the ministries or counting houses of the 
elite,” said AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland. “Rather, it is the story of or- 
dinary working people courageously 
rising to their feet and demanding their 
fundamental rights. Freedom and de- 
mocracy do not come from the sky, but 
from the ground.” 

A wide variety of visitors — includ- 







ILO convention 
for restaurant, 
hotel work set 


AFL-CIO photo 

Jim Baker, U.S. worker delegate to the ILO, makes labor's case against per- 
manent replacements. Left is Charles Gray, deputy U.S. worker delegate. 


Strikebreaker 
ban gains 
ILO backing 

Right to strike chilled 
by striker replacement 

Geneva 

T he International Labor Organiza- 
tion’s Governing Body found against 
the use of permanent replacements, 
almost a year after the AFL-CIO filed 
a complaint with the ILO’s Committee 
on Freedom of Association. 

“The right to strike is one of the 
essential means through which workers 
and their organizations may promote 
and defend their economic and social in- 
terests,” the ILO said. “The Commit- 
tee (on Freedom of Association) con- 
siders that this basic right is not really 
guaranteed when a worker who exer- 
cises it legally runs the risk of seeing 
his or her job taken up permanently by 
another worker, just as legally.” 

The ILO Governing Body said the 
hiring of permanent replacement work- 
ers “entails a risk of derogation from 
the right to strike, which may affect the 
free exercise of trade union rights.” 
In his presentation to the ILO, AFL- 
CIO European Representative Jim 
Baker argued that the practice “puts 
tremendous pressure on workers to ac- 
cept unsatisfactory terms and conditions 
of employment, or vote to strike — 
which might mean not only losing the 
strike, the normal risk, but also losing 
jobs and union representation.” 

Baker based the AFL-CIO complaint 
on the fact the permanent replacement 
of strikers undermines freedom of asso- 
ciation and collective bargaining at 
every stage in the process. The com- 
plaint made these points: 

• There is no practical difference 
between discharge and permanent re- 


A merican and Polish unions dedicated 
the “Polish- American Building 
Crafts Training Center” in Warsaw 
June 20. 

Speakers at the ceremony included 
Robert Georgine, president of the AFL- 
CIO Building and Construction Trades 
Department, Marian Krzaklewski, 
president of Solidarnosc, and U.S. 
Secretary of Labor Lynn Mar- 
tin — representing the various sponsors 
of the joint program. 

The center was created to train Polish 
workers in American construction tech- 
niques, focusing on the crafts of brick- 
laying, plumbing, iron work, electrical 
work and carpentry. 

The building has workshops down- 


placement because “protected, con- 
certed activity is not in fact protected. ’ ’ 

• The hiring of permanent 
replacements spread during the 1980s 
and, by placing the weight of law on 
one side, has increased conflict and 
undermined collective bargaining, in- 
cluding the loss of worker representa- 
tion and rights. 

• The strike has become, in many 
cases, an employer weapon to eliminate 
trade unions. 

• The permanent replacement 
weapon is used against employees who 
want to form unions. 

The U.S. government’s response to 
the AFL-CIO complaint trotted out the 
same arguments being used against 
H.R. 5 and its Senate equivalent, S. 55. 
The government argued that the com- 
plaint takes one aspect of labor law ‘ ‘out 
of context” and attempts a “rush to 
judgment.” 

Baker praised the ILO’s integrity in 
going ahead with the case even though 
the U.S. government “delayed its sub- 
mission until the last possible minute” 
before the Governing Body met. The 
body dealt with the AFL-CIO complaint 


stairs and classrooms upstairs for each 
of the five crafts, audio-visual equip- 
ment and a library. There are no women 
yet enrolled in the school, but the direc- 
tor of the facility is a woman. 

Georgine said that in addition to work 
skills, the center will teach collective 
bargaining, dealing with management, 
and other essentials of democratic trade 
unionism. He called the program 
“small, but meaningful” and credited 
the efforts of Ray Robertson of the Iron 
Workers, who served as emcee for the 
ceremony. 

Marian Krzaklewski, who succeeded 
Lech Walesa as the president of Soli- 
damosc, called the people of the United 
States “the true sponsors of this pro- 


at its meeting just ahead of the ILO an- 
nual conference. 

In arguing against a ban on perma- 
nent replacements because workers are 
adequately protected, the government 
said: “An employer who fails to rein- 
state such strikers at the conclusion of 
a strike is guilty of an unfair labor prac- 
tice unless it can show ‘legitimate and 
substantial justifications.’ ” 

And what are “legitimate and sub- 
stantial justifications” for not rehiring 
them? One is “the fact that the strikers’ 
jobs are occupied by replacement work- 
ers.” 

The ILO rejected the U.S. govern- 
ment attempt to draw a distinction be- 
tween the treatment of unfair labor 
practice strikers and economic strikers, 
“because that distinction obfuscates the 
real issue in the present context, i.e., 
whether U.S. labor law and juris- 
prudence (the so-called Mackay doc- 
trine) are in conformity with the 
freedom of association principles.” 

On similar grounds, it put aside the 
question of whether the practice of hir- 
ing replacement workers increased sub- 
stantially in recent years. 


gram.” He praised the program as the 
best method of bringing affordable 
housing to Polish workers. 

A brass plaque, in Polish and Eng- 
lish, dedicates the center in the name 
of the AFL-CIO and an artist’s render- 
ing was displayed of the Lynn Mar- 
tin/Robert Georgine Construction Skills 
Center, a new building to be completed 
on the site in September 1991. 

Others representing the AFL-CIO 
and its affiliated unions at the ceremony 
were union presidents Marvin Boede of 
the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, John T. 
Joyce of the Bricklayers and Jake West 
of Iron Workers along with Ken Ed- 
wards of the Electrical Workers and 
Dennis Scott of the Carpenters. 


By Steven Slezak 

I n a narrow, 17- vote margin over 
strong employer opposition, the Inter- 
national Labor Conference in Geneva 
adopted a convention on working con- 
ditions in hotels and restaurants. 

The convention requires countries 
that ratify it to “adopt and apply. . .a 
policy designed to improve the work- 
ing conditions” of hotel and restaurant 
employees to ensure that they “are not 
excluded from the scope of minimum 
standards adopted at the national level 
for workers in general.” Ratifying na- 
tions are obliged to enact legislation, in 
accordance with national law and prac- 
tice, that ensures “reasonable normal 
hours of work and overtime.” 

Other provisions of the convention 
call for reasonable time off between 
shifts; adequate notice on upcoming 
shift schedules; a base pay regardless 
of tips; annual leave with pay; and a 
prohibition on putting jobs in the in- 
dustry up for sale. 

In a vote that was almost as close — 
passing by 25 votes — the conference 
also passed what the ILO calls a 
‘ ‘ recommendation ” which provides 
non-binding guidelines for putting the 
convention into effect. The recommen- 
dation says overtime can be compen- 
sated with premium pay for the over- 
time period, compensatory time off or 
higher base pay. It defines the necessary 
time off between shifts as 10 hours, 
along with a weekly uninterrupted rest 
period of 36 hours. 

Ronald Graf of Germany served as 
the head of the workers group in this 
year’s fight. He termed the employers’ 
various parliamentary moves to block 
the action a “ruthless and radical at- 
tempt, ’’and praised the government 
representatives for refusing to be drawn 
in by the employers’ arguments. 

Graf said that working conditions and 
labor standards in the hotel and restau- 
rant industry are even more vulnerable 
to employer exploitation because the in- 
dustry employs disproportionate num- 
bers of women and unskilled laborers. 

The employer group, headed by an 
officer of the New Zealand employers’ 
federation, engaged in such parliamen- 
tary devices in the committee as con- 
stant record votes and motions for 
recesses. The group also leaned heav- 
ily on employers from less developed 
countries (LDCs), arguing that the con- 
vention sets standards that are too high 
for LDCs. 

The New Zealand worker delegate 
termed such attempts by employers to 
hide behind the LDCs as “complete 
hypocrisy.” 


American, Polish trades open training center 





Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 14 



MONDAY, JULY 8, 1991 


Hlffl 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
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Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





IEGISWTON 


H.R. 5 campaign hits on all fronts 



Continued from Page 1 

Americans, Hispanics, women and peo- 
ple of color.” 

“We ask that the Hispanic commun- 
ity, religious, political and labor and 
business organizations pass resolutions 
endorsing the Workplace Fairness leg- 
islation,” the committee said. 

Congressional supporters of the 
House legislation, introduced by Rep. 
William Clay (D-Mo.), will be press- 
ing the fence- sitters as well. The top 
two House leaders, Speaker Thomas 
Foley (D-Wash.) and Majority Leader 
Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), have 
vowed to make H.R. 5 the focus of their 
activities between now and the vote on 
the House floor, expected in Mid-July. 

Movers and shakers 

And Rep. David Nagle (D-Iowa) is 
coordinating activities among House 
members to address caucus meetings, 
prayer breakfasts and other gatherings 
of his colleagues on the importance of 
the legislation. 

In remarks on the House floor June 
26, Nagle castigated President Bush for 
announcing that he will veto H.R. 5. He 
said that employers are taking advan- 
tage of a loophole in labor law just as 
they take advantage of loopholes in the 
tax laws. 

“Major corporations are making war 
against white- and blue-collar workers, 
their families and the communities 
where they live,” Nagle said in urging 
Bush to reconsider his plan for a veto. 

The Senate version, S. 55, was 
passed out of committee but is not ex- 
pected to come up for a vote on the floor 
until after the August recess. The 
Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Howard 
Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), now has 32 co- 
sponsors. The House bill has 211 co- 
sponsors. 

To maximize the vote in the face of 
the Bush veto threat, radio and televi- 
sion ads are being aired from now un- 
til the vote in the House. The ads cur- 
rently are being heard in 20 key 
Southern, Southwestern and Mid-At- 
lantic states — states with the most un- 
committed legislators. 

Using the theme, “It’s an American 


By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO reaffirmed its support 
of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and 
called for a renewed battle for economic 
justice for all. 

The call came in a statement com- 
memorating the 50th anniversary of the 
landmark Executive Order 8802 bann- 
ing discrimination in federal and 
defense hiring. 

A. Philip Randolph, president of the 
Sleeping Car Porters, persuaded Presi- 
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 
1941 , to sign the order in exchange for 
calling off a scheduled march on Wash- 
ington by 100,000 black citizens de- 
manding their fundamental rights. 

The federation statement noted that 
it was the possibility of mass public ac- 
tion that prompted Roosevelt to take 
action to protect the rights of all 
Americans. 

As an AFL-CIO Vice President, Ran- 
dolph inspired and helped plan the 1963 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland an- 
nounces stepped-up media cam- 
paign for H.R. 5 and S. 55 at a news 
conference in Washington. 

tragedy,” the ads describe how thou- 
sands of hard-working families are los- 
ing everything ... their jobs... their 
health care . . . their pensions . . .just for 
standing up for their rights. 

Labor also is taking its message to 
radio news shows, television talk shows 
and newspaper advertisement, all pro- 
moting the fact that “working Ameri- 
cans are fighting to protect their 
families and yours. Companies are go- 
ing back on their word . . . trying to cut 
wages and health care, even for retired 
workers. When workers resist by go- 
ing on strike ... the companies per- 
manently replace them. . . .They take 
their jobs away.” 

The AFL-CIO has provided more 
than 600 newspaper editorial page 
editors across the country with fact 
sheets answering some of the major 
questions reporters and editorial writers 


March on Washington that led to pas- 
sage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 

“Today, in the wake of regressive 
Supreme Court decisions, that 1964 law 
needs to be strengthened. The AFL- 
CIO reiterates its strong support for the 
Civil Rights Act of 1991. In memory 
of Mr. Randolph, we renew our com- 
mitment to the struggle for full racial 
equality and economic justice for all,” 
the statement said. 

The retirement of Thurgood Marshall 
from the Supreme Court will make the 
effort to gain equality more difficult, the 
federation said. 

Marshall’s “compassion and tenacity 
led him to become one of the court’s 
most consistent voices for working peo- 
ple, the poor and the dispossessed,” the 
AFL-CIO said in a statement. 

“With his resignation, America 
stands to lose that voice at a time when 
such a loss is particularly grievous,” 
the statement said. 


have on H.R. 5 and S. 55, which in- 
variably relate to distortions about the 
bill from opponents. 

Media outlets also are receiving pro- 
files of workers who were “perma- 
nently replaced,” and case studies of 
how communities are being torn apart 
by the decision by unscrupulous em- 
ployers to take advantage of a loophole 
in the law that allows them to get rid 
of their union workforces. 

The mail-in campaign rounds out the 
grass-roots effort. Congress will receive 
more than a million postcards and 
mailgrams from throughout the nation, 
all asking for their endorsement of the 
bill. 

Allies blanket South 

The IUD, which did much of the 
heavy lifting in preparing the congres- 
sional campaign last year, is reaping ad- 
ditional support among allied groups 
around the country and particularly in 
the South. 

In Arkansas, Tennessee and Ala- 
bama, interfaith coalitions have sprung 
up in response to the threat to workers 
rights. 

In Kentucky and Georgia, coalitions 
of civil rights and social justice groups 
also have formed committees to insist 
that workers have the fundamental right 
to strike without the fear of being “per- 
manently replaced.” 

“We’re not making war against man- 
agement, but we want to bring legis- 
lators the need to restore something that 
was insured earlier,” said Knoxville 
United Methodist Bishop Clay Lee. 

The point is being made that this 
employer assault on workers’ rights is 
also an incursion of the democratic 
rights of all. 

“It’s a question of respect and 
acknowledging human dignity,” added 
Bishop Anthony O’Connell, of the 
Knoxville Roman Catholic Diocese. 
“The Second Vatican Council had 
something to say — that among the 
fundamental rights of the individual are 
the right to organize, to strive to arrive 
at a peaceful discussion through collec- 
tive bargaining, and the strike remains 
a necessary tool.” 


In marking the 50th anniversary of 
Roosevelt’s order. Norman A. Hill, 
president of the A. Philip Randolph In- 
stitute, said it is important to pass the 
strongest possible civil rights bill this 
year. 

The House passed H.R. 1, the Civil 
Rights Act of 1991 . The Senate has not 
taken up the bill. 

After the bill passes, Hill said, “we 
must move on to a broader agenda of 
human needs and economic justice in 
America. After we have challenged the 
immediate and blatant barriers of work- 
place discrimination, we must challenge 
the subtler and more complex shackles 
on economic opportunity and worker 
dignity in America.” 

“This means we must now tackle the 
historically unequal access to education 
for American minorities and the dif- 
ficulty of union organizing in the dis- 
proportionately minority and female 
service sector,” Hill said. 




Capitol Digest 


T he House ignored a veto threat and 
passed a spending bill that includes 
an unemployment insurance reserve 
fund to pay for increased administrative 
costs when jobless rates climb. 

The provision, long sought by 
organized labor, was part of the Labor, 
Health and Human Services and Educa- 
tion appropriations bill that passed 
353-74. 

Faced in the past several years with 
a growing number of jobless workers, 
many states also have been forced to 
close unemployment offices and lay off 
state workers who staffed those offices. 
The reserve fund will help keep state 
unemployment offices open, preventing 
delays in processing claims and dis- 
tributing benefits. 

The bill contains a trigger that would 
automatically increase the level of ad- 
ministrative funding when the unem- 
ployment rate increases. Based on that 
provision alone, the Office of Manage- 
ment and Budget said it would recom- 
mend a presidential veto of the ap- 
propriations. 

In other action on Capitol Hill: 

BANKING — The House Banking 
Committee, at the urging of the AFL- 
CIO, reinstated “pass-through” in- 
surance protection for workers’ pension 
plans as part of a sweeping banking 
reform bill. 

The Bush administration proposed 
dropping the protection, which provides 
up to $100,000 of insurance for each 
participant in a pension plan when the 
plan invests its money in banks. 

CHINA TRADE - The AFL-CIO, 
which is backing House and Senate 
resolutions that would deny most- 
favored-nation trade status for China, 
also endorsed legislation that would set 
strong human rights conditions if 
China’s MFN is continued. H. J. Res 
263 and S. J. Res. 153 would deny 
President Bush’s request for MFN 
extension. 

“The behavior of the Chinese gov- 
ernment in denying its citizens the most 
elementary freedom and its repression 
of workers and students are reason 
enough for MFN denial,” said AFL- 
CIO Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. “However, the Chinese use 
of forced labor to manufacture export 
products for the United States and the 
sale of nuclear equipment and missiles 
to the Third World are additional 
reasons to deny MFN.” 

Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell (D-Maine) introduced S. 1367, 
which sets strong conditions for a con- 
tinuation of China’s MFN status. The 
bill requires that, within a year, political 
prisoners be released and prison labor 
exports halted, along with missile and 
nuclear technology exports to the Third 
World. It also requires a show of pro- 
gress on individual liberties, including 
freedom of association and other rights. 

The House and Senate are expected 
to take up MFN legislation after the July 
4 recess. 


AFL-CIO renews call for civil rights bill 






UNION NEWS 


Defiant Teamsters chart new course for future 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Retiring Teamsters President William McCarthy addresses the union's convention in Orlando, Fla. 


Durham, Shea, Carey in race for IBT presidency 


Orlando, Fla. 

D elegates to the Teamsters’ 24th 
convention nominated three 
candidates for each of the offices of 
president and secretary-treasurer and 
54 candidates for 15 vice president 
seats on the union’s executive board. 
All will stand for election in a 
December membership ballot. 

The nominating procedure, super- 
vised by the government under a con- 
sent agreement that settled a federal 
suit, included the election of two 
Canadian vice presidents — elected 
by the delegates because they are out- 
side the jurisdiction ofU.S. courts — 
and three trustees, who also sit on the 
union’s executive board. 

Nominated to run for president 
were Vice President R.V. Durham, 
who received 1,001 of the 1,888 con- 
vention delegate votes cast; Vice 
President Walter Shea, also a vice 
president of the AFL-CIO Transpor- 
tation Trades Department, who 
received 574 votes; and New York 


United Parcel Service local President 
Ron Carey, who gathered 289 votes. 

Harold Leu, who teamed with Dur- 
ham, received 984 votes for secre- 
tary-treasurer, followed by Daniel 
Ligurotis, Shea’s running-mate, with 
615 votes, and Tom Sever, slated 
with Carey, with 272 votes. 

Elected as trustees were Bob Simp- 
son (1,076 votes), Ben Leal (1,013) 
and Robert DeRusha (973). All three 
ran as part of Durham’s “unity 
team.” 

Canadian vice presidents elected 
were Louis Lacroix and Charles Thi- 
bault. That election followed conven- 
tion action to establish a second 
Canadian seat on the executive board. 
The government’s election officer ap- 
proved that addition, but turned down 
a proposal to add a third vice presi- 
dent to the union’s western con- 
ference. 

Convention officials estimated that 
between 80 and 85 percent of the 
delegates to the 1991 convention 


were elected officers who would have 
been delegates to the convention 
without federal involvement. Team- 
ster members, voting under govern- 
ment supervised elections for conven- 
tion delegates, thus voted over- 
whelmingly for their local leadership. 

Complaining that the government’s 
delegate-election process was costly 
and inefficient, the delegates approved 
an amendment to the constitution 
allowing elected union officers to 
automatically qualify as delegates to 
the convention. 

That amendment, like many others 
approved by the convention but dis- 
approved by the government, will 
face court tests before final resolu- 
tion. The same fate awaits a conven- 
tion action to expand the nomination 
procedure to allow candidates for all 
offices elected at the convention to 
run if they submit petitions with 
signatures of 5 percent of the 
membership they would serve. 

—Michael Byrne 


By Michael Byrne 
Orlando, Fla. 

D elegates to the Teamsters ’ 24th con- 
vention repeatedly rejected the 
terms of a government consent decree 
agreement even as they acknowledged 
that they, the democratically elected 
representatives of their locals and joint 
councils, were powerless to change the 
ongoing process. 

Nevertheless, the delegates spent the 
week amending their constitution to 
fashion their own rules in the future, 
often in defiance of the government 
decree. While the Supreme Court, in 
the week before the convention, allowed 
the consent decree to go forward, the 
delegates left no doubt that the Team- 
sters would fight the government intru- 
sion at every legal turn. 

Even so, the delegates embraced 
many of the democratic reforms con- 
tained in the agreement, transforming 
the union’s governing body into a full- 
fledged political convention. The dele- 
gates, elected by the rank and file under 
the consent decree, nominated candi- 
dates for president, secretary-treasurer 
and the executive board, who will face 
a general election by the membership 
in December. (See story, at right). 

AFL-CIO opposes trusteeship 

The government’s domination of the 
process prompted AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue to ac- 
cuse the government of overstepping its 
bounds. 

“When law enforcement agencies act 
in a manner consistent with due pro- 
cess, and when they even treat trade 
unionists as if we are entitled to the 
equal protection of the laws, then their 
efforts to protect the millions of honest 
trade union members from the few law- 
breakers who would seek to corrupt our 
organizations, then those efforts are all 
to the good,” Donahue said. 

“But when the government uses law 
enforcement as a cloak to try to run our 
unions, to dictate the process and 
choose the procedures by which union 
members and convention delegates run 
their organization, at that point we draw 
the line,” he said. 

The AFL-CIO has steadfastly opposed 
the concept of government trusteeship 
over any element of the free trade union 
movement, and has criticized the Rack- 
eteer Influenced and Corrupt Organiza- 
tions Act upon which the case against 
the Teamsters was built. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told reporters in February that the 
latitude and discretion allowed under 
RICO is dangerous. “It’s the kind of 
legislation that the Gestapo or security 
services of any totalitarian country . . . 
would regard as a perfect sort of mask 
or cover for anything they wanted to 
do.” 

AFL-CIO Vice President Robert A. 
Georgine, who also addressed the con- 
vention, asked rhetorically, “Do North 
Americans want to see government exert 
control — not just interference, but 
control — over a private institution in 
a free society?” 

Georgine, president of the Building 
and Construction Trades Department, 
wondered “about a hidden agenda for 
removal of unions as an effective voice 
for working people.” 

In anguished and rousing speeches, 


delegate after delegate assailed the con- 
sent decree as an undemocratic intru- 
sion of the federal government into the 
conduct of a free trade union. 

“This agreement has allowed the 
government to occupy our international 
union and many locals and joint coun- 
cils like a conquering army for the last 
two years,” said Chuck Mack, presi- 
dent of Joint Council 7 in the San Fran- 
cisco bay area. 

Other guest speakers agreed. Rep. 
William Clay (D-Mo.) charged that 
“the tyranny of government in placing 
your union in trusteeship and usurping 
the right of your members to decide 
their own destiny is the highest form of 
tyranny.” 

The agreement, signed by the union’s 
executive board in 1989 to settle a 
federal suit brought under the RICO 
Act, obliges the union to: 

• Provide for a direct election by 
the rank and file of the principal of- 
ficers of the union, and of the delegates 
to the convention. All nominees and 
delegates may be challenged by a court- 
appointed election officer. 

• Provide budget and support, until 
the end of the election process, for a 
court-appointed administrator, who 
would oversee the day-to-day opera- 


tions of the union; the election officer, 
who would run the entire election pro- 
cess; and an independent investigator, 
who has blanket authority to look for 
corruption anywhere in the IBT. 

• Establish a three-member review 
board after the election, including an 
appointee by the U.S. Justice Depart- 
ment, to investigate any charges or 
claims of corruption from members, 
and to continue indefinitely. 

The delegates passed resolutions 
covering a broad range of issues, in- 
cluding the establishment of a standing 
Ethics Review Committee, “which will 
have final and binding authority to 
render decisions to ensure the strength- 
ening of the democratic procedures and 
special procedures within the union as 
they affect the rights and privileges of 
individual members and subordinate 
bodies.” 

In defiance of the government, the 
resolution declared that “all affiliates 
oppose the government intervention in- 
to the affairs of the International 
Brotherhood of Teamsters, and resolve 
to rid ourselves of the government’s 
undemocratic actions.” 

The delegates also resolved to join 
other union members in a march on 
Washington Aug. 31, Solidarity Day 


’91, to urge passage of health care 
reform, legislation to ban striker 
replacements, and to demonstrate for 
freedom of association — the latter goal 
made more urgent by the circumstances 
of the convention. 

Donahue issued a personal invitation 
to the delegates to march with their 
fellow unionists in Washington, noting 
that the federation had been strengthened 
by the Teamsters’ reaffiliation in 1987, 
and that trade union solidarity could 
help the union overcome its current 
problems. 

He cautioned the delegates, polarized 
in three political camps, to make the 
best of the democratic reforms by con- 
ducting constructive campaigns and by 
quickly closing ranks behind the elected 
leaders. 

“Pledge to yourselves to go on from 
here with a new determination to reclaim 
this union and all of its parts, reclaim 
it from the government and reclaim it 
from anybody who ever abuses the trust 
of the members in the future, ’ ’ Donahue 
said. 

Other speakers included Sen. Tom 
Harkin (D-Iowa); Bernard DeLury, 
director of the Federal Mediation and 
Conciliation Service; and William 
Brock, former secretary of labor. 






Musicians vote 
fiscal repairs, 
elect Massagli 



Bud Federici/Affiliated Graphics 

CWA President Morton Bahr outlines goals tor bargaining with the telecommunications industry. 

CWA disinvites Martin, warns AT&T 


By Candice Johnson 
San Francisco 

D emonstrating the depth of labor’s 
feeling against the “permanent 
replacement’’ of strikers, delegates to 
the Communications Workers’ conven- 
tion touched off actions that resulted in 
the withdrawal of an invitation to Labor 
Secretary Lynn Martin to address them. 

After endorsing a resolution that 
called striker replacement legislation the 
CWA’s top priority in the 102nd Con- 
gress, delegates voted to protest the 
labor secretary’s visit the next day 
because she said she would recommend 
that President Bush veto the legislation. 
Martin’s office then was advised of the 
convention action and the invitation was 
withdrawn. 

Martin called a news conference to 
reiterate the administration’s opposition 
to changing U.S. labor law, claiming 
there is no problem because the law 
already prohibits permanently replacing 
workers involved in unfair labor prac- 
tice strikes. 

Martin did not address the fact that 
economic strikers have no such protec- 
tion, or that at such companies as 
Greyhound Lines Inc., workers were 
“permanently replaced’’ more than a 
year ago while the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board continues to investigate un- 
fair labor practice charges. 

CWA President Morton Bahr and 
convention delegates also sent a strong 
message to AT&T and other telecom- 
munications industry employers that job 
shifting to non-union divisions, 
contracting out and other actions 
resulting in job loss will not be 
tolerated. 

“Our employers are buying other 
companies whose top managers publicly 


By Arlee C. Green 

U nions representing 64,000 workers 
reached a tentative pattern-setting 
settlement with General Electric Co. on 
new three-year contracts that would im- 
prove wages, medical coverage and 
pension benefits. Union members will 
vote on the packages on July 10. 

Fourteen unions, negotiating jointly 
as the Coordinated Bargaining Commit- 
tee of GE-Westinghouse Unions, bar- 
gained with GE for five weeks, agree- 
ing to the proposed package just hours 
after the old contracts had expired. 

The Electronic Workers, represen- 
ting 37,000 of the 64,000 GE workers, 
and the unaffiliated United Electrical 
Workers, representing 6,700, each bar- 
gain national contracts with GE. The re- 
maining 21,500 — members of 10 
other unions — bargain local contracts. 


brag about their non-union status and 
pledge to fight CWA in order to con- 
tinue the exploitation of their workers,’’ 
Bahr said, referring to AT&T’s buyout 
of National Cash Register. 

“If the transfer of our work to NCR 
results in the layoff of a single CWA 
technician, we will do whatever is in 
our power to see that AT&T loses its 
computer customers — and we will not 
relent until that customer base is totally 
eroded,” Bahr told delegates. 

Next year’s bargaining in the tele- 
communications industry must become 
a campaign to “reunionize our work, 
to take back our work and our jobs,” 
he said. 

Wall to wall 

To achieve this, telecommunications 
employers must become “CWA — 
Wall to Wall,” with CWA recognized 
“for all employees in a company who 
can legally belong to the union — no 
exceptions, no excuses,” Bahr said. 

He urged the 2,800 delegates, alter- 
nates and guests to take on that mission 
and to inspire local union members in 
the fight for union jobs. 

Delegates heard from workers in- 
volved in tough organizing campaigns 
at Sprint, AT&T/Paradyne and Buf- 
falo’s Mercy Hospital, where registered 
nurses voted 276-70 for CWA after a 
narrow first election loss and a two-year 
organizing drive. 

CWA’s organizing network — which 
calls on member local unions to organ- 
ize at least 100 new members — is 
working to bring union representation 
to health care workers in New Jersey, 
taxi drivers in San Francisco and Or- 
lando, Fla., public employees in New 
Mexico and telephone operators in In- 


On July 1 , the CBC-GE negotiating 
committee unanimously recommended 
the package, and the conference boards 
of the five largest unions at GE — IUE, 
UE, UAW, Machinists and Electrical 
Workers — followed suit the same day, 
all agreeing to recommended it to their 
members. 

The CBC will begin bargaining with 
Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Pitts- 
burgh on July 23, to replace agreements 
that will expire on Aug. 25. Those con- 
tracts cover 16,000 workers. 

Wages were a key issue for GE 
workers, who had lost out significantly 
to inflation during the 1980s when they 
were saddled with series of lump-sum 
payments and no general scale in- 
creases. 

The accord provides for a 3.5 percent 
pay increase the first year, and 2.25 


diana, and is reaching out to workers 
in printing, pharmaceutical, telecom- 
munications and other industries, said 
Larry Cohen, director of organization. 

Delegates called for increased mem- 
bership mobilization to win national 
health care reform, noting that while 
“we will support incremental steps” 
toward a national health care system, 
“a single-payer social insurance system 
will best serve the interests of all 
Americans by guaranteeing universal 
access to a universal level of care.” 

The convention also heard from Lu 
Jinghua, a member of the Workers 
Autonomous Federation, who set up a 
broadcast station at Tiananmen Square 
to spread the WAF’s message just 
before the Chinese government’s 
massacre of workers and students. 

“We wanted the rights to speak our 
own feelings, to speak out against op- 
pression and to represent ourselves,” 
Lu said. But two years later, WAF 
members are still in prison and “their 
treatment by the Chinese government is 
an humiliation to workers all over the 
world,” she declared. 

In other action, the convention ex- 
panded the role of CWA’s committees 
on equity and women’s activities and 
elected negotiators for next year’s 
bargaining with AT&T and the regional 
Bell companies. 

Speakers included CWA President 
emeritus Glenn E. Watts, Farm Work- 
ers President Cesar Chavez, General- 
Secretary Philip Bowyer of the Postal, 
Telegraph and Telephone International, 
AFL-CIO Legislative Director Robert 
McGlotten, John Henning of the Cali- 
fornia AFL-CIO, Mayor Art Agnos, 
and Elizabeth Glaser, who heads the 
Pediatric AIDS Foundation. 


percent increases in the final two. 

In addition, the cost-of-living formula 
was modified to more accurately reflect 
the amounts lost to inflation. Six semi- 
annual cost-of-living adjustments will 
be paid, with the first 3.5 cents of 
COLA being diverted to pay for em- 
ployees’ contributions to medical care 
coverage. COLA for 1991 will be 1 
cent per hour for each 0.15 point rise 
in the consumer price index. For the 
following two years, COLA will be 1 
cent for each 0.125 point increase in the 
index. 

Contracting out is a key job security 
issue for GE workers and while the 
company is strongly opposed to limiting 
its ability to contract out work, it agreed 
to meet and bargain with the unions 
regarding plant closing, transfer of 
work and subcontracting decisions. 


Las Vegas 

M ark Tully Massagli was elected 
president of the Musicians at the 
AFM’s 89th convention, which also 
mandated greater membership services 
and sweeping fiscal reforms designed 
to strengthen the union. 

Massagli, 56, fills the post held since 
1987 by J. Martin Emerson, who de- 
clined to run for re-election after serv- 
ing 47 years as a local and international 
union officer. 

Massagli, an AFM vice president 
since 1984 and president of Las Vegas 
Local 369 since 1979, defeated Richard 
Q. Totusek, an executive board mem- 
ber who heads the Spokane, Wash., 
local. The vote was 682-561. 

Massagli told delegates, “In address- 
ing the financial needs of the federation, 
this convention has given us the tools 
necessary to rebuild our union and to 
work toward insuring its future and im- 
proving services to professional musi- 
cians.” 

Steve Young, an executive board 
member and president of Boston Local 
9-535, won the race for vice president, 
beating Eugene Frey, another executive 
board member who is president of Cin- 
cinnati Local 1 . That vote was 768-473. 

Incumbent Secretary-Treasurer Ste- 
phen Sprague was elected to his first 
full-term in office, besting Tim Shea, 
president of Local 389 in Orlando, Fla., 
in a 724-517 vote. 

Ray Petch, secretary of Calgary, Al- 
berta, Local 547, will fill the post of 
vice president from Canada, an office 
that since its creation in 1967 had been 
held by J. Alan Wood, who did not seek 
re-election. 

Seventeen candidates contended for 
the five remaining seats on the interna- 
tional executive board. Those elected 
are: Ken Shirk, vice president of Port- 
land, Ore., Local 99; incumbent Ray- 
mond Hair, president of Ft. Worth, 
Texas, Local 72; Sam Folio, president 
of Reno, Nev., Local 368, Tom Bailey, 
president of Charleston, W.Va., Local 
136; and Tom Lee, secretary of Wash- 
ington, D.C., Local 161-710. 

Responding to the need to improve 
member services and erase a $1 .4-mil- 
lion deficit incurred in the past two 
years, delegates established an initiation 
fee of $40 and increased the annual per 
capita paid by locals to the federation 
from $12 to $32 in 1992 and to $36 in 
1993. For honorary or life members, 
annual per capita will be $22 in 1992 
and $24 in 1993. 

The convention also voted to reform 
the union’s work dues structure, where- 
by locals no longer will pay the federa- 
tion a share of any work dues collected 
on casual work and work under locally 
bargained contracts. 

The share of work dues payable to the 
AFM for work performed under federa- 
tion-negotiated agreements in the elec- 
tronic media area was increased to 0.75 
percent. Work dues under AFM agree- 
ments covering touring employment 
will be 3 percent, with 2.5 percent re- 
tained by the federation. 

Delegates mandated minimum levels 
of service that each of the 452 locals is 
required to provide. In other actions, 
the convention: 

• Accepted a recommendation from 
the AFM executive board that the com- 
pensation of all elected officers and 
board members be reduced by up to 14 
percent. 

• Reduced their own per diem con- 
vention allowances from $50 to $30. 


Unions gain tentative pact with GE for 64,000 





Unionized workers profit 
from decided advantage 


By John R. Oravec 

T he value of a union card continues 
to pay off in dollars and cents as well 
as benefits — especially for blue-collar 
workers. 

Union workers hold a wide advantage 
in total compensation over non-union 
employees, ranging from $5.20 to 
$8.71 more an hour, according to data 
compiled in March by the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics and released in June. 

Taking into account all workers in 
private industry, the union scale is 35 
percent higher, the BLS figures show. 
For blue-collar workers, the union edge 
is 70 percent. 

On the average, union workers 
earned $19.77 an hour in pay and bene- 
fits, compared with $14.57 for non- 
union workers. That is an advantage of 
$5.20 an hour, or $208 on a 40-hour 
week and $10,816 for a year. 

For blue-collar workers, the union 
advantage works out to $8.72 an hour, 
BLS reported. Total compensation for 
union workers was $21.12 an hour 
while non-union workers received 
$12.40. Computed for a 40-hour week, 
union membership is worth an addi- 
tional $349. For the year, that translates 
into an $18,138 advantage over the non- 
union blue-collar worker. 

“In an economic sense, that makes 
union dues the best investment a worker 
can make,” AFL-CIO economist John 
Zalusky said. “It’s not only an invest- 
ment in the context of a return for the 
hours worked, but it also provides a bet- 
ter level of health care for the worker 
and his family.” 

Zalusky noted that the union advan- 
tage would be even bigger if high-paid 
executives, including CEOs, weren’t 
included in the non-union figures. 

A union member receives almost 
twice as much in family benefits as the 
non-union counterpart, Zalusky pointed 
out. 

Overall, employee compensation in 
private industry averaged $15.40 an 
hour in March. Wages and salaries con- 
stituted 72.3 percent of the total com- 


pensation, or $11.13 an hour. Benefits 
made up the remaining 27.7 percent of 
the total, or $4.27. 

Among occupational categories, BLS 
said employers’ average compensation 
costs were higher for white-collar 
workers at $18.15 an hour than for 
blue-collar workers at $15. 15 and serv- 
ice workers at $7.82. 

Except for some managerial, profes- 
sional and administrative jobs, union 
workers fared far better on the pay 
scales. They were also better-paid in 
most industry categories. 

In straight wages and salaries, union 
workers earned an average of $13.02 
an hour, compared with $10.78 an hour 
for non-union employees. In goods- 
producing industries, union pay was 
$13.85 an hour, compared with $12.29 
for non-union. In service-producing in- 
dustries, the union rate was $12.41, 
compared with $10.32 for non-union. 

A big edge for union workers is in 
benefits, which accounted for 34 per- 
cent of total compensation and just 26 
percent for non-union workers. 

For all union workers, the benefits 
package averaged $6.75 an hour: $1.43 
for paid leave; 69 cents for supplemen- 
tal pay; $1.78 for insurance; 87 cents 
for retirement and savings; $1.93 for 
legally required benefits, including 
social security, workers’ compensation 
and unemployment insurance; and 5 
cents for other benefits. 

Non-union employers paid out an 
average of just $3.79 an hour in bene- 
fits — a little more than half of what 
union employers provided. Their bene- 
fits package included 98 cents for paid 
leave; 29 cents for supplemental pay; 
86 cents for insurance; 36 cents for 
retirement and savings; $1 .30 for legal- 
ly required benefits; 1 cent or less for 
other benefits. 

BLS found that overall employer 
compensation costs rose 2.9 percent 
from March 1990, even though the 
bureau’s employment cost index (ECI) 
showed a 4.4-percent rise over the same 
period. 


Union workers get higher 
pay and better benefits 


All workers and blue-collar workers, March 1991 




Union Non-union 

All workers 


Union Non-union 

Blue-collar 


$21.12 


$ 12.40 


$ 19.77 


$ 14.57 


Note: Benefit costs include paid leave, insurance (life, health, 
accident), retirement and savings, supplemental pay, and legally 
required benefits such as Social Security. 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 


The two surveys represent different 
ways of calculating changes in em- 
ployer costs, BLS said, but noted that 
the gap between the two measures is 
larger than ever. 

The quarterly ECI data are used to 
show changes in compensation rates 
without the influence of employment 
shifts, BLS said. The smaller 2.9-per- 
cent increase suggests movement to- 
ward lower-paying jobs because of the 
recession. But the downturn also could 
cut another way, resulting from less- 
senior and lower-paid employees being 
laid off first. 

Overall compensation costs varied by 
region, ranging from $17.56 in the 
Northeast to $13.68 in the South. There 
also were wide variations in total com- 
pensation among occupations, ranging 
from $25.30 an hour in aircraft manu- 
facturing to $7.66 an hour for service 
workers in nonmanufacturing indus- 
tries. 

In other economic reports: 

• The Treasury Department 
reported that the federal government 
ran up a record deficit of $53.35 billion 


in May, widening the deficit for the first 
eight months of fiscal year 1991 to $175 
billion, up sharply from the $151.5 
billion for same period a year-ago. 
Revenues in May totaled $63.6 billion, 
including payments of $5.8 billion from 
allies to help pay for the Persian Gulf 
war, and were about $6 billion below 
May 1990. 

• A 1.1 -percent rise in consumer 
spending in May was offset by a 3.6 
percent dropoff in the consumer savings 
rate, the fourth decline since January, 
the Commerce Department reported. 

• Durable goods orders rose 3.8 
percent in May, following a 3.6-percent 
gain in April. Despite the back-to-back 
advances, the Commerce Department 
reported that new factory orders for the 
“big ticket” items were still running 
6.1 percent below May 1990. 

• Bankruptcy filings jumped by 26 
percent in first quarter to 230,723, the 
American Bankruptcy Institute re- 
ported. The institute expects bankrupt- 
cies to increase in coming months and 
the number is likely to be 30 percent 
above last year. 



AFL-CIO mortgage plan opens doors to home ownership 


Continued from Page 1 

month cash reserve is also waived, 
again lowering the up front money 
needed. 

The mortgage plan has more liberal 
approval criteria, allowing union mem- 
bers to spend 33 percent of their income 
on housing. Most lenders limit that 
amount to 28 percent. 

Leland C. Brendsel, chairman and 
CEO of Freddie Mac, said the corpora- 
tion has agreed to purchase $50 million 
worth of mortgages originating in the 
program, enough to help about 1,000 
union members. 

To be eligible for the loan, borrowers 
must be members in good standing for 
three years of one of the 41 affiliated 
unions that have joined the program. To 
qualify for the more liberal under- 
writing, the buyer must be a member 
of the union for one year. 

To guarantee that the program assists 
the low- and moderate-income union 


families, the borrower’s income cannot 
exceed 115 percent of the median in- 
come in the area where the borrower 
lives as listed by the U.S. Department 
of Housing and Urban Development. 

Union members will get strike pro- 
tection at no additional cost. There also 
is an unemployment assistance plan. 

PHH US Mortgage Corp. will ad- 
minister the program. GE Capital Mort- 
gage Insurance Corp. will insure the 
mortgages and CIGNA Direct 
Marketing Division will market the 
program. 

The first-time home buyers program 
is part of Union Privilege’s Union 
Member Mortgage Program, which 
also offers low-interest mortgages for 
families who are not first-time buyers. 
Those mortgages, however, do not have 
the 3 percent and 2 percent split and are 
not backed by Freddie Mac. 

Union Privilege President David 
Silberman said the group also plans to 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue explains mortgage program. 
At right is Union Privilege President David Silberman. 


train union negotiators to bargain for 
employer-assisted housing as part of 
future contract talks. 


For information on any of the mort- 
gage programs, union members should 
call Union Privilege at 202/842-3500. 


AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC 








Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Members of the AFL-CIO Asian/Pacific support group steering committee in- 
clude, from left: Art Takei, acting executive director of the group; Mike 
Gildea of the Department of Organization and Field Services; Jay Mazur, 
president of the Ladies' Garment Workers; Susan Cowell, ILGWU vice presi- 
dent; and Joseph Shantz, AFL-CIO organizing director. 


Asian-American support group 
gets leaders, makes plans 


T he AFL-CIO moved another step 
toward a support group for 
Asian/Pacific Americans by electing of- 
ficers, naming an interim executive 
director and mapping plans for a 1992 
founding convention during a steering 
committee meeting in Washington. 

Jay Mazur, president of the Ladies’ 
Garment Workers and chairman of the 
AFL-CIO Executive Council committee 
assisting the group, told the 32-member 
steering committee that the AFL-CIO 
sought a structure that “recognizes the 
diversity of our Asian union members 
and creates an opportunity for self- 
expression.” 

The support group steering commit- 
tee comprises members from 17 AFL- 
CIO affiliated unions and seven national 
backgrounds. 

The steering committee elected Katie 
Quan of the ILGWU as chair and chose 
Art Takei, retired vice president of a 
Food and Commercial Workers local, 
as acting executive director. Kent Wong 
and Marian Thom of the Teachers and 
Russell Okata of AFSCME were 
elected vice chairs and Mike Gildea of 
the Department of Organization and 
Field Services will serve as AFL-CIO 
staff liaison. The group formed three 
committees and mapped plans to con- 
tinue recruiting trade unionists to 
participate. 

The goal is for Asian trade unionists 


and retirees to have an organization like 
the other AFL-CIO support groups: the 
A. Philip Randolph Institute among 
blacks; Frontlash for young trade 
unionists; the Labor Council for Latin 
American Advancement (LCLAA), the 
National Council of Senior Citizens and 
the Coalition of Labor Union Women 
(CLUW). 

Mazur noted to the meeting — the 
first of three planned for the steering 
group — that the 1990 census indicates 
that 10 million Asian- Americans will 
reside in the United States by the year 
2000. Totals for the Asian/Pacific 
Americans doubled to 7.2 million dur- 
ing the 1980s and in calling for the crea- 
tion of the support group, the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council estimated that almost 
250,000 are now members of AFL-CIO 
unions. 

The group plans to meet again in 
Washington during the weekend of 
Solidarity Day ’91 to continue work on 
a governing constitution and a 1992 
founding convention. The group listed 
its purposes as leadership training and 
labor education on the the principles of 
trade unions; an advocacy forum to de- 
fend and advance the civil and human 
rights of Asian/Pacific Americans, 
immigrants, and other minorities and 
development of a voter registration and 
political action arm among Asian/ 
Pacific Americans. 


After 7 years, Boilermakers 
get $5.4 million in back pay 


S ome 1,310 current and former 
employees of Lehigh Portland Ce- 
ment Co. last month received back pay 
settlement checks totalling $5.4 million. 

The back pay stems from a 1987 
NLRB ruling that Lehigh had illegally 
implemented contract proposals without 
first bargaining to an impasse with the 
Boilermakers, which represented the 
workers. 

“The members are real pleased,” 
said Boilermakers Vice President Henry 
Bechtholdt. “The vast majority are real 
happy that it’s settled and they got their 
checks.” 

The checks, which averaged $3,902, 
were distributed by the National Labor 
Relations Board. The highest claim of 
$5,284.99 went to 651 of the workers. 

“The union insisted that those 
workers who had died and those who 
had quit got their money too,” Becht- 
holdt said. “In several cases, the money 
went to estates.” 

The case began in 1984 when the 
Boilermakers struck nine Lehigh plants 
over contract negotiations. The union 


agreed to return to work, but the com- 
pany implemented its contract proposals 
as soon as the workers returned, 
Bechtholdt said. 

The union and Lehigh negotiated a 
new contract in 1988. The back pay 
period covers 1984-1988. 

Bechtholdt said that contract has now 
expired and new contract negotiations 
have begun. 

Of the $5.4 million, $400,000 repre- 
sents interest from March 28, 1990, the 
date the NLRB received a $5 million 
check from the company. It took a year 
to obtain the names and addresses of the 
affected employees from the union and 
Lehigh, Bechtholdt said. 

The employees worked at Lehigh 
plants in Cementon, N.Y.; Union 
Bridge, Md.; Leeds, Ala.; Mitchell, 
Ind.; Mason City, Iowa; Waco, Tex.; 
Independence, Kan.; Metaline Falls, 
Wash.; and York, Pa. 

Lehigh has sold the Independence 
plant, but the affected workers there 
still will receive their share of the set- 
tlement, Bechtholdt said. 



Theodore Bikel has been re-elected 
to a second two-year term as president 
of the Actors and Artistes, the interna- 
tional union associated with the various 
performer unions. Also elected at the 
union’s 15th biennial convention on 
June 20 were: Kendall Orsatti of the 
Screen Actors, first vice president; 
Thomas Jamerson of the Musical Art- 
ists, second vice president; Bruce York 
of the Television and Radio Artists, 
third vice president; Rod McKuen of 
the Variety Artists, fourth vice presi- 
dent; Seymour Rexite of the Hebrew 
Actors Union, fifth vice president; Wil- 
lard Swire of Actors’ Equity, treasurer; 
and John C. Hall of AFTRA, executive 
secretary. 

UAW President Owen Bieber, in an 
address to the Third National Congress 
of the National Union of Metalworkers 
of South Africa (NUMSA), declared 
the words “justice” and “South 
Africa” will never go together until the 
apartheid is abolished. 

The UAW leader noted that 70 per- 
cent of South Africa’s wealth is con- 
trolled by six corporations, that 5 per- 
cent of the population own 80 percent 
of the personal wealth and that whites, 
representing just 14 percent of the 
population, earn 65 percent of the 
monthly wages. Bieber is co-chairman 
of the Shell Boycott Committee, along 
with Mine Workers President Richard 
Trumka. The committee is pressuring 
Shell Oil Co. to end its role as a key 
supplier of oil to the apartheid regime. 

AWARDS 

Sheet Metal Workers President Ed- 
ward J. Carlough received the Em- 
ployee Assistance Professionals’ Asso- 
ciation’s first Edward J. Small Award 
at a luncheon June 24. Carlough was 
honored for his “outstanding leadership 
in advancing employee assistance pro- 
grams through labor-management co- 
operation in the sheet metal industry.” 
The award is named for the late Edward 
J. Small, who was employee assistance 
manager of the New York Times from 
1976 to his death in 1984. 

Under Carlough ’s leadership, the 


SMW created a 12-member task force 
in 1986 with representatives of the 
Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Con- 
tractors National Association. This step 
resulted in the establishment of the first 
industry wide EAP program. 

DEATHS 

Elwood D. Swisher, a former vice 
president of the Oil, Chemical and 
Atomic Workers, died June 7 at the 
Porter Hospice in Denver. He was 78. 

Swisher, a native of West Virginia, 
led a fight in the 1940s to move his local 
union from the Mine Workers to the 
United Gas, Coke and Chemical Work- 
ers of America and took part in form- 
ing the Carbide and Carbon Council, 
consisting of various locals that had 
joined together to bargain with Union 
Carbide Corp. 

Swisher served as an international 
representative and executive board 
member of the UGCCWA until being 
elected president in 1952. He led the 
union into merger with the OCAW in 
March 1955. He was elected an OCAW 
vice president and served in that post 
until his retirement in 1977. 

He also had been a vice president of 
the CIO and the AFL-CIO Industrial 
Union Department and a member of the 
International Labor Organization’s 
chemical industries conference. 

Judah Drob, a longtime Communi- 
cations Workers staffer and a Labor 
Department division chief, died of 
cancer June 23 at his home. He was 74. 

From 1948 to 1961, Drob worked for 
the CWA in Michigan as an organizer 
and editor of its statewide newspaper, 
and as a writer and editor with the 
University of Michigan’s workers’ ed- 
ucation program. From 1961 to his re- 
tirement in 1980, Drob worked at the 
Labor Department, except for a stint in 
1965-66, when he was legislative assis- 
tant to Sen. Patrick V. McNamara 
(D-Mich.). At his retirement, Drob was 
chief of the employment and training 
administration’s research and develop- 
ment utilization division. 

Angelo LoVecchio, who retired in 
1981 as president of the Plate Printers, 
died of emphysema June 22 at Arling- 
ton Hospital in Arlington, Va. He was 
79. 

LoVecchio has been a 38-year 
member of Washington Plate Printers 
Local 2, and served as a vice president 
of the international from 1965 until he 
was elected president in 1977. Follow- 
ing his retirement as union president, 
he served for a period as legislative 
representative of Local 2. 



Cara Metz/ILGWU 

Boris Yeltsin, newly elected president of the Russian republic, works a 
machine at the After Five plant during a recent trip to New York. Looking 
on is seamstress Gloria Isabella of the Ladies' Garment Workers. 




AFL-CIO helps free unions around the world 


Suppliers for 
Solidarity Day 

( Suppliers for 100-Percent 
Union-Made Products ) 

Affiliated Graphics 

3342 Bladensburg Road 
Brentwood, MD 20722 
(301)927-3800 
Contact: Joseph P. Connors 
Color Printing, Signs, Art 
Work, Photography 

Ad Spectrum 

3411 Pendleton Drive 
Silver Spring, MD 20902 
(301)949-3863 
Contact: Marge Stanley 
Advertising Specialties 

Askew Associates 
14233 Catamount Court 
Silver Spring, MD 20906 
(301)598-5802 
FAX: (301) 598-0341 
Contact: Shirley Askew 
Advertising Specialties 


Brown & Bigelow 

Box 415 

Bamesville, MD 20838 
(301)972-8555 
Contact: Cliff Neal 
Advertising Specialties 

Brushfire Studio 

155 Joyce Kilmer Avenue 
New Brunswick, NJ 08901 
(201 or 908) 220-1472 
Contact: Mike Alewitz 
Banners, Signs, Murals 

Classic Specialties 

433 Pompton Avenue 
Cedar Grove, NJ 07009 
(201)239-2223 
Contact: Thomas Brookes 
Advertising Specialties 

E.T.G. Specialty 
Advertising 

15 Woodside Avenue 
Cranford, NJ 07016 
(201)272-6977 
Contact: Chris Stephan 
Advertising Specialties 


Harper & Company 

11315 Lockwood Drive 
Silver Spring, MD 20904-2678 
(301) 681-4440/(800) 544-4755 
FAX: (301) 681-8624 
Contact: Michael P. Harper 
Advertising Specialties 

Image Pointe 

1224 LaPorte Road 
Waterloo, IA 50702 
(319)234-3109 
FAX: (319)234-0174 
Contact: Jeff Swart zendruber 
Embroidery & Advertising 
Specialties 

J S & Company 

53 South Bolton Avenue 
Indianapolis, IN 46219 
(317)353-0574 

Contact: Stan & Donna Arthur 
Advertising Specialties 

K & R Industries 

73 10-B McWhorter Place 
Ann an dale, VA 22003 
(703)256-5955 
FAX: (703) 941-0333 
Contact: Keane Eagen 
Advertising Specialties 


Painters Local 1140 

1818 W. Northern Lights 
Boulevard, #201 
Anchorage, Alaska 99517 
Contact: Raymond Smith 
Banners 

Plains T-Shirt 
Co., Inc. 

10 Sarah Street - Plains 
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18705-1296 
(717) 822-5058 
Contact: Harold Rosenberg 
T-Shirts 

Rocky Mountain 
Screen Print 

13 East Kensington Avenue 
Salt Lake City, UT 84115 
(801)487-1107 
Contact: J. 
Sequaptewa-McNeil 
Advertising Specialties 

Signet Screen Printing 

303 Sycamore Street 
Falls Church, VA 22046 
(703)534-0987 
Contact: Jim Cesnik 
Advertising Specialties 


Star Graphics 

240 10th Street 

Toledo, OH 43624 

1-800-562-5940 

(419)243-6954 

FAX: (419) 243-1852 

Contact: Rick Rudnicki/Linda 

Fimognari 

Union Marketing 
Ideas, Inc. 

1100 Sunset Strip, Suite 5 
Sunrise, FL 33313 
(305)581-0667 
Contact: Ted Massinello 
Advertising Specialties 

Windjammer Inc. 

525 North Main Street 
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1-800-441-6958 
(215)588-0626 
FAX: (215) 588-2046 
Contact: Jamie Smith 

Solidarity 

Works! 

Be there! 


Continued from Page 1 

Workers Union and the USSR Miners 
Strike Committee. 

Invitations have been extended to the 
two largest South African trade unions, 
the National Council of Trade Unions 
of South Africa (NACTU) and the Con- 
gress of South African Trade Unions 
(COSATU), and to the Confederation 
of Trade Union Unity for Nicaragua. 

For almost 30 years, the AFL-CIO 
has helped such unions through geo- 
graphic institutes for Asia, Africa and 
Latin America and, more recently, with 
assistance added by the Free Trade 
Union Institute. 

The federation’s role in helping free 
trade unions was acknowledged by 
Boris Yeltsin, the first democratically 
elected president of a republic in the 
Soviet Union in a visit to the AFL-CIO 
building in June. Yeltsin met with the 
Executive Council and toured a New 
York clothing factory with members of 
the Ladies’ Garment Workers. 

In stressing that “real justice comes 
not down from high places, but rather 
from the streets and workplaces — 
wherever plain people join together to 
assert their fundamental rights,” Kirk- 
land said that only they can be trusted 
to enforce freedom. 

Despite those trying to take credit for 
the breakthroughs toward democracy in 
1989 and since, Kirkland notes that the 
“disciples of raw free market theory” 
are the same ones who lavished billions 
on the former rulers, “leaving burdens 
of wasted and unproductive debt that 
now hang like enormous millstones 
around the necks of new democracies.” 

During the many years Solidarnosc 
was forced underground by martial law 
in Poland, for example, the United 
States repeatedly extended credits to 
Lech Walesa’s jailers under the busi- 
ness rubric of “who cares what form 
of government they have as long as they 
can pay their bills?” That attitude con- 
tinues among those pushing for most- 
favored-nation treatment for China. 


In identifying “freedom of associa- 
tion, at home and abroad” along with 
health care reform and a ban on the 
“permanent replacement” of strikers as 
the purpose of Solidarity ’91 , the AFL- 
CIO seeks an American foreign policy 
with an an ‘ ‘unswerving commitment to 
freedom of association by all the 
world’s workers — and that includes 
those in China, Cuba, Vietnam, North 
Korea and wherever on Earth that right 
is brutally repressed by hostile state 
power or entrenched privilege.” 

“In the interest of basic fairness. . . 
the denial of workers’ rights should be 
clearly defined internationally as the un- 
fair trading practice it is, through the 
incorporation of a social clause in the 
General Agreement on Tariffs and 
Trade,” Kirkland said. 

The AFL-CIO is one of the world 
labor bodies that has been successful in 
getting that standard from its own gov- 
ernment. Basic worker rights recog- 
nized by the International Labor Organ- 
ization are now a condition in extending 
U.S. trade advantages afforded under 


the Generalized System of Preferences. 

But U.S. unions have to push hard to 
assure compliance. Each year the AFL- 
CIO files its list of worker rights viola- 
tions that should bar a country from 
GSP privileges. This year, the AFL- 
CIO cited Thailand, Bangladesh, El 
Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, 
Panama, and Syria. 

In the case of Thailand, the federa- 
tion took the unusual step of asking the 
U.S. Trade Representative to expedite 
the normal one-year investigation into 
the violations. Thailand’s military 
rulers have eliminated by decree the 
state enterprise unions, by far the 
largest component of the country’s 
union movement. To wait a year to 
complete an investigation would mean 
that no labor movement in Thailand 
would exist, the AFL-CIO said. 

The most dangerous countries for 
trade union activity, the ICFTU said in 
its survey, were Colombia, Guatemala, 
South Africa, El Salvador, the Philip- 
pines, China, Sudan, Turkey, Ivory 
Coast and South Korea. 


In Colombia alone, 138 trade union- 
ists were killed during the 15 -month 
period. About 350 were detained in El 
Salvador and 150 remain jailed there. 

In Cuba, the last historic plantado, 
Mario Chanes de Armas, former head 
of the country’s brewery union, remains 
jailed after 30 years. Plantados are 
political prisoners who refuse to be in- 
doctrinated or to wear prison uniforms 
in defiance of a system they despise. 

Kirkland has testified before Con- 
gress condemning China for exploiting 
the labor of prisoners in its vast gulag 
to produce cheap products for export. 

Because the Chinese government 
continues to repress basic human 
freedoms, the AFL-CIO has led the op- 
position to retaining most-favored-na- 
tion status for China. 

The federation also has condemned 
the rapid expansion of so-called export 
processing zones in Caribbean countries 
where multinational firms “take advan- 
tage of cheap labor, tax breaks and 
special trading privileges for duty-free 
access to the U.S. market.” 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 14 
JULY 8, 1991 


INSIDE 

Striker replacement 
drive at grass roots 

Union members are scheduling 
meetings with their congressional 
representatives during the July 4th 
recess, seeking a firm “yes” on striker 
replacement legislation. 

Union Privilege adds 
home-buying benefit 

A new Union Privilege program is help- 
ing first-time home buyers break into 
the tough housing market by offering 
reasonable mortgage rates and a lower 
down payment plan. 



ILO finds against 
striker replacements 

Acting on a complaint from the AFL- 
CIO, the International Labor Organiza- 
tion finds that the practice of “perma- 
nent replacements” undercuts the right 
to strike. 

Teamsters building 
union for the future 

Despite the government’s heavy hand, 
delegates to the Teamster’s convention 
drafted constitutional changes for the 
future and nominated candidates for top 
offices. 



Organizing, job security 
at top of CWA agenda 

0 Communications Workers send a 
message to the Bush administration on 
striker replacement; delegates call for 
“wall-to-wall” union representation at 
telecommunications employers. 



Union membership pays 
in wages, benefits 

Workers continue to see the value of 
their union cards in their paychecks, 
with union workers earning about $5 an 
hour more in pay and benefits than their 
non-union counterparts. 



The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 





VOLUME 36, NUMBER 15 


JULY 22, 1991 



House passes 'permanent replacement' ban 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he House of Representatives handed 
labor a major victory July 17, pass- 
ing H.R.5, the Workplace Fairness bill, 
on a 247-182 vote. 

The bill would close a loophole in 
labor law that allows employers to 
“permanently replace” workers who 
exercise their legal right to strike. The 
loophole, created by the Supreme Court 
with its 1938 Mackay Radio decision, 
was seldom used until the 1980s, when 
greedy segments of the business com- 
munity replaced hundreds of thousands 
of workers. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 


hailed the vote as “a strong stand in 
support of workplace fairness and the 
integrity of our collective bargaining 
system. We are pleased that a majority 
of House members recognize that the 
loophole allowing employers to ‘per- 
manently replace’ striking workers is 
contrary to the spirit and the intent of 
the nation’s labor laws.” 

He termed H.R. 5 a “settlement bill” 
and said settlements are what the AFL- 
CIO and union members are interested 
in. 

When asked about a potential presi- 
dential veto, Kirkland said President 
Bush “is the president of all the peo- 


ple” and should have the opportunity 
to hear -the workers’ side of the story. 
Kirkland said the bill should not be 
judged solely on the opinion “of the 
bloody-minded sector of the employer 
community.” 

“It’s too late to help me,” said 
former Eastern Airlines employee and 
Machinists Local 702 Vice President 
Ted Ramirez, who watched helplessly 
as his 25 years of service went down 
the drain. “But, this will help my kids 
and grandkids. We fight for our nation 
whenever we’re called. Now it’s time 
our government started giving us a lit- 
tle more protection between wars.” 


Before passing the bill, the House 
handily defeated a substitute measure 
introduced by Rep. Bill Goodling (R- 
Penn.), which would have banned 
“permanent replacements” only for the 
first eight weeks of a strike. The vote 
was 28-399. The House then passed, by 
252-174, a refining amendment by Rep. 
Pete Peterson (D-Fla.) that made clear 
H.R. 5 does not apply to non-union 
workplaces. 

The H.R. 5 companion bill, S. 55, 
also specifies that it applies only to 
union workplaces. It has been passed 
out of committee and is expected to 

Continued on Page 3 


UI troubles 


mount with 
jobless rate 


By Arlee C. Green 

O n Aug. 31, Solidarity Day ’91, 
thousands of trade unionists and 
their allies will begin showing up near 
the Mall in Washington shortly after 
sunrise and be gone by dusk. 

But that historic moment, will involve 
months of hard work and elaborate 
planning that began immediately after 
the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s 
February meeting. That work — and 
Solidarity Day itself — is aimed at 
displaying the strength and unity of the 
American labor movement and union 
members’ determination to enact health 
care reform, ban the “permanent 
replacement” of strikers and enhance 


the freedom of association at home and 
abroad. 

The event carries the theme, “Soli- 
darity Works,” and it is by the sweat 
of labor’s brow that people are being 
brought together. The logistics of stag- 
ing Solidarity Day ’91 are immense and 
the details exhaustive. 

Labor’s message is being supported 
by more than 100 other organizations, 
representing as diverse a cross-section 
of America as the trade union move- 
ment itself. Groups representing 
women, senior citizens, civil rights, 
youth and churches are being gathered 
under labor’s banner through the coor- 
dination of Dick Warden, the retired 


UAW legislative director who is work- 
ing with the Solidarity Day ’91 office 
as a liaison to these groups. 

The latest organization to join in the 
labor alliance is the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors, whose newly elected presi- 
dent, Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, 
announced its endorsement of Solidarity 
Day during a news conference July 10. 

AFL-CIO COPE Director John Per- 
kins serves as the event’s national coor- 
dinator, aided by Kevin Kistler (logis- 
tics) and Vincent O’Brien (transporta- 
tion) from the AFL-CIO Department of 
Organization and Field Services. 

After a series of planning sessions 
Continued on Page 7 


They pointed out that the extended 
benefits trust fund is providing assist- 
ance to fewer than 100,000 workers at 
a time when almost 1.2 million have 
been unemployed for more than 26 
weeks. Meanwhile, the trust fund has 
amassed a surplus of more than $7 
billion during a recession year. 

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) also 
said he would introduce legislation to 
draw from the trust fund surplus under 
emergency designation to increase the 
extended benefits program, although his 
proposal would not address other inade- 
quacies of the UI system. 

Nearly 8.8 million people were of- 
Continued on Page 10 


A public service announcement on Solidarity Day 91 is 
readied by Bob Trussed, director of production for the 
Labor Institute of Public Affairs, and Bob Sullivan, direc- 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

tor of photography. The copies of the 30-second TV spot 
calling out to "join us" on Aug. 31 have been sent to 
stations around the country. 


Labor works to make ‘Solidarity Work’ 


By Michael Byrne 

W ith the June unemployment rate 
reaching 7 percent, the AFL-CIO 
called on Congress and the Bush ad- 
ministration to quickly approve un- 
employment insurance reform legisla- 
tion to assist the growing number of 
jobless, and especially the long-term 
unemployed who have exhausted their 
benefits. 

At one time, the benchmark 7 percent 
figure would have mobilized govern- 
ment programs to provide relief for the 
jobless and put people back to work. 
But the Bush administration continues 
to minimize the problem, saying that the 
current recession has bottomed out. 

But the severity of the unemployment 
picture was not lost on Sen. Paul Sar- 
banes (D-Md.), chairman of the Joint 
Economic Committee, and Sen. James 
Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the 
Senate Budget Committee. They sent a 
letter to President Bush urging him to 
suport UI reform legislation, and to 
designate such legislation as an emer- 
gency under last year’s budget agree- 
ment. 







South Africa sanctions 
withdrawal ‘premature’ 



Joel Salcido/El Paso Times 

Hunger-striking garment workers call for justice from the window of DCB 
Apparel in El Paso, Texas. 

Community rallies behind 
workers in fight for union 


By James B. Parks 

P resident Bush’s decision to lift sanc- 
tions against South Africa’s apar- 
theid government was “premature and 
inappropriate,” the AFL-CIO said. 

“The Comprehensive Anti- Apartheid 
Act of 1986 was intended to help bring 
about the end of apartheid and the 
establishment of a democratic, non- 
racial society in South Africa,” the 
AFL-CIO said in a statement. 

“Despite the progress of the past 15 
months, these goals are unattained and 
the conditions for lifting the sanctions 
have not been fully met,” the federa- 
tion said. “The vast majority of South 
Africans still are not permitted to vote, 
the government continues to hold polit- 
ical prisoners and a climate of free 
political activity has yet to be 
achieved.” 

The decision to lift sanctions ignores 
the spirit of the law, the AFL-CIO said, 
and uses a narrow interpretation to 
determine that the South African gov- 
ernment has technically fulfilled its 
requirements. 

“Rewarding the Pretoria government 
in this way is an act of disregard for the 
needs and aspirations of South Africa’s 
black community,” the statement said. 
Without continued international pres- 
sure, “the promising transition to 
democracy in South Africa is in danger 
of stalling. 

“The U.S. government should con- 
tinue strong pressure for complete 
political and economic enfranchisement 
in South Africa until the apartheid 


T he AFL-CIO deferred judgment on 
President Bush’s nomination of 
Clarence Thomas to replace the revered 
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Mar- 
shall, saying that “we look forward to 
a full airing of Judge Thomas’s views 
in the upcoming confirmation process. ” 
The AFL-CIO study will encompass 
his record “as a court of appeals judge 
and as chairman of the Equal Employ- 
ment Opportunity Commission before 
taking a position.” Thomas has a full 
record of eight years at the EEOC but 
.has held his Court of Appeals seat only 
since 1990. 

Meanwhile, AFSCME asked mem- 
bers of the Senate Judiciary Commit- 
tee to vote against confirmation of 
Thomas, saying his record, particular- 
ly as EEOC chairman, “does not reveal 
the type of commitment to equal justice 
and fundamental rights which we be- 


system is truly relegated to the dustbin 
of history,” the AFL-CIO said. 

Finally, the federation pledged to 
continue supporting sanctions until 
alternative strategies are “adopted and 
accepted by those they are intended to 
help, especially our brothers and sisters 
in die South African trade movement.” 

AFL-CIO Vice Presidents Owen 
Bieber of the UAW and Richard 
Trumka of the Mine Workers sharply 
criticized Bush’s action. Bieber and 
Trumka co-chair the federation’s Shell 
Boycott Committee. 

“It is highly doubtful that all of the 
formal conditions for lifting the sanc- 
tions have been met, particularly in the 
area of political prisoners,” they said 
in a joint statement. “The minority 
regime has so far merely altered the sur- 
face of apartheid while leaving its 
underpinnings intact,” they said. 

“The apartheid government remains 
in complete control and blacks do not 
have the right to vote, denying them 
real access to political — let alone 
economic — power. Further, political 
violence against supporters of 
democracy is still a fact of life in South 
Africa, they said. 

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee 
condemned the administration for 
threatening to take legal action against 
state and local governments that have 
adopted their own economic sanctions 
against South Africa. “Such efforts to 
force these governing bodies to comp- 
ly with the President’s premature action 
must be resisted,” he said. 


lieve are essential for a Supreme Court 
justice.” 

In a letter to committee chairman 
Joseph Biden (D-Del.), AFSCME 
President Gerald McEntee and Secre- 
tary-Treasurer William Lucy noted that 
“Judge Thomas rejected the concept of 
pay equity” and opposes many accepted 
government policies, like “minimum 
wage laws, set-aside contracts and even 
rent control laws.” 

The Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights, in which the AFL-CIO plays an 
active role, also deferred judgment on 
Thomas after another major member of 
the leadership conference, the NAACP, 
decided at its convention in Houston not 
to take a position until around the mid- 
dle of August. 

The Senate committee is not expected 
to take up the nomination until after the 
August recess ends on Labor Day. 


El Paso, Texas 

B acked by the Ladies’ Garment 
Workers and La Mujer Obrera, a 
garment worker advocacy group, about 
130 mostly Mexican immigrant women 
are fighting for justice and better work- 
ing conditions in this city’s sewing 
sweatshops. 

The workers have been picketing 
DCB Apparel factories and other shops, 
demonstrating at the city’s main plaza 
and staging hunger strikes to draw at- 
tention to the serious problems in their 
jobs. 

While the law requires a day’s pay for 
a day’s work, some garment manufac- 
turers, including DCB, have been 
withholding workers’ paychecks. About 
two months ago, women workers began 
a hunger strike inside one of the shops 
in protest. 

In explaining their reasons for the 
strike, the women told of filthy work- 
ing conditions, a factory filled with in- 
sects and rats, no running water and old 
equipment. 

“We’re doing this because many peo- 
ple are owed money — the owners 
don’t pay for weeks,” one woman add- 
ed. The strike began May 1. 


Their efforts have been bolstered by 
community and religious leaders who 
have been joining the hunger strike in 
24-hour shifts. 

David Young, ILGWU western states 
organizing director, said workers are 
fighting for a union contract not only 
to gain the money owed them, but for 
job security. Often, sweatshops will 
close down after several payless weeks 
for workers, then reopen under a new 
name nearby, he said, adding, “one 
way to keep jobs is through a union con- 
tract.” 

The ILGWU has demonstrated 
against the apparel contractor — whose 
clothes are marketed under the labels 
“Maximum Energy” and “Total 
Energy” — at stores in St. Louis, 
Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. 
Recently the J.C. Penney firm dropped 
jeans and sportswear with those brand 
names. 

ILGWU President Jay Mazur said, 
“we will reach into every part of this 
country to appeal to Americans of good 
conscience to withhold their dollars 
from companies responsible for the ap- 
palling conditions of garment workers 
in El Paso.” 


AFL-CIO will take a critical look 
at record of court nominee Thomas 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 15 nx dgb * MONDAY, JULY 22, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00 1-11 85) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 



Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 


Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





LBGISWllW 


House passes strikebreaker ban 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) is joined at a news confer- 
ence on Capitol Hill July 16 by other House supporters of H.R. 5, including 
Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.) and newly elected Whip David Bonior (D-Mich.). 


Continued from Page 1 

come up for a vote in the full Senate 
sometime after the Labor Day recess. 
Thirty-three senators have co-sponsored 
S. 55. 

The House victory vote was the 
culmination of months of grass-roots 
legislative activity by union members. 
The bill was introduced in January by 
Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) and quick- 
ly picked up the support of 210 House 
members, including Speaker Tom 
Foley (D-Wash.), House Majority 
Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), 
outgoing Whip William Gray (D-Pa.) 
and newly elected Whip David Bonior 
(D-Mich.). 

“All we are asking is that workers 
have protection,” said Bonior. “There 
must be cooperation, but there can’t be 
if the deck is stacked against the 
worker.” 

Members of Congress received near- 
ly a million postcards and mailgrams 
asking for their endorsement of H.R. 
5. State and local AFL-CIOs across the 
country held individual and town meet- 
ings with their legislators to urge them 
to endorse the legislation. The AFL- 
CIO also conducted an extensive media 
advertising campaign on radio, televi- 
sion and in a number of leading daily 
newspapers and weekly news maga- 
zines focusing on the theme that 
“Americans have the right to protect 
their jobs.” 

The campaign also gained extraor- 
dinarily strong support from the 
religious community. The hiring of per- 
manent replacements is immoral, they 
said clearly. That message came from 
voices as disparate as the Catholic car- 
dinal of New York and the Ministers’ 
Coalition of Conscience in Atlanta. 

Civil rights groups, recognizing the 
worth of worker self-help through 
unionization, added equally strong and 
steady support. 

But no voice for the bill was more 
persuasive or more eloquent than the 
worker who had faced the personal and 
family tragedy of being “permanently 
replaced.” One such worker, Steel- 
worker Dewey Taylor, told the House 
leadership how he and 1,700 other 
union members were locked out and 
“permanently replaced.” 

“I’m 55 and I have 33 years service 
at Ravenswood Aluminum Corpora- 
tion,” Taylor said. “The company 


By Mike Hall 

T he House dealt a serious blow to 
President Bush’s hopes of a no- 
strings-attached extension of China’s 
most-favored-nation (MFN) trading 
status July 10 when it approved two 
measures backed by the AFL-CIO. 

It passed, by a 223-204 vote, a 
resolution to flatly deny the Bush ad- 
ministration request to renew China’s 
MFN trading status. At the same time, 
the House opened the door for China 
to retain its MFN trading privileges if 
it meets certain worker, human rights 
and other conditions outlined in a 
separate bill, H.R. 2212. That legisla- 
tion passed by a larger and veto-proof 
margin, 313-112. 

“Because of China’s abysmal record 
in human and workers rights, the AFL- 


refused to bargain seriously and when 
our contract expired on Oct. 31, 1990, 
they just locked us out. Right after mid- 
night, they gave our jobs to a couple of 
busloads of scabs they had waiting in 
the parking lot. It was obvious it had 
all been planned.” 

The story at RAC is typical of the tac- 
tics management has used to bust 
unions. The Tribune Company, former 
owners of the New York Daily News, 
spent $24 million to set up a phantom 
newsroom, recruited security forces 
and “permanent replacements” during 
the five-month strike, only to end up 
dishing out $60 million to sell the paper. 

Greyhound Lines Inc. replaced its 
9,000 member workforce with 6,000 
“permanent replacements.” They cur- 
rently are in bankruptcy proceedings. 
Eastern Airlines’ Frank Lorenzo 
thought he could continue to fly with his 
“permanent replacements,” but the air- 
line folded. 

“If you haven’t experienced it up 
close, it’s hard to convey the strains this 
new management tactic puts on a com- 
munity,” said Jim Manning, council- 
man-at-large from Vanderburgh Coun- 
ty, Ind. When Bootz Plumbing ware 
hired permanent replacements, he said, 
“it quickly drained our police budget 
and it’s put a tremendous burden on our 
social service agencies as well. . .” 


CIO strongly supports complete denial 
of MFN for China,” AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland said. “The action 
in Congress is an important step be- 
cause it attempts to link China’s access 
and trading privileges with U.S. mar- 
kets to the improvement in China’s 
respect for basic worker and human 
rights for its citizens.” 

The Senate also is scheduled to vote 
on a resolution to deny MFN, and on 
a strong bill to impose conditions on 
China’s trading status. The AFL-CIO 
supports both measures. 

In a letter to all House members 
before the vote, AFL-CIO Legislative 
Director Robert M. McGlotten said 
China’s “denial of basic human and 
worker rights, such as freedom of 
association and the use of forced or 


Campaign for S. 55 
is now under way 

The campaign for S.55, the Senate 
version of die Workplace Fairness bill, 
is now under way — particularly with 
senators who are not co-sponsors of the 
bill. The 33 co-sponsors are: 

Cranston of California, Wirth of Col- 
orado, Dodd and Lieberman of Connec- 
ticut, Biden of Delaware, Fowler of 
Georgia, Akaka and Inouye of Hawaii, 
Simon of Illinois, Harkin of Iowa, 
Mikulski and Sarbanes of Maryland, 
Kennedy and Kerry of Massachusetts, 
Levin and Riegle of Michigan, Wellston 
of Minnesota, Baucus of Montana, 
Bradley and Lautenberg of New Jersey, 
Moynihan of New York, Burdick of 
North Dakota, Metzenbaum and Glenn 
of Ohio, Hatfield and Packwood of 
Oregon, Wofford of Pennsylvania, Pell 
of Rhode Island, Gore and Sasser of 
Tennessee, Adams of Washington and 
Byrd and Rockefeller of West Virginia. 

As the campaign for S.55 heats up, 
trade union activists — who did such a 
bang-up job in rounding up 247 votes 
for the House bill — will be concen- 
trating on the senators whose names are 
NOT on that list. 


slave labor in the manufacture of pro- 
ducts for export, is reason enough to 
deny this trade benefit.” 

China currently has MFN status, 
which grants the lowest U.S. tariff 
rates. That status expires this summer. 

President Bush wants to extend MFN 
with no conditions and will probably 
veto any measure which contains 
human rights conditions with any teeth. 

While the AFL-CIO backed H.R. 
2212, it had urged that the bill be 
strengthened in several areas, including 
the forced labor issue. “The AFL-CIO 
believes that the protection of human 
rights and worker rights as well as the 
denial of Chinese exports made by 
forced labor, should be mandatory con- 
ditions before MFN is continued,” 
McGlotten said. 


t 


Capitol Digest 


I f the Senate’s refusal to fund revenue 
foregone in the Treasury /Postal ap- 
propriations bill stands, the added cost 
could force unions, charities, churches 
and other non-profit organizations to 
drastically curtail mail communications 
with their members. 

The revenue foregone funds allow 
non-profit groups to use reduced 
second- and third-class bulk postal 
rates. 

Since the House version of the bill 
contains full funding for revenue 
foregone, the money could be restored 
in a conference later this summer. 

The Senate Appropriations Commit- 
tee reported the bill, H.R. 2622, with 
a $266 million cut in the revenue 
foregone funding. The full Senate was 
unable to vote on an amendment restor- 
ing the cut when the bill was called up 
unexpectedly. 

The U.S. Postal Service estimates 
that the cut could increase second- and 
third-class rates by more than 25 per- 
cent, which could have a dramatic im- 
pact on unions, particularly those with 
large memberships. For example, the 
cost to the UAW of mailing each issue 
of its publication, Solidarity, to its 
members could jump from $125,000 to 
more than $156,000. 

Many unions already have been 
forced to cut back on the number of 
issues per year to make up for an earlier 
increase. Another 25 percent jump in 
postage will result in even further cut- 
backs by unions and other non-profit 
groups. 

Another loser, if the funding is not 
restored, would be the non-profit 
groups who estimate that they raise 
some $40 billion in charitable contribu- 
tions through the mail with the reduced 
mailing rates. 

Those groups estimate they provide 
about $80 worth of charitable services 
for every one dollar spent on revenue 
forgone. 

In other action on Capitol Hill: 
EDUCATION — Teachers’ Presi- 
dent Albert Shanker slammed President 
Bush’s education proposals as “a fig 
leaf for giving public funds to private 
schools.” He told the House Education 
and Labor’s subcommittee on elemen- 
tary, secondary and vocational educa- 
tion that Bush’s education proposals 
emphasize “financial aid for private 
schools rather than helping public 
schools achieve the national education 
goals.” 

INDOOR AIR — Representatives of 
the AFL-CIO, Communications Work- 
ers, Teachers, and Government 
Employees told the House Education 
and Labor’s subcommittee on health 
and safety it is time to clean up the air 
that is making people sick in the 
buildings where they work, live and 
spend leisure time. Union officials 
testified during a hearing on a bill, H.R. 
1066, which would set standards to 
clean up “sick buildings” that have 
caused thousands of workers to com- 
plain of illness. 


House rebukes Bush on China MFN status 






UNION NEWS 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

HERE President Edward Hanley addresses delegates at the union's convention. 

Las Vegas victories inspire HERE organizing 


Scardelletti 
tops Kilroy 
in TCU race 

By Arlee C. Green 
San Francisco 

D elegates to the Transportation Com- 
munications Union’s 15th quadren- 
nial convention set a new path for their 
union, electing two new top officers, 
and affirming their commitment to 
legislative and political goals. 

Robert A. Scardelletti, a TCU vice 
president, defeated incumbent President 
Richard I. Kilroy in a three-way race. 
Scardelletti tallied 299 votes, Vice Presi- 
dent Jack Campbell 145, and Kilroy, 
131. 

In the secretary-treasurer’s race, in- 
cumbent Donald A. Bobo was turned 
out by challenger Frank Ferlin Jr., 
330-239. 

The new officers will be installed 
Sept. 1 for four-year terms. 

Scardelletti began his rail career with 
the New York Central in 1967 and was 
voted local chair of Lodge 725 in 197 1 . 
Elected division chair in 1973, he was 
elevated to vice general chairman of 
System Board 86 in 1977. He moved 
up to executive vice general chairman 
in 1982 and two years later was elected 
general chairman. An international vice 
president since 1987, Scardelletti has 
assisted many system boards with 
bargaining and contract issues. 

Ferlin, president of the American 
Railway Supervisors since 1974, join- 
ed the union in 1957. He has held union 
office since 1964. He was elected chief 
financial officer of the Supervisors in 
1972 and was elevated to president two 
years later. 

The 484 delegates and officers 
adopted constitutional changes reducing 
the number of at-large vice presidents 
from nine to seven and the number of 
board of trustees’ members from seven 
to six. If there is a trustee vacancy over 
the next four years, then the number of 
trustees will be reduced to five. The 
convention also froze the salaries of the 
officers at the 1987 level. 

Four incumbent vice presidents were 
re-elected: Jack F. Otero, L. Earl 
Bosher, Jack C. Campbell and Jerry L. 
Gobel. New vice presidents are Joseph 
P. Condo, Carl H. Brockett and Joel M. 
Parker. 

Earlier, at the one-day convention of 
the TCU Carmen’s Division, William 
Fairchild was re-elected as the divi- 
sion’s general president and R.P. 
Wojtowicz won the post of assistant 
general president. 

In key resolutions, delegates called 
for a greater distribution of mass tran- 
sit funds, supported a comprehensive 
legislative campaign to bring relief from 
deregulation, provide for worker pro- 
tection in airline and rail industry 
mergers, urged adequate funding for 
Amtrak, and opposed attempts to repeal 
the Federal Employers’ Liability Act 
and to limit secondary picketing. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue underscored the 
convention’s theme of unity by stress- 
ing the need to have activist committees 
participating in every level of the union 
structure. 


Chicago 

C elebrating the 100th anniversary of 
the Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees, convention delegates 
charted an agenda for growth through 
expanded service to members and 
organizing for HERE’s second century. 

In his keynote address, HERE Presi- 
dent Edward T. Hanley said the union’s 
plan for the future is patterned on its 
successful campaign in rebuilding the 
Las Vegas locals following the massive 
strike in 1984. 

Hanley told the delegates that poten- 
tial breakthroughs in organizing and 
bargaining are in the works with the 
Hyatt Hotels in Los Angeles, Carson 
International at Chicago’s O’Hare Air- 
port and New York’s Essex House, 
now owned by the Japanese Nikko 
Hotels chain. 

To meet the challenge of expanded 
organizing efforts and serving members 
in collective bargaining situations, the 
convention approved increases in 
monthly minimum dues as well as the 
per capita payments to the international. 


By John R. Oravec 

R unaway health care costs and shrink- 
ing coverage are threatening the 
standard of living of many Americans, 
including middle-income groups, Steel- 
workers President Lynn R. Williams 
testified at congressional hearings. 

Speedy action is essential to head off 
a deeper health care crisis, Williams 
told a health subcommittee of the House 
Ways and Means Committee. 

He noted that social action groups 
have long voiced concerns over the 40 
million Americans who lack health care 
insurance. 

“While the plight of the uncovered 
might have been ignored because they 
were ‘outside the system,’ it is now evi- 
dent that no one is really outside,” 
Williams stressed. “The cost of the in- 
adequate care which they receive is be- 
ing shifted to those who are covered.” 
Williams said a consensus is emerg- 
ing that health care reforms must be na- 
tionwide in scope and provide quality 
care that is both comprehensive and af- 
fordable. For that reason, the USWA 
supports legislation that would require 
employers to enroll their workers in 
either a public or private health in- 
surance plan and establish federally 
regulated cost containment measures. 

“Lack of coverage and lack of cost 
containment are twin problems that 
union negotiators must confront in 


Over the next five years, the monthly 
dues minimum will rise $1.50 annual- 
ly to $20.56 for U.S. members and to 
$20.51 in Canada. The monthly per 
capita payments will rise 50 cents each 
year to $8.38 in the United States and 
$8.18 in Canada. 

Hanley was re-elected unanimously 
to a five-year term, along with Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Herman Leavitt, Organ- 
izing Director Vincent J. Sirabella and 
Vice President John O’Gara. Incumbent 
executive board members also were re- 
elected to new five-year terms. 

The rebuilding of the Las Vegas 
locals was geared to a coordinated, 
multi-faceted campaign, Hanley said. 

It resulted in organizing two of the 
largest hotel-casinos in the world: the 
Mirage and the Excalibur. HERE also 
won a contract for workers at Binion’s 
Horseshoe Casino after a long confron- 
tation and strong support from AFL- 
CIO affiliates, he noted. 

Key resolutions adopted by the 398 
delegates reaffirmed backing for labor’s 
legislative agenda on bills to restore 


every collective bargaining session,” he 
noted. 

Costs must be contained, Williams 
said, and legislative intervention is 
needed to force structural changes in the 
current system to initiate cost contain- 
ment. For that reason, the USWA and 
five steel companies have formed a task 
force that advocates an all-payer 
system. 

He also cited the irony of “workers 
who may resort to strike action to de- 
fend their health care benefits may now 
be subject to the loss of their job 
because of the permanent striker re- 
placement interpretation of the Supreme 
Court.” 

AFL-CIO legislative representative 
Calvin Johnson told the House panel 
that legislation is essential to assure all 
Americans access to affordable cover- 
age. 

In comparison to other industrialized 
nations, Johnson said the fragmented 
U.S. health care system is unfair and 
inefficient. 

“A nation that seeks to be com- 
petitive in the 21st century can no 
longer continue down this road,” 
Johnson warned. “On a per capita 
basis, we spend 40 percent more than 
Canada, 90 percent more than Germany 
and 125 percent more than Japan” for 
health care. 

“There is real suffering going on out 


civil rights measures, ban “permanent 
replacement” of strikers, reform the 
flawed health care system, enforce job 
safety standards, and establish affor- 
dable housing and child care programs. 

The convention also called for full 
funding of the U.S. Travel and Tourism 
Administration, an effective national 
energy policy and reduction of hotel 
taxes. 

Convention speakers included House 
Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.), 
President Shirley Carr of the Canadian 
Labour Congress, Sens. Paul Simon 
and Alan Dixon (D-Ill.), Rep. Dan 
Rostenkowski (D-HL), Chicago Mayor 
Richard Daley and AFL-CIO Vice 
Presidents Robert Georgine, Richard 
Trumka, Vincent Sombrotto and 
William Wynn. 

HERE was chartered by the AFL in 
1891 as the Hotel and Restaurant 
Employees’ International Alliance and 
Bartenders International League of 
America. It currently has a membership 
of about 275,000 in the United States, 
Canada and Puerto Rico. 


there,” he said. “Nothing short of full- 
scale reform will solve our problems. 
We have reached the stage where quick 
fixes no longer are possible and where 
‘voluntary efforts’ no longer offer 
promise.” 

Each and every proposal for total 
reform of the health care system should 
be considered that addresses the issues 
of cost, access and quality, Johnson 
testified. Labor will work with coali- 
tions of consumers, employers and pro- 
viders “to develop an approach to na- 
tional health care reform that takes the 
best of the systems around the world 
and is ‘made in the U.S.A.’” 

In other testimony: 

• William Hoffman, director of the 
UAW’s Social Security department, 
called on Congress to set up a single- 
payer social insurance plan that would 
require all employers to participate. 
That approach would eliminate cost- 
shifting from one employer to another 
and assure health care for all. 

• Owen A. Marron, executive sec- 
retary-treasurer of the Alameda Coun- 
ty AFL-CIO, focused on health care in- 
surance problems of California work- 
ers. Citing the high costs, Marron told 
the panel that a national program pro- 
viding universal coverage could be im- 
plemented “without spending more 
than we currently spend nationally on 
health care.” 


Williams: Time to act on health care reform 





Flint Glass 
women get 
new forum 

Hollywood, Fla. 

T he Flint Glass Workers 98th annual 
convention formed a committee to 
explore women’s issues and developed 
a scholarship fund for five students. 

Delegates also re-elected their of- 
ficers to second consecutive terms, with 
the exception of Secretary-Treasurer 
Ivan Uncapher, who was elected to his 
tenth consecutive term. Officers are: 
Lawrence Bankowski, president; Rich- 
ard Morgan, first vice president; Joe 
Coccho, second vice president; Robert 
Rosser, third vice president; and L. 
Dale Lamb, assistant secretary. 

The newly created Women’s Issues 
in Labor Committee will be chaired by 
Donna Ross of Local 1000. According 
to the union, the committee will serve 
as a vehicle for greater communication 
of women’s issues in the union. 

The union’s scholarship program will 
award scholarships to five dependents 
of union members. Bankowski said the 
union will accept applications for the 
scholarships until Aug. 10. Each reci- 



AFGW photo 

Flint Glass Workers President Lawrence Bankowski presents speaker Robert 
M. McGlotten, AFL-CIO legislative director, with a union product. 


pient will receive $1,000 for the 
1991-92 school year. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told the delegates 
that “through all the tough times, we’ve 
survived — but in the next ten years, 
we want to thrive. The time has come 
to renew our solidarity, to reaffirm our 
commitment to justice and fairness for 
working people in this country and 
around the world.” 


Donahue urged the delegates to come 
back to Washington on Solidarity Day 
’91 on Aug. 31 to rally for national 
health care reform, a ban on the “per- 
manent replacement” of strikers and 
freedom of association at home and 
abroad. 

Also addressing the convention were 
former Speaker of the House Jim 
Wright and Robert McGlotten, AFL- 
CIO legislative director. 


Guild increases per capita for organizing 


Montreal 

T he Newspaper Guild convention 
adopted a $1 increase in the per 
capita payment to boost the union’s 
organizing efforts. 

Citing organizing as one of TNG’s 
mainstays, the 212 delegates approved 
the $1 increase in per capita to TNG 
headquarters and earmarked it for the 
special organizing fund. The increase 
raises the monthly payments to the in- 
ternational to $14.25. 

President Charles Dale, Secre- 
tary-Treasurer John Edgington and 
Chairperson Peter E. McLaughlin were 
re-elected to their third two-year terms 
and seven regional vice presidents also 
were re-elected. Eleven nominations for 
six at-large vice president positions 


were made, with elections to be held 
later this year. 

The convention recommended that 
collective bargaining goals include steps 
toward achieving pay equity for mem- 
bers in lower-paid job classifications, 
expanded health care coverage for 
formerly unrecognized dependents and 
contractual recognition of Martin 
Luther King’s birthday as a holiday. 

On safety and health, delegates called 
for action to combat the rapid growth 
of repetitive motion injury and cumula- 
tive trauma disorder through ergonomic 
improvements and rest breaks. 

The convention also urged continued 
support for the introduction and passage 
of legislation to regulate the use of 
video display terminals, and in TNG’s 


campaign to gain an Occupational Safe- 
ty and Health Administration ergo- 
nomic standard. 

Addressing national issues, the con- 
vention called on Congress to adopt ef- 
fective health care reforms to provide 
universal coverage for all workers and 
their families, as well as legislation to 
ban “permanent replacements” for 
striking workers. 

In another resolution, delegates con- 
demned Kuwait’s “sham” trials in con- 
victing journalists caught in the Persian 
Gulf war. 

Delegates called for a redesign of the 
Guild Reporter — TNG’s official pub- 
lication — and voted to retain its cur- 
rent publication schedule of 18 issues 
per year. 


ACTWU local buys Maine clothing company 


Biddeford, Maine 

M embers of the Clothing and Textile 
Workers Local 667-A have be- 
come employee-owners of an apparel 
company. The local bought the troubled 
John Roberts Clothing Co. after receiv- 
ing commitments for financing and loan 
guarantees. 

The new corporation, Act II Inc. , will 
continue to make the same men’s suits 
and sport coats and some women’s 
clothes using the name of John Roberts 
Ltd. 

“Our members are proud to be 
ACTWU members and Act II worker/ 
owners and they have the right to feel 
proud of what they’ve accomplished,” 
said ACTWU international represen- 
tative Mike Cavanaugh. “Their hard 


work and sacrifice, as well as their skill 
as workers, have given them a chance 
to succeed. 

“The professional assistance we’ve 
had from the ICA Group of Boston and 
the leadership and investment made by 
Shared Ownership and Management 
Inc. (SOMI) have combined with our 
union’s efforts to save these important 
manufacturing jobs,” he said. 

Cavanaugh also praised Local 667-A 
president Ethel Beaudoin for her leader- ' 
ship in the buyout. 

The 170 workers own two-thirds of 
the common stock, with the remaining 
one-third belonging to John Barmack 
and Herb Stern, the partners in SOMI. 
Barmack, who serves as chairman of 
the Act II board, and Stern have in- 


vested $150,000 in the new company. 

The seven-member board of directors 
consists of Barmack and Stern; Cavan- 
augh, who represents ACTWU; Susan 
Veit, vice president of Local 667-A and 
board secretary /clerk; Marie Graffam, 
a steward for the local and the board’s 
vice chair; John Picariello, the company 
president; and Peter DellaCioppa, a 
supervisor. 

The workers made wage and benefit 
concessions worth $500,000, Cavan- 
augh said, to help buy the company. 
Other financing for the deal included 
loans of $550,000 from the National 
Cooperative Bank Development Corp. 
and $50,000 from ICA, as well as loan 
guarantees of $450,000 by the Maine 
Finance Authority. 


Michigan vows 
to fight plans 
for budget cuts 

Detroit 

D elegates to the Michigan AFL-CIO 
convention voiced strong opposition 
to proposed state budget cuts, calling on 
Michigan unions to fight to restore 
funding for vital programs. 

Republican Gov. John Engler’s “at- 
tempted wholesale dismantling of state 
government services,” including the 
state’s occupational safety and health 
administration, reflects not financial 
realities, but “a political agenda that 
calls for huge reductions in government 
programs to fund property tax cuts, 
which benefit corporations and the 
rich,” delegates stressed. 

The convention also pledged to fight 
the spread of privatization of public 
services at all levels of government. 

The 625 delegates unanimously re- 
elected President Frank Garrison and 
Secretary-Treasurer Tom Turner to 
new four-year terms. 

Garrison called on organized labor to 
do a better job in “getting the vote out” 
and convincing members to vote. 

Speakers included AFL-CIO Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue; 
President Lenore Miller of the Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store 
Union; Executive Director Ben Hooks 
of the NAACP: Sen. Don Riegle; Rep. 
Sander Levin; and state officials. 

Delegates also heard from William 
Doyle of Steelworkers Local 5668 at 
Ravens wood, W.Va., where workers 
were locked out and “permanently 
replaced.” 

Arkansas targets 
faulty tax code, 
workers’ comp 

Hot Springs, Ark. 

D elegates to the Arkansas AFL-CIO 
convention passed some 46 resolu- 
tions, including calls to reform the 
Arkansas tax system and the workers’ 
compensation law. 

“The convention enthusiastically en- 
couraged its members and members of 
Congress to work toward changes in 
systems that undermine the rights of 
workers,” said Arkansas AFL-CIO 
Secretary-Treasurer Jim Clark. 

Clark said the workers’ compensation 
law must be reformed to offset bad deci- 
sions of the Workers’ Compensation 
Commission and state courts that have 
totally eroded the humane purposes of 
the law. 

J. Bill Becker was unanimously re- 
elected president of the state federation, 
and Clark and Vice President Tommy 
E. McFalls also were re-elected. 

Among those addressing the dele- 
gates were Gov. Bill Clinton, Reps. 
Ray Thonton and Bill Alexander and 
state Sen. Bill Moore. 


Pattern Makers convention votes merger with Machinists 


Las Vegas 

D elegates to the Pattern Makers’ 
League convention voted over- 
whelmingly to merge with the Machin- 
ists. 

Under the agreement, which now is 
being voted on by the membership, the 
104-year-old union would become a 
division of the IAM and local unions 
would remain separate from IAM 
lodges. The union’s president would 
become an administrative assistant to 


the IAM president and the three full- 
time vice presidents would serve as 
Machinists representatives. 

The results of the membership ref- 
erendum are expected by late August, 
and the agreement, if approved, would 
take effect Oct. 1 . 

Earlier, merger talks had been held 
between the Pattern Makers and the 
Steelworkers, UAW, and Aluminum 
Brick and Glass Workers. 

The 7,000 members of the Pattern 


Makers League create patterns and 
molds used in industrial processes, in- 
cluding autos, farm implements, heavy 
equipment and new tooling and machin- 
ery. 

President and Secretary-Treasurer 
Jack Gabelhausen recounted a bit of the 
union’s history, from its founding in 
Philadelphia in 1887, with 13 members 
in attendance, to boom periods of in- 
dustrial production and organizing in 
die model shops. 


Throughout its history, Gabelhausen 
noted, the league never lost sight of its 
primary charge — to serve the 
membership by pressing for healthy 
and safe workplaces and contract 
improvements. 

The 100 delegates returned Gabel- 
hausen to office for a second five-year 
term and heard from several speakers, 
including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), 
IAM President George Kourpias and 
former House Speaker Jim Wright. 





Service Employees protest outside the State Capitol in Har- 
risburg, Pa., over proposed layoffs and a budget stale- 
mate that has lasted more than 20 days. Pennsylvania, 
which later announced a tentative contract agreement 
covering 41 ,000 AFSCME workers, is one of many states 
seeking to balance budgets at the expense of workers. 
In Maine, a partial government shutdown that saw 
10,000 state employees working only three days dur- 


Lisa Cassel/SEIU 

ing the month ended when Gov. John McKernan signed 
a budget. And in California, a budget signed by Gov. 
Pete Wilson calls for 12,000 jobs to be cut, but the 
lesiglature has not given him layoff authority. A re- 
duction in federal funds also has plagued many cities, 
according to a survey by the National League of Cities, 
which found more than one in four U.S. cities in severe 
financial straits in late May. 


Unions play role in improving state services 


New York puts 
MacBride code 
on city books 

T he campaign to bring justice to 
Northern Ireland was given a boost 
recently when New York City became 
the first government unit to enact 
legislation applying the MacBride Prin- 
ciples to any company with which it 
does business. 

The principles, which were endorsed 
by the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 
1985, were developed by human rights 
activist Sean MacBride to end employ- 
ment discrimination against the Catholic 
minority in Northern Ireland. 

The New York action extends the 
reach of the campaign to foreign-owned 
companies with contracts in the United 
States, said Joseph Jamison, research 
director of the New York State AFL- 
CIO and director of the Irish- American 
Labor Coalition. 

The new law already has prompted 
Bombardier, a French-Canadian com- 
pany that has large contracts with New 
York City agencies, to begin reform- 
ing some of its employment practices 
at its Belfast subsidiary, he said. 

The city of Boston has put the same 
type of rule in effect through an ex- 
ecutive order by the mayor. 

Previously, 12 states and many cities 
have enacted laws stipulating that the 
public employee pension funds will vote 
their shares in favor of MacBride reso- 
lutions at annual stockholder meetings 
of U.S. companies. The New England 
Health Care Employee Pension Fund in 
January became the first Taft-Hartley 
fund to adopt the principles. 

Last summer, a labor delegation 
headed by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treas- 
urer Thomas R. Donahue visited 
Ireland under the auspices of the Irish 
Congress of Trade Unions. 

The delegation’s report to the AFL- 
CIO Executive Council urged continued 
support for the principles even though 
the Irish government had a Fair 
Employment Act. The act falls short of 
labor’s goals, the report said. 

The delegation also included AFL- 
CIO Vice Presidents Morton Bahr of 
the Communications Workers and John 
Sweeney of the Service Employees, and 
Edward Cleary, president of the New 
York State AFL-CIO. 

OPEIU-Riggs pact 
assists workers 

T he Office and Professional Employ- 
ees Local 2 has reached an agree- 
ment with Riggs National Bank to pro- 
vide assistance to former National Bank 
of Washington workers and retirees 
who were members of the local. 

“This agreement will provide a 
significant measure of financial 
assistance for our unfortunate members 
who were abandoned by the federal 
government when it took over the 
bank,’’ said Jim Sheridan, president of 
Local 2. “The resolution of this con- 
troversy is a great relief to all interested 
parties, especially the affected workers 
and their families.” 

The agreement comes almost a year 
after NBW failed and was taken over 
by the Federal Deposit Insurance Cor- 
poration. Its deposits and assets were 
sold to Riggs. 

The agreement provides compensa- 
tion for NBW workers who were ter- 
minated by the FDIC and a fund to help 
pay the cost of health insurance for 
retirees who were left without insurance 
when NBW failed. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

E ven in these times of extreme budget 
deficits, state and local governments 
can provide quality services through 
labor-management cooperation, la- 
bor-community coalitions and union 
legislative initiatives, a study by the 
AFL-CIO Public Employee Department 
concludes. 

The study, “Making Government 
Work: Employee Involvement, Union 
Leadership,” highlights success stories 
in five states — Washington, New York, 
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ore- 
gon — where unions played major roles 
in revamping social and employment 
services. 

Washington state’s model program, 
the Family Independence Program, 
helps break the cycle of poverty by get- 
ting people off the welfare rolls and in- 
to jobs with decent wages, but it pro- 
tects public workers by ensuring that 
they alone deliver services. 

According to the study, job place- 


C anadian labor won a landmark vic- 
tory when the nation’s Supreme 
Court ruled unions can use membership 
dues to promote political parties and 
causes even if some members object. 

The dues requirement is justified, the 
court ruled, because unions need money 
to promote better working conditions 
for its members. In Canada, employees 
can opt out of joining the union, but 
they are still required to pay a fee 
equivalent to membership dues because 
the union benefits apply equally to all 
employees. 

In the United States, the Supreme 
Court ruled in 1988 that unions could 
only collect and spend agency fees for 
causes related to collective bargaining. 

Nancy Riche, spokeswoman for the 
Canadian Labor Congress, said the 
Canadian court’s decision shows that, 


ments in Pennsylvania’s New Direc- 
tions for Employment Program in- 
creased by more than 45 percent as a 
result of this new welfare-to-work in- 
itiative. The program coordinates 
education, training and job search serv- 
ices from eight funding sources, in- 
cluding Job Opportunities and Basic 
Skills (JOBS), the federal Job Training 
Partnership Act (JTPA), state and 
federal education money, the state 
General Assistance Program, and low- 
income food programs. 

AFSCME District Council 37, along 
with the State Employees Asso- 
ciation/ AFSCME developed ways to 
improve the New York program and 
assist the legislature in conforming to 
the federal legislation. Their work 
resulted in legislation that included 
worker protection, interagency coor- 
dination, union involvement in local 
planning and a new job classifica- 
tion — labor service representative. 

Michigan public employees have a 


in a just and democratic society, unions 
may use dues to promote social and 
economic causes. 

Gerald DeForest, who wrote the 
court’s opinion, said the money was 
well-spent because the union’s activities 
had advanced the cause of working peo- 
ple by helping establish medicare, pen- 
sions and unemployment insurance. 

Requiring the fees allows unions to 
“participate in the broader political, 
economic, and social debates in socie- 
ty, and to contribute to democracy in 
the workplace,” DeForest said. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court 
declined to review a lower court deci- 
sion that a Chicago Teachers local had 
complied with all First Amendment 
safeguards in setting an agency fee. 

Dissenting agency fee payers must 
exhaust the union’s appeal process, 


labor-management committee nego- 
tiated in UAW Local 6000’s contract. 
The committee has improved service 
delivery including automation, work- 
load, and adequate program funding. 

In Oregon, Service Employees Local 
503 worked with a labor-manage- 
ment-community task force to combat 
numerous problems plaguing the social 
services delivery system, including 
large caseloads due to managers not fill- 
ing positions as they opened. At one 
point, there were 518 vacancies out of 
a total work force of 1,800, according 
to the study. 

The study lists steps unions can take 
for improvement in their states. They 
include getting involved early, fighting 
for adequate funding to ensure reason- 
able caseloads, working with advocates 
and community groups, coordinating 
strategies with other unions, and in- 
sisting that current employees receive 
adequate training for new responsibil- 
ities. 


which includes a hearing before an 
“impartial decision maker,” before 
they can sue to contest the fees, the 
lower court had ruled. 

The high court in 1986 found that 
CTU had not adequately protected non- 
members’ right not to contribute to ac- 
tivities that were not related to collec- 
tive bargaining. 

The court remanded the case, Hud- 
son vs. Chicago Teachers Union Local 
No. 1, with instructions that the union 
establish procedures to account for 
union expenditures; inform dissenting 
agency fee payers of the basis for the 
fee; hold disputed funds in escrow and 
hear disputes before an impartial deci- 
sion maker. 

In refusing to rehear the case, the 
Supreme Court upheld the procedures 
set up by CTU. 


Canadian court backs political use for dues 




Solidarity Day ’91 is massive undertaking for labor 



Ken Young, executive assistant to AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland, presents a Solidarity Day poster to 
Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, president of the U.S. 
Conference of Mayors, which endorsed the Aug. 31 


Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

event. Looking on (from left) are: Sen. Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan (D-N.Y.); Tom Cochran, executive director of 
the organization; and York (Pa.) Mayor William 
Althaus, vice president. 


Continued from Page 1 

within the federation, representatives 
from scores of AFL-CIO affiliates 
began meeting to nail down the myriad 
of details that will assure a smooth- 
running march on Aug. 31. 

Key to the operation is the Solidarity 
Day ’91 office set up at the AFL-CIO 
headquarters to aid affiliates during the 
planning stage. By dialing 1-800- 
LABOR91, unions are able to quickly 
get answers to their questions. 

Getting There 

Transportation Coordinator O’Brien 
and other staff are working with 
representatives of more than 70 af- 
filiates to determine just how many peo- 
ple are coming to Washington. 

“It’s imperative that we know who’s 
coming,” O’Brien said. “Everything 
else hinges on knowing the numbers 
ahead of time. Having an accurate count 
helps in dealing with the U.S. Park Ser- 
vice, in reserving restroom facilities, 
setting up emergency aid centers, pro- 
viding fresh water stations, assigning 

march marshals, and lining up park- 

• _ _ » » 
mg. 

Thus far, some 6,000 buses have 
been reserved to bring union members 
and their families and supporters to 
Washington. National and international 
unions have rented buses, as have local 
unions and central bodies. O’Brien has 
worked with various groups and the bus 
companies to assure an adequate supply 
of buses and union drivers. 

Labor’s boycott of Greyhound Corp. 
somewhat reduced the number of buses 
available and required the “deadhead- 
ing” (driving with no passengers) of 
buses to areas not generally served by 
public or charter carriers. There pos- 
sibly will be some union members ar- 
riving on Greyhound buses, but those 
will have been leased from Greyhound 
in Canada, an option approved by the 
Amalgamated Transit Union. 

Additionally, O’Brien has been able 
to get some carriers to agree to use 
ATU members who are former Grey- 
hound drivers to drive. 

Small groups will be coming to 
Washington in rented vans and vans 
driven by owners are expected to be the 
chosen mode of travel for many of the 
unionists who live within 60 miles of 
Washington. 

The 6,000 buses will be directed to 
park at either the Pentagon or RFK 
Stadium, with any overflow to be 
directed to a third location. Van park- 
ing will be free in the 23,000 spaces at 
Metro-owned parking lots. Additional 
parking will be available at West 
Potomac Park and East Potomac Park, 
O’Brien said. 

Perkins said the AFL-CIO is nego- 
tiating with Metro to get the system 
opened an hour earlier than the usual 
Saturday schedule so that marchers ar- 
riving early can be transported to the 
Mall area. With the Saturday fares be- 
ing $1 for any trip on the system, Metro 
appears reluctant to open the gates for 
a free system that day, as it has on other 
occasions, Perkins said. 

Most recently, for the Operation 
Desert Storm parade, Metro used the 
honor system in which riders were ex- 
pected to toss $1 each into barrels at the 
entrance gates. For the fireworks on 
July Fourth, Metro required fare cards 
for those going to the event, but the 
return ride home was free. 

“We are advising all those who plan 
to drive to either park at a Metro lot and 
take the subway in, or know in advance 
exactly which parking lot they are go- 
ing to use,” O’Brien said. “I do know 
this — no one will be able to get their 


car down into the march area, so no one 
should plan on doing that.” 

Bus captains will be issued packets 
that will include detailed information on 
the march, Metro and food services for 
every rider on the bus, along with in- 
formation telling the bus driver at which 
location to park when arriving in the 
Washington area. The bus captains also 
will serve as march marshals to satisfy 
the Park Service requirement that there 
be one marshal for each 50 marchers. 

At a July 10 meeting with the union 
coordinators, O’Brien pointed out that 
the information cards distributed by the 
affiliates are not being returned as 
quickly as needed. He stressed the need 
for coordinators to follow up and aid 
those who haven’t returned the bus 
information. 

Cards should be sent in early, 
O’Brien said, to facilitate the routing of 
buses to specified lots where many 
unions will be handing out parapher- 
nalia. Other unions will be handing out 
lunches, picket signs and banners from 
trucks parked on the Ellipse or tents set 
up near the Washington Monument, he 
said. 

“Right now,” O’Brien said, “every 
local union officer who has members 
coming to the city by bus, train, plane 
or van should be asking themselves, 
‘Have we sent in the information to the 
Solidarity Day ’91 office?’ If they 
haven’t, then they should send it im- 
mediately or call us if there is a prob- 
lem.” 

While many will be boarding buses 
in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 31 to get 
to Washington, others will travel much 
greater distances on trains and air- 
planes. O’Brien reported that Amtrak 
has been very cooperative in arranging 
for travel on that day, providing a dis- 
count round-trip rate. “Solidarity” 
trains will come in from Philadelphia 
and Trenton, N.J., he said. 

The Solidarity office also has worked 
with the airline unions in identifying 
charter carriers that will have planes 
and seats available over the three-day 
period of Aug. 30-Sept. 1. 

To reduce confusion on Aug. 31, 
O’Brien said, there will be members 
and staff from various Washington- 
based affiliated unions serving that day 
as parking coordinators and greeters at 
the Metro lots, at Union Station and Na- 


tional Airport to help guide participants 
on both their arrival and departure. 

Being There 

The western end of the Mall will be 
divided into three staging areas, 
designated by color, and union 
members will be told to gather in one 
of the three areas. Each area will 
become a wave of marchers once the 
event kicks off at noon. Members of the 
10 largest unions will be in the first 
wave. The marching order and staging 
area for the remaining unions will be 
chosen by lottery. 

Entertainment will be provided in the 
staging area so marchers won’t have to 
stand for hours in one area until the 
march begins. “It’s important that 
union members and their families en- 
joy themselves,” Perkins said. “Many 
of those arriving by bus may be there 
for several hours before the march 
begins.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
and Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue will be joined by various Ex- 
ecutive Council members in leading the 
noon march. The route is a little over 
one mile and has been altered from the 
1981 route somewhat so that no bot- 
tlenecks occur. 

From 1 p.m. until the formal pro- 
gram begins at 3 p.m., a variety of 
entertainers will perform on the main 
stage. A special seating area will be 
provided for international visitors and 
for victims of plant closings and strikers 
who have been permanently replaced, 
such as former Greyhound employees 
who will wear their uniforms. 

Details and more details 

The Solidarity Day ’91 office has 
worked with the coordinators from the 
various unions to map out plans and 
solutions for every facet of the day’s 
event. 

Kistler’s office is coordinating com- 
munications for the event so that unions 
will not end up leasing walkie-talkies 
that are on the same frequency as other 
unions. Further, he noted, unions 
wishing to use bullhorns must get a per- 
mit from the Solidarity office — 
otherwise, the Park Service will con- 
fiscate them, he said. 

The Park Service also will not allow 
the use of any size of balloons, Perkins 


advised the coordinators group. Small 
balloons can end up causing pollution 
problems, he said, and large balloons, 
if they got loose, could invade the air 
space at National Airport. 

In detailing the actions taken by the 
federation thus far, Perkins said that 
some 90,000 posters in two different 
sizes were printed and distributed that 
carry the Solidarity Day ’91 logo and 
the motto Solidarity Works. The poster 
also was included as the centerfold in 
60,000 copies of the AFL-CIO News 
on June 10, and more than 200,000 
stickers and 40,000 bumper stickers 
have been distributed. 

Camera-ready art was sent to every 
affiliate and state and local central body 
so that individual local unions can print 
customized items in quantity for their 
members. 

For the camera-ready art or for 
changes tailored to fit a union, affiliated 
unions may deal directly with the AFL- 
CIO ’s printer, Kelly Press (301/ 
386-2800). 

A Solidarity Day ’91 video was pro- 
duced in April and copies are available 
through the international unions and 
state and local central bodies. Two 
audio spots are available to air on local 
radio stations and the spots can be 
customized. 

Another videotape, a 30-second pub- 
lic service announcement, is now avail- 
able at television stations throughout the 
country. State federations are being 
urged to call the local stations to ask 
them to play the spot. 

To aid the unions in planning for the 
day, the Solidarity office developed lists 
of union printers, hotels, restaurants, 
caterers for providing box lunches and 
tent leasing firms. A newsletter is be- 
ing produced regularly to keep union 
officials advised about the progress. 

The U.S. Postal Service also will set 
up a temporary postal station on the 
Mall to provide mailing service using 
a special Solidarity Day ’91 hand cancel 
postmark. 

Individual unions reported extensive 
efforts to get the message out to mem- 
ers, especially in the 15 states nearest 
to Washington. Coordinators said their 
unions were using electronic mail, 
fliers, newsletters and newspapers, 
videos and telephone banks to reach 
members. 




GAO finds OSHA policies to be insufficient 


By Arlee C. Green 

A General Accounting Office report 
confirms what unions and their 
members have known for a long 
time — the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration’s policies are in- 
sufficient to assure that workplace 
hazards are abated after being identified 
during inspections. 

Peg Seminario, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Occupational Safety 
and Hedth, said that “while OSHA is 
taking enforcement actions against 
employers, it is not doing enough to 
make sure the hazards are corrected.’’ 
“We agree with the report’s conclu- 
sions,” Seminario said. “OSHA needs 
to improve its system for verifying 
abatement of job hazards so such viola- 
tions aren’t allowed to continue. All the 
citations and stiff penalties don’t mean 
anything to workers unless the hazards 
are removed.” 

The AFL-CIO has called for far- 
reaching legislation that would reform 
the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 


which Seminario said might be intro- 
duced before Congress recesses in 
August. 

The OSH Act, which has not been 
amended since it was enacted 20 years 
ago, should be expanded to guarantee 
workers the right to participate in health 
and safety committees, to refuse 
dangerous work and to challenge 
OSHA penalties that are set too low, 
Seminario said. 

Much-needed reform 

The planned legislation also would 
require OSHA to move more quickly in 
setting new standards for exposure to 
dangerous chemicals and updating ex- 
isting regulations, Seminario said, and 
would expand the scope of the act to 
cover public employees and farmwork- 
ers. 

The GAO report noted that OSHA 
only does follow-up inspections at about 
6 percent of the workplaces where cita- 
tions have been issued to employers. 

The report cited three problems: re- 


quired follow-up inspections were not 
done; follow-up inspections were un- 
timely, falling outside the 10-day limit 
for abatement of the most serious viola- 
tions; and cases were closed without 
adequate documentation that hazards 
had been abated. 

OSHA’s policies and procedures 
should be replaced with a regulation re- 
quiring employers to submit detailed 
evidence of what corrective actions 
have been taken to abate hazards, the 
GAO said. 

The GAO found that OSHA had to 
issue failure-to-abate notices to 24 per- 
cent of the employers it selected for 
follow-up inspections. 

It also cited 1 1 percent for failing to 
correct hazards of which they had clear 
knowledge (willful violations) or for 
hazards that were essentially the same 
as ones previously cited (repeat 
violations). 

The report also recommended that 
OSHA revise its policies so that cita- 
tions issued to employers at construc- 


tion sites require correcting the con- 
dition, equipment or procedure that 
created the hazard. 

Construction distinction 

The GAO noted that OSHA treats 
construction inspections the same as its 
does other inspections, citing employers 
and requiring them to correct the prob- 
lem. However, once the construction 
site is no longer in operation, OSHA 
considers the hazard abated. This 
“perpetuates the problem,” the GAO 
said. “OSHA needs to confirm abate- 
ment of construction hazards in such a 
way that they will not be repeated at 
subsequent worksites.” 

OSHA Administrator Gerard Scan- 
nell called the GAO recommendations 
‘ ‘valuable, ’ ’ but committed the agency 
only to report back to the GAO ‘ ‘on our 
planned actions within six months.” 

“This is the kind of response we keep 
hearing from OSHA — they recognize 
there is a problem, but are not willing 
to commit to fixing it,” Seminario said. 


Training study identifies 
need to involve workers 


By Candice Johnson 

A Labor Department study on training 
calls for the “empowerment” of 
workers in the high-performance 
workplace of the future and recom- 
mends that employers restructure the 
workplace to allow more opportunity 
for worker input. 

The study, “What Work Requires of 
Schools,” was released by the 
Secretary’s Commission on Achieving 
Necessary Skills (SCANS), which spent 
a year studying the changing needs of 
the workplace and how young persons 
can be prepared to meet them. 

“From a labor perspective, the report 
is promising because it recognizes the 
central role that workers can and must 
play in reshaping the workplace and 
making the United States more competi- 
tive in the global economy,” said com- 
mission member Paul Cole, secretary- 
treasurer of the New York State 
AFL-CIO. 

In a statement noting the release of 
the report, the AFL-CIO said it was im- 
portant for employers to hear the 
message of the SCANS report. 

The report identifies both the “world- 
class skills” workers need and the 
obligation of employers “to utilize these 
skills,” Cole said. 

Driving the commission is concern 
that more than half of the nation’s 
young people “leave school without the 
knowledge or foundation required to 
find and hold a good job.” Unless this 
situation is changed, “these young peo- 
ple and those who employ them will pay 


a very high price,” as low skills can 
lead only to low wages and low profits, 
the study warned. 

The report called for the development 
of skills and “competencies” for 
students, as the basis of “workplace 
know-how.” 

Foundation skills include expanding 
reading, writing, speaking, listening 
and mathematical abilities; learning to 
think creatively, solve problems and 
reason; and developing personal quali- 
ties of integrity, responsibility and 
self-esteem. 

While mastering those skills, students 
also must become competent in the 
areas of allocating resources, sharpen- 
ing interpersonal skills, using informa- 
tion, understanding systems and apply- 
ing technology, the report said. 

The conclusions were based on re- 
search, surveys and interviews with 
business owners, union representatives, 
managers, public employers and work- 
ers. 

The commission will continue its re- 
search, issuing a final report on how 
these skills are to be taught and students 
to be evaluated. 

The research indicates that a very dif- 
ferent teaching and learning process 
will be necessary, Cole said, with 
classrooms likely to undergo the same 
kind of widespread restructuring that 
workplaces have. 

The commission included represen- 
tatives from labor, education, business 
and government and was chaired by 
former Labor Secretary William Brock. 



Outboard Marine Corp. photo 


Looking at a new technique in producing outboard motor connecting rods 
are AFL-CIO economist John Zalusky, operator Jim Walker, Gary 
Scott of the grievance committee of Steelworkers Local 1302, Harlow 
Reesburg of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO and Al West of Local 1302. 


Training session showcases 
new approaches , participation 


U nder a program sponsored by the 
AFL-CIO and the University of 
Wisconsin School for Workers, 
unionists are getting a hands-on look 
at labor participation in the work- 
place and different approaches to 
collective bargaining. 

This year’s session brought union 
leaders to Outboard Marine Corp. in 
Milwaukee, where they reviewed a 
new production method for an Evin- 
rude outboard motor part. They also 
discussed how unions negotiate over 
and work with rapidly changing 


technologies in the workplace. 

The Milwaukee facility, where 
workers are members of the Steel- 
workers, has the highest level of pro- 
ductivity, as well as the highest 
wages of the OMC plants, AFL-CIO 
economist John Zalusky noted. 

Firms visited as part of the four- 
year program have include Briggs 
and Stratton, Harley Davidson and 
Masterlock, with participation by the 
Allied Industrial Workers, Machin- 
ists, Steelworkers and members of 
the AFL-CIO local at A.O. Smith. 


UAW gains major improvements at General Dynamics 


By Arlee C. Green 

A pair of new three-year contracts 
covering 4,000 hourly and salaried 
UAW members at a division of General 
Dynamics Corp. facilities provide 
significant wage and benefit gains, the 
union said. 

The accords were ratified by better 
than a 9-to-l margin by members who 
work at Land Systems Division’s cen- 
tral office in Sterling Heights, Mich., 
assembly plants in Warren, Mich., and 
Lima, Ohio, and a parts facility in 
Scranton, Pa. 

The hourly contract covers skilled 
and assembly workers, while the 
salaried agreement covers office and 


clerical and technical and engineering 
workers. 

Under the agreements, UAW mem- 
bers got a $1,250 signing bonus and a 
3-percent pay increase on June 17, 
1991. Workers will receive another 

3- percent raise June 14, 1993, a 

4- percent lump sum payment on June 
15, 1992, and quarterly cost-of-living 
adjustments. 

The COLA is based on 1-cent for 
each 0.3 percent increase in the Con- 
sumer Price Index for Urban Wage 
Earners, with the first adjustment, 
payable in September 1991, to be ap- 
plied to the supplemental unemploy- 
ment benefits fund, the union said. 


Dental coverage was improved in 
both agreements by raising the max- 
imum annual benefit to $1 ,200 and the 
lifetime maximum for orthodontia to 
$1,325. Under the vision care program, 
the allowance for eyeglass frames will 
increase on Jan. 1, 1992, from $17 to 
$35 and for contact lenses from $55 to 
$85. UAW bargainers beat back stiff 
company demands for premium shar- 
ing, higher deductibles and copayments 
on medical insurance, the union said. 

Life insurance gains included a boost 
to a maximum of $60,000 coverage for 
the salaried workers and to $39,000 for 
hourly employees. Sickness and acci- 
dent benefits will rise to a top of $431 


for salaried and $405 for hourly 
employees. 

The basic pension benefit was in- 
creased $2 the first year and will go up 
by $1 in each of the following two 
years, so in the final year the benefit 
level will range from $26.25 to $27 a 
month per year of service. In addition, 
current retirees will get three $450 
lump-sum payments and surviving 
spouses will get $270 lump-sums. 

Other improvements were in health 
and safety protections, improvements, 
in the joint training program and in the 
grievance language. Child and elderly 
care were added to the list of acceptable 
reasons for seeking leaves of absence. 




FOCUS 


Unions seek alternatives to random drug testing 


Employee assistance programs benefit everyone 


Recognizing that drag and alcohol 
abuse is a sickness, unions have 
sought to assist workers to straighten 
out their lives through employee 
assistance programs (EAPs). 

EAPs provide counseling, joint 
labor-management policies to combat 
drug abuse, and treatment facilities. 
Community services committees of 
state and local AFL-CIOs have 
undertaken these and a number of 
other activities to coordinate services 
with the public and private sectors. 

“EAPs are the single reason that 
unions such as the Sheet Metal 
Workers were able to deal openly and 
fairly with workers who need profes- 
sional assistance with an alcohol or 
substance abuse problem,” said Jack 


McCabe, director of the Alcohol and 
Substance Abuse Program for the 
Sheet Metal Workers union and 
board member of the Employee 
Assistance Program Association. 

Unions have adopted EAPs as a 
benefit to both labor and manage- 
ment, which have a joint interest in 
workplace safety and in job perfor- 
mance. But some units of government 
have also recognized the important 
role that EAPs can play in the devel- 
opment of productive enterprise. 

The Department of Health and 
Human Services Office of Substance 
Abuse and Prevention recently 
awarded a $50,000 Conference Cur- 
riculum Development Grant to the 
George Meany Center for Labor 


Studies to develop a curriculum for 
drug and alcohol abuse. The grant 
will be administered in cooperation 
with the AFL-CIO Department of 
Community Services. 

Under the grant, an appointed 
panel of experts will prepare a study 
exploring several alternatives in- 
cluding employee assistance pro- 
grams, said Jeffery McDonald, depu- 
ty director of the Meany Center. The 
study will be used at conferences at 
the Meany Center to assist unions in 
developing positive programs for 
drug and alcohol abuse. 

For more information about EAPs, 
contact the AFL-CIO Department of 
Community Services, 815 16th St. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


By Arlee C. Green 

W hile courts have continued to 
uphold random drug testing of 
employees, many unions have taken 
their cases to the bargaining table, 
developing substance abuse policies to 
protect their members and to provide 
rehabilitation for those afflicted by this 
illness. 

The UAW, for example, has devel- 
oped contract language that includes 
provisions for employee assistance pro- 
grams and treatment benefits while con- 
tinuing to oppose drug testing as an un- 
just invasion of worker privacy, 
Noting that most drug testing is aimed 
at identifying users of illegal drugs, the 
UAW says a comprehensive substance 
abuse policy “must also apply to the 
‘legal’ drugs, such as alcohol, pre- 
scribed medicines and over-the-counter 
medications as well as illegal drugs.” 
Further, treatment, rehabilitation and 
counseling should be the prime objec- 
tives of any testing program, the UAW 
says. 

AFSCME likewise holds that the em- 
phasis should be on “prevention, 
education and referring employees with 
difficulties to appropriate assistance 
programs.” It stresses that no drug test 
should be demanded without probable 
cause based on facts indicating an 
employee is “impaired by the use of 
alcohol or controlled substances.” 

The Sheet Metal Workers negotiated 
an industrywide program that provides 
for pre-employment testing of workers 
who are not current union members, 
testing of workers when required in 
order to bid on specific projects or for 
probable cause, and establishment of 
employee assistance programs. 

The employee assistance programs, 
or EAPs, have been the subject of 
longstanding “model” contracts 
worked out by the AFL-CIO Communi- 
ty Services Department, whose direc- 
tor Joe Velasquez says has served as a 
guide for community programs with 
groups of employers as well as with 
specific signatories to a collective 
agreement. 

The Government Employees have 
been involved in numerous court 
challenges to testing programs ordered 
by various federal agencies and have 
succeeded somewhat in limiting the 
scope of such testing. By representing 
government employees, AFGE is in a 
unique position to test programs in court 
since the U.S. Constitution protects 
citizens against their government but 
not against their employers. 

A case against testing 

In general, however, the courts have 
been unsympathetic to the case made by 
workers. Recently, the 9th Circuit U.S. 
Court of Appeals upheld the random 
drug testing of railroad workers and 
reversed a lower court decision block- 
ing the random and post-accident testing 
required by the Federal Highway Ad- ' 
ministration. 

The AFL-CIO has urged public and 
private employers that have embarked 
on programs of random drug testing “to 
abandon this overboard approach,” 
pointing out that laboratory procedures 
often are insufficiently regulated and 
serious questions remain concerning the 
accuracy of testing. 


Horror stories 

For a few dollars each, workers can 
be tested by the immunoassay method, 
a procedure that produces relatively 
high “false positive” results. A more 
accurate method — gas chroma- 
tography/mass spectrometry — is much 
more expensive. It is often used as a 
follow up for those testing positive, but 
some employers are willing to fire good 
workers based on the cheap test, even 
if the reading was false. 

Horror stories abound about workers 
whose lives were devastated by a “false 
positive” reading on a drug test. In 
April 1990, in Pascagoula, Miss., a 
55-year-old worker with 17 years at In- 
galls Shipbuilding was fired for alleged- 
ly tampering with her urine sample. 

The worker, a Laborers’ member, 
was fired immediately even though she 
offered to take another test that day . At 
the direction of the local union presi- 
dent, she was tested that day at Singing 
River Hospital, which found her drug 
free. Despite that, the woman — the 
sole supporter of three children — was 
denied reinstatement, remained un- 
employed for 13 months, eventually lost 
her car and had all the utilities in her 
home shut off. 

An arbitrator ruled Ingalls had failed 
to show just cause existed in firing the 
worker. She was reinstated with full 
back pay, benefits and seniority. 

High cost to employers 

The federal government is finding 
that testing on a wide scale can be very 
expensive. The House Subcommittee on 
Civil Service recently reported that 
federal agencies spent $11.7 million on 
testing, thus making the cost of finding 
each drug abuser nearly $77,000. The 
survey studied 86 executive branch 
agency drug testing programs and found 
that of 28,872 employees tested over a 
one-year period, only 153 tested posi- 
tive — just 0.5 percent. 

In the railway case, the judges held 
that while the fact of random testing 
added some weight to the “invasion of 
privacy side of the Fourth Amendment 
balance, it was insufficient to tip the 
scales against the . . . drug testing pro- 
gram. ” The Railway Labor Executives 


Association, representing the unions, 
had argued that testing should be tied 
to a triggering event, such as a safety 
violation or accident. 

In the FHA case, the Teamsters, 
RLEA, Amalgamated Transit Union 
and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic 
Workers had challenged the constitu- 
tionality of the highway program. 

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has 
upheld the non-random drug testing of 
those applying for Customs Service jobs 
and post-accident testing of railway 
workers. Most recently, it refused to 
review a lower court decision that 
federal workers with “secret” security 
clearance can automatically be required 
to take drug tests. 

That case involved 30 employees in 
the Executive Office of the President, 
but could apply to as many as 2 million 
federal and federally regulated workers, 
according to the American Civil Liber- 
ties Union, which represented the 
employees. 

Protecting rights 

At the 1989 AFL-CIO convention, 
delegates expressed alarm at the “in- 
creasing trend by government and some 
employers to implement random drug 
and alcohol tests.” The convention 
stressed in a resolution that “it is up to 
the labor movement to protect its mem- 
bers from alcohol or drug screening 
which does not respect the rights and 
dignity of workers.” 

That trend has continued, according 
to a 1990 survey of 1,633 companies 
by the American Management Associa- 
tion, which found that 63 percent use 
drug tests — an increase of 22 percent 
over a year earlier. Further, one-third 
of the companies said they would fire 
employees who test positive — also a 
22 percent increase from 1989. 

Convention delegates said workers 
afflicted by the illness of drug abuse 
“need, and benefit from, well-con- 
ceived and soundly administered treat- 
ment programs.” They stressed that 
collective bargaining is the best means 
to tailor programs that stress prevention 
and rehabilitation. 

“Those who are found to be addicted 
to alcohol or drugs should receive the 
treatment they need, rather than the 


punishment they do not deserve,” the 
convention said. 

The testing at those agencies was 
mandated by President Reagan’s Sep- 
tember 1986 Executive Order 12564, an 
action taken even though no proof of 
drug abuse had been found among 
federal workers. Then, in 1988, the 
Drug-Free Workplace Act required 
federal contractors to establish a drug- 
free awareness program. From this, 
federal agencies issued a variety of 
regulations mandating the testing of 
contract workers in positions related to 
public safety or national security. 

Public employee unions were the first 
to challenge these new rules, and other 
unions have responded as their mem- 
bers have become subject to testing pro- 
grams. The National Labor Relations 
Board has made drug testing a man- 
datory subject of bargaining. But if an 
impasse is reached, management can 
unilaterally impose its program. 

Pending legislation 

Solutions to the problem have re- 
mained less than satisfactory in the 
legislative arena. 

In mid-May, the Senate passed S. 
676, a bill that would codify the cur- 
rent drug testing standards for the 
transportation industry. The bill pro- 
vides for five types of drug testing — 
pre-employment, periodic, post-acci- 
dent, reasonable cause and random 
testing — and mandates drug and 
alcohol testing for safety-sensitive 
airline and rail crews, truck and bus 
drivers and mass transit employees. 

The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades 
Department said the measure, now 
before the House Committees on Public 
Works and Transportation, and Energy 
and Commerce, does not correct the 
abuses in the system, including the 
videotaping of employees and firings 
due to false positive test results. 

TTD President Richard I. Kilroy, 
president of the Transportation Com- 
munications Union, said the statistics 
simply don’t demonstrate the need for 
such extreme requirements. Of the first 
78,119 airline employees tested, only 
0.28 percent tested positive for drugs 
and in the railroad industry, the results 
are below 1 percent, he said. 






Prices ease 
as recession 
drags along 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


With the nation's infrastructure crumbling, the Carpenters amid construction on the federally funded Whitehurst 
are “Ready to Rebuild America/' IBC President Sigurd Freeway rehabilitation project in Washington. Unions 
Lucassen announced during a June 28 news conference are calling for federal programs to generate jobs. 

Employment outlook grows more grim 


By John R. Oravec 

M oderating prices in June emerged 
as an ironic dividend of the fuzzy 
economy, which continued to meander 
from the effects of the year-old Bush 
recession. 

The consumer price index for urban 
wage earners (CPI-W) rose just 0.2 per- 
cent over May as advancing food prices 
were offset by a decline in energy costs. 
The current pace of inflation is runn- 
ing well below the 4. 5 -percent rate 
from a year ago. 

Because of the moderating prices, the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 
real average weekly earnings of produc- 
tion and nonsupervisory workers rose 
0.9 percent from May. The improve- 
ment came from 0.6-percent gains in 
both weekly hours as well as hourly 
pay. 

Over the year, however, the BLS data 
showed that real weekly pay was down 
1.2 percent. And because of inflation, 
real weekly pay was 4.6 percent below 
June 1981, AFL-CIO economist Anne 
Draper pointed out. 

BLS said food prices increased 0.4 
percent last month, led by a 4-percent 
jump in fruits and vegetables. Over the 
year, food prices were up 3.9 percent. 

At the same time, gasoline pump 
prices dipped 0.4 percent but were 6.4 
percent ahead of June 1990. Heating oil 
prices declined 7 percent in June but 
were 5.2 percent higher over the year. 
Gas and electric rates declined 1 .3 per- 
cent over the month and were just 1.7 
percent higher than a year ago. 

Medical costs up again 

Medical care costs continued to pace 
the faster-rising components of the in- 
dex — up 0.6 percent from May and 
8.5 percent from June 1990. 

Also up sharply was the component 
for miscellaneous goods and services, 
rising 0.8 percent over the month. Over 
the month, tobacco prices jumped 2.1 
percent and school books and supplies 
increased 1.5 percent. Tobacco prices 
were up 12.2 percent over the year and 
school books were 6.3 percent higher. 
In other economic reports: 

• Retail sales, which economists in 
the Bush administration and the private 
sector had hailed as turning around the 
recession in May, dropped 0.2 percent 
in June. The Commerce Department 
also revised its May increase in sales 
to 0.8 percent from 1 percent reported 
earlier. In June, the department found 
that sales fell in all major categories ex- 
cept in autos and gasoline — both 
volatile components. 

• Industrial production rose 0.7 per- 
cent in June to duplicate the May rise, 
the Federal Reserve Board reported. 
The index also was up in April 0.5 per- 
cent to put the entire second quarter of 
1991 on the plus side after two quarters 
of declines. Despite the gains, the total 
output of U.S. factories, mines and 
utilities was 2.9 percent below June 
1990, the FRB said. Factory output rose 
0.7 percent in June, but was 3.3 per- 
cent below the year-ago month. 


Continued from Page 1 

ficially unemployed in June as the 
jobless rate edged up from 6.9 percent 
to the highest rate since October 1986, 
the government’s Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics reports. 

In the past year, unemployment has 
increased by 2.2 million with the un- 
employment rate jumping from 5.3 per- 
cent to 7 percent. With the addition of 

100,000 to the unemployment rolls in 
June, “the recession is still worsening,, 
but at a relatively slow rate,’’ said Rudy 
Oswald, the AFL-CIO ’s chief econo- 
mist. 

Oswald pointed out that nearly a 
million workers are listed as “dis- 
couraged, ’ ’ and have ceased to look for 
work, while another 5.7 million work- 
ers have been forced into part-time jobs. 
That means that 15.4 million now are 
affected by partial or total unemploy- 
ment. 

The outlook is especially bleak for the 
long-term unemployed, whose number 
jumped 13 percent to 1.2 million from 
May to June — 76 percent higher than 
in June 1990. These job seekers have 
been out of work for more than six 
months, exhausting basic unemploy- 
ment benefits. 

The AFL-CIO has testified in favor 
of unemployment insurance reform, in- 
cluding provisions to make it easier for 
states to qualify for extended benefits 
to assist the long-term unemployed. 
Legislation introduced by Rep. Thomas 
Downey (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Donald 
Riegle (D-Mich.) would loosen the trig- 
ger for extended UI benefits, but both 
bills (H.R. 1367 and S. 1296) are 
languishing in committees. 


C alifornia’s public employee unions 
are girding for a long fight with the 
state’s governor over control of the 
state’s $63 billion employee pension 
fund. 

“This is very political. He wants con- 
trol... but we’re going to fight it. 
We’re not going to let up,” said Sherrie 
Golden, chief legislative advocate for 
the California State Employees Associa- 
tion, which is Service Employees Local 
1000. 

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson tried 
unsuccessfully to pack the board of the 
Public Employees Retirement System 
(PERS). Currently, PERS members 


“We have urged the House Ways and 
Means Committee to move on the 
Downey legislation,” said Bill Cun- 
ningham, AFL-CIO legislative repre- 
sentative. “It is important that we get 
permanent reform of the benefits pro- 
gram, and not some short-term solu- 
tion.” 

Under the current formula, only eight 
states plus Puerto Rico have qualified 
for extended benefits during the current 
recession. Four of those states — Mich- 
igan, Massachusetts, Oregon and West 
Virginia — recently became ineligible 
to offer extended benefits. 

West Virginia has the highest un- 
employment rate in the nation at 9.7 
percent. Among the 11 largest states, 
unemployment stood at 9.5 percent in 
Massachusetts, 9. 1 percent in Michigan 
and 5.6 percent in Texas. 

Reagan cutbacks 

Because state UI programs were cut 
severely during the Reagan administra- 
tion, only about 37 percent of the un- 
employed are eligible for basic bene- 
fits — $170 a week for 26 weeks — 
compared to 75 percent in the 1970s. 
Only one in 10 of the long-term un- 
employed gets extended benefits, which 
last up to 13 weeks. 

Under the Downey and Riegle bills, 
claimants could receive up to 20 weeks 
of additional benefits in states with total 
unemployment rates of at least 8 per- 
cent, 15 weeks in states with at least a 
7 percent unemployment rate and 10 
weeks in states with at least a 6 percent 
unemployment rate. 

Sarbanes, in promising to renew the 
push for the UI reform bills, took issue 


elect six of the 12-member board. Four 
are appointed by the governor and two 
are elected officials. 

The new state budget allows Wilson 
to appoint an independent actuary to set 
actuarial assumptions and employer 
contribution rates for the system. 

“He’s trying to do through the back 
door what he couldn’t through the front 
door,” said Dean Tipps, executive 
secretary-treasurer of SEIU’s Califor- 
nia State Council. 

The fight arose when Wilson sought 
authority to use $1.6 billion in surplus 
pension funds to balance the state’s 
budget. Although he won that fight, he 


with the Bush administration’s frequent 
characterization of the recession as 
“short and shallow.” 

“The nation is being mesmerized by 
the short and shallow characterization, 
which is inaccurate,” Sarbanes said. 
“It is being used to preclude action on 
unemployment insurance . ’ ’ 

The decline in manufacturing con- 
tinues to plague the employment pic- 
ture, with 50,000 jobs lost in June. In 
addition, 30,000 jobs were lost in 
wholesale and retail trade, 10,000 in 
government, and 8,000 in finance, in- 
surance and real estate. The service sec- 
tor, however, showed a strong gain of 

70.000 jobs, of which 40,000 were in 
health services. 

The weakening in the public-sector 
job market is likely to continue in com- 
ing months as states and cities continue 
threats to lay off workers in the face of 
budget deficits. If the current trends 
continue, AFSCME President Gerald 
W. McEntee predicted, as many as 

200.000 public employees could be out 
of jobs, which would in turn push the 
unemployment rate much higher. 

Testifying before the JEC, BLS Com- 
missioner Janet Norwood sought to 
minimize the unemployment rise, say- 
ing that “the June data point to a labor 
market that has stopped deteriorating. ” 
She cited the expanded workweek (of 
two-tenths of an hour) and the leveling 
off in construction and retail trade. 

Still, unemployment continued to rise 
for nearly all groups within the popula- 
tion, Oswald pointed out. The unem- 
ployment rate for whites stands at 6.2 
percent; for blacks at 13. 1 percent; and 
for Hispanics at 9.8 percent. 


lost the vote to control the board. 

The governor could raid the system 
again, Tipps and Golden said, by hav- 
ing his hand-picked actuarial firm ad- 
just the employer contributions and re- 
quired rates of return, either lowering 
or raising the surplus. 

Another change opposed by labor 
was the elimination of a special fund 
that guaranteed retirees they would 
maintain 75 to 80 percent of the original 
purchasing power of their pensions. 
The special ftind was replaced by a for- 
mula which allots 1 . 1 percent of the ex- 
cess earnings of the system to guarantee 
the purchasing power. 


California raids employee pension fund 





Convention Calendar 


This is a list of conventions and conferences scheduled for 1991 b 
organizations. Changes and additions will be reported . 

PLACE 

San Juan, P.R. 
Las Vegas 
Washington 
San Francisco 
Las Vegas 
Las Vegas 
Las Vegas 
Las Vegas 
Denver 
Cleveland 
Waterloo 
Austin 
Casper 
Montreal 
Anaheim, Calif. 
St. Louis 
Honolulu 
Las Vegas 
Rutland 
Everett 
Jamestown 
Providence 
Minneapolis 
Grand Island 


Portland 

Topeka 

Rehoboth Beach 

Atlantic City, N.J, 

St. Louis 

Charlotte 

Birmingham 

Charleston 

Conway 

Knoxville 

Las Vegas 

Honolulu 

Rockport 

Oklahoma City 


Oregon 

Kansas 

Delaware 

Carpenters 

Electrical Workers 

North Carolina 

Alabama 

West Virginia 

New Hampshire 

Tennessee 

Train Dispatchers 

Flight Attendants 

Maine 

Oklahoma 


ORGANIZATION 

Longshoremen 
Railroad Signalman 
TV & Radio Artists 
School Administrators 
Nevada 
Iron Workers 
Boilermakers 
Plumbers & Pipefitters 
OCAW 

Locomotive Engineers 

Iowa 

Texas 

Wyoming 

Sheet Metal Workers 

Government Employees 

Allied Industrial Workers 

United Transportation Union 

Laborers 

Vermont 

Washington 

North Dakota 

Rhode Island 

Minnesota 

Nebraska 


DATE 

July 22-26 
July 22-26 
July 25-28 
July 31-Aug. 4 
Aug. 1-3 
Aug. 5-9 
Aug. 11-18 
Aug. 12-16 
Aug. 12-16 
Aug. 19-23 
Aug. 20-22 
Aug. 21-24 
Aug. 23-24 
Aug. 26-30 
Aug. 26-30 
Sept. 16 
Sept. 9-20 
Sept. 9-12 
Sept. 13-15 
Sept. 19-21 
Sept. 19-21 
Sept. 20-21 
Sept. 22-25 
Sept. 23-25 


AFL-CIO Meetings 

Community Services 
AFL-CIO Executive Council 
Solidarity Day 
DPE Women’s Conference 
PED Convention 
Conventions of Union Label, 
DPE, Maritime 
departments and ILCA 
AFL-CIO Convention 


Washington 

Chicago 

Washington 

Washington 

Atlantic City, N.J 

Detroit 


Detroit 


Charles D. Gray has been named 
U.S. Worker Delegate to the Interna- 
tional Labor Organization. He succeeds 
Jim Baker, who will leave his post in 
Paris as AFL-CIO European Represen- 
tative to become executive assistant to 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
after the federation’s 1991 convention. 
Gray has been executive director of the 
Asian-American Free Labor Institute 
since 1985 and has been with AAFLI 
for 20 years. He began working in the 
labor movement in 1954 in Ohio as a 
member of the Retail Clerks Interna- 
tional Association, now the Food and 
Commercial Workers. In 1959, he 
began a 12-year stint working in Europe 
on the staff of the International Federa- 
tion of Commercial, Clerical and Tech- 
nical Employees. He eventually became 
assistant secretary-general of the 
organization. He left that post to join 
AAFLI. 

A call for a special general conven- 
tion of the Painters union was issued 
July 5 by President William A. Duval 
in a letter to all locals and district coun- 
cils. Duval said the convention would 
be used to inform members “of prob- 
lems within their organization and to 
propose a course of corrective action. ’’ 
Duval said “mandates issued at our 
1989 convention have been overturned 
and repudiated by a faction of the 
IBP AT General Executive Board.” He 
cited “substantial dues increases” voted 
by the convention for specific purposes 
and said “those monies are not now be- 
ing utilized for the purposes for which 
they were voted. ” No date has been set 
for the special convention. 

William J. Klinefelter of the Team- 
sters has been named legislative direc- 
tor of the AFL-CIO ’s Industrial Union 
Department. He succeeds Barbara 
Warden, who is joining the legislative 
staff in the UAW Washington office. 
Klinefelter joined the Steelworkers as 
a staff representative in 1975. In 1980 
he became a USWA legislative repre- 
sentative. From 1986-87 he was a 


mediator in the hazardous waste clean- 
up industry. He was senior legislative 
representative with the National Wild- 
life Federation from 1988-90, when he 
joined the Teamsters as a legislative 
representative. 

Mine Workers Secretary-Treasurer 
John J. Banovic has announced his 
retirement effective July 31. Jerry 
Jones, 52, president of the UMWA’s 
Illinois-based District 12, will fill out 
the rest of the term. Banovic, 62, was 
first elected in 1982 after more than two 
decades of service to the UMWA. 

Ben Albert is retiring July 31 after 
29 years as communications director of 
the AFL-CIO ’s Committee on Political 
Education. Albert began his labor 
career in the 1950s as a member of the 
Laborers. He worked as a labor jour- 
nalist for several years. In 1959 he 
became a legislative aide to Sen. 
Stephen Young (D-Ohio), where he 
worked until 1962, when he came to 
COPE. 

Nelson Mandela was elected presi- 
dent of South Africa’s African National 
Congress. The anti-apartheid political 
organization also elected Cyril 
Ramaphosa, head of the national Mine 
Workers union, as secretary-general. 

AWARDS 

The NAACP presented AFL-CIO 
Civil Rights Director Richard Wo- 
mack with the Roy Wilkins Award at 
its national convention in Houston. The 
award, presented during the annual 
Labor Luncheon, is given to a trade 
unionist who has consistently supported 
the NAACP’s programs and helped 
promote its relationship with the labor 
movement nationwide. 

UAW President Owen Bieber and 
AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William 
Lucy received the NAACP’s Distin- 
guished Trade Unionist award. Ken 
Young, who is retiring later this year 
as executive assistant to AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland, received a 
special award for his long commitment 
to the fight for racial equality and 
justice. Also receiving awards for their 
dedication to the NAACP’s goals were 
Leon Lynch, vice president of the 
Steelworkers; Leonard Ball, retired 
executive assistant to Lucy; and Annie 
B. Martin, AFL-CIO Community Ser- 
vices liaison with the American Red 
Cross. 


Richard Bermack 

AFL-CIO Vice President John J. Sweeney, president of the Service Employees, 
opens the George Meany Center's western semester at the University of 
California at Berkeley on June 2. Seated at left is Dorothy Shields, direc- 
tor of the AFL-CIO Department of Education. The first-time West Coast ses- 
sion was highly successful, said Meany Center Director Robert Pleasure. 


DEATHS 

Morris Paladino, former executive 
director of Asian-American Free Labor 
Institute, died July 2 of heart failure in 
Bradenton, Fla. He was 71. 

Paladino began his labor career in 
1937 with Ladies’ Garment Workers 
Local 91. He eventually worked with 
the Inter- American Regional Organiza- 
tion, the American Institute for Free 
Labor Development, and the Interna- 
tional Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions. 

He was named head of AAFLI in 
1970 and served in that post until his 
retirement in 1985. 

The family requests that in lieu of 
flowers, contributions be made to the 
Bradenton chapter of the American 
Heart Association and the American 
Foundation for AIDS Research. 

Ruth Taylor, executive secretary to 
three successive COPE directors, died 
July 4 after a long illness. 

Taylor retired in 1989 after spending 
41 years in the labor movement. She 
went to work for the AFL Labor’s 
League for Political Education in 1948 
and joined COPE when it was bom of 
the merger between the CIO and AFL. 
She served as executive secretary to 
COPE directors Jim McDevitt, A1 
Barkan and John Perkins. 




The Funding Partnership for Peo- 
ple with Disabilities, a consortium of 
nineteen private grantmakers, will 
award $1 million to non-profit 
organizations that work to increase 
employment and independence of peo- 
ple with disabilities. The deadline for 
proposals is Sept. 16, with awards to 
be announced by participating funders 
between November and February. For 
information contact the Funding Part- 
nership for People with Disabilities at 
1-800- ADA-3885. 

CONFERENCES 

The Southern School for Union 
Women, sponsored by the AFL-CIO 
and the University and College Labor 
Education Association, will be held 
Aug. 11-16 at the George Meany 
Center for Labor Studies. A $375 fee 
per person includes room, board and all 
materials. For more information con- 
tact Lynee Mingarelli at 301/431-6400. 







Ravenswood Steelworkers get international support 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, appearing on a live C-SPAN 
national phone-in show July 16, called attention to the plight of 1,700 
Steelworkers who have been "permanently replaced" by Ravenswood 
Aluminum Corp. in West Virginia. 


NLRB complaint 
to cite company 
for unfair practices 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he case against Ravenswood Alum- 
inum Corp., which has locked out 
and “permanently replaced” 1,700 
Steelworkers, was taken to the Euro- 
pean Parliament by the International 
Metalworkers Federation (IMF), which 
has charged the Swiss parent company 
with unfair labor practices at its 
American subsidiary. 

The complaint by the Geneva-based 
IMF was against Marc Rich Group of 
Zug, Switzerland, one of the country’s 
richest and most secretive companies 
and the owner of RAC in West Vir- 
ginia. The IMF is hoping that the Swiss 
government will assist in settling the 
seven-month U.S. labor dispute. 

The complaint also calls for a clearer 
picture of what IMF General Secretary 
Marcello Malentacchi describes as 
“one of the most secretive and wealthy 
multinational companies in the world.” 
Rich, president of the company that 
bears his name, has been under indict- 
ment by a U.S. court on racketeering, 
fraud and tax evasion charges. 

Meanwhile, the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board will issue a complaint 
charging RAC with unfair labor 
practices. 

The board informed the USWA that 
the complaint will seek an order requir- 
ing that all union members be returned 
to their jobs with full back pay for any 
lost wages and benefits retroactive to 


Nov. 1, 1990, the day they were lock- 
ed out. 

The complaint will charge RAC with 
locking out the workers and with 
unilaterally implementing its final con- 
tract offer on Nov. 29, 1990 without 
reaching an impasse in bargaining. 

The complaint also will allege that 
RAC permanently replaced the striking 
workers on Dec. 3, 1990. 

Noting that the NLRB came on the 
same day the House of Representatives 
approved a bill banning the “permanent 


replacement” of strikers, USWA Presi- 
dent Lynn Williams said: “If this bill 
had been law last year, perhaps the 
company would have been fair-minded 
about its obligations to its workers and 
settled this dispute reasonably.” 

On another front in the widening 
Steelworker effort to tell the Ravens- 
wood story, members picketed the U.S. 
mint in Philadelphia July 1 1 to protest 
the letting of a $9 million federal con- 
tract to Clarendon Ltd., part of the 
Marc Rich Group. 


USWA called attention at the rally to 
the outrage of a federal contract sup- 
porting a fugitive from justice and 
pointing out that by “filling Claren- 
don’s coffers, the U.S. Mint is helping 
sustain the lockout of American work- 
ers at Ravenswood.” 

Several months ago, the Steelworkers 
sent a group to demonstrate at the Rich 
Group headquarters in protest of the 
stalemate. One of their concerns is 
worker health and safety in the plant. 

Two months ago, RAC management 
turned away Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration inspectors, but 
recently agreed to allow OSHA officials 
to investigate the complaints. 

The agreement with OSHA, which 
comes more than a month after RAC 
refused entry to the inspectors, doesn’t 
sit well with the workers whose safety 
needs were a primary concern during 
bargaining that the company ended with 
the lockout in November 1990. 

Charles McDowell, an official with 
Steelworkers Local 5668, charged that 
RAC used the monthlong delay to 
“clean everything up” before allowing 
the inspectors on the property. Since 
new owners purchased the plant two 
years ago, five RAC workers have 
died — the worst known fatality rate at 
any U.S. metal plant. Two workers 
were injured just two months ago. 

OSHA also has been charged with 
“laxity” in probing allegations of 
health and safety violations at the plant 
by members of the House Education 
and Labor Subcommittee on Health and 
Safety. Sy Holzman, the committee’s 
staff director, questioned why OSHA 
would have to negotiate with the com- 
pany to inspect the plant. 


INSIDE 

Striker replacement 
wins big in House 

In a major victory at the end of a 
determined campaign, the House over- 
whelmingly approved H.R. 5, the 
Workplace Fairness bill, which bans the 
“permanent replacement” of strikers. 

Solidarity Day ’91 
is labor of love 

Showing that “Solidarity Works,” 
hundreds of workers have put in months 
of hard work to master the enormous 
amount of details needed to make 
Solidarity Day ’91 a success. 





South Africa sanction 
lifting premature ’ 

The AFL-CIO condemned the presi- 
dent’s decision to withdraw sanctions 
against South Africa’s apartheid govern- 
ment as premature because all the con- 
ditions have not been met. 

Scardelletti elected 
new president of TCU 

The Transportation Communications 
Union elects Robert Scardelletti its new 
president as union conventions are in 
full swing. For a full listing, see calen- 
dar on Page 11. 




Health costs threaten 
U.S. living standard 

Citing runaway costs and lack of 
coverage, Steelworkers President Lynn 
Williams tells Congress that action is 
needed to prevent a deeper national 
health care crisis. 

GAO: OSHA policies 
inadequate for safety 

A government report concludes that 
the Occupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration’s policies are not strong 
enough to guarantee that known 
workplace hazards are abated. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published iviry two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 por 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


7 / 22/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 





VOLUME 36, NUMBER 16 AUGUST 5, 1991 


AFL-CIO opposes Thomas nomination 


By Michael Byrne 
Chicago 

T he AFL-CIO will join with the 
NAACP and other traditional civil 
rights allies to actively oppose President 
Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas 
to succeed Thurgood Marshall on the 
Supreme Court. 

“Nothing in Judge Thomas’ short 
judicial career, in his time as a govern- 
ment official, in his writings or in his 
statements, provides any basis for 
believing that he can rise above his 


By Michael Byrne 
Chicago 

A merican workers, confronted by an 
increasingly hostile climate for 
organizing and bargaining, will march 
on Washington Aug. 31 in a Solidarity 
Day ’91 demand for justice and equal 
protection under the nation’s labor 
laws. 

The core issues infusing the spirit of 
Solidarity Day ’91 are the ban on the 
permanent replacement of strikers, na- 
tional health care reform and the quest 
for full freedom of association and trade 
union rights at home and throughout the 
world. 


ideological biases and render the impar- 
tial justice we expect of the nation’s 
highest court,’’ the Executive Council 
said in a statement. 

The council noted that Thomas, while 
head of the Equal Employment Oppor- 
tunity Commission, attacked affirma- 
tive action programs as “social 
engineering’’ and embraced an ideology 
“that views unfettered markets and 
private property as sacrosanct.’’ 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told a news conference that a detailed 


“In addition,’’ AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland said, “this demonstra- 
tion will focus on labor’s other tradi- 
tional goals — jobs for those who want 
to work, a safe workplace, child care, 


Local unions mobilize , Page 4 


civil rights and a safe and clean environ- 
ment.’’ 

Labor law reform, including the cur- 
rent legislation to ban the “permanent 
replacement’’ of strikers, is among the 
issues labor will dramatize and punc- 
tuate with a massive rally that expects 


federation study of Thomas’ rulings and 
statements indicate “a predilection to 
elevate property rights over human 
rights.’’ 

“Judge Thomas believes that unfet- 
tered markets and private property 
rights are sacrosanct. We do not,’’ 
Kirkland said. “We believe that a socie- 
ty can and should soften the harsh edges 
of a market economy to allow wage 
earners and the less privileged to share 
in the nation’s economic well-being.’’ 

Kirkland also criticized Thomas’s 


to “convince our national leaders that 
this trade union movement is united and 
determined to prevail on these critical 
issues,’’ Kirkland told a news con- 
ference during the federation’s mid- 
summer Executive Council meeting. 

The nation has seen years of erosion 
of worker rights as the law “has been 
changed repeatedly at the importunities 
of the more retrograde elements of the 
employer community,’’ Kirkland said. 

As one example, Kirkland noted that 
an employer can get immediate relief, 
through court injunction, on an unfair 
labor practice charge against a union, 
Continued on Page 4 


suggestion that the minimum wage “is 
a factor contributing to the unemploy- 
ment of black youths. This suggests to 
us that he would believe in a differen- 
tial wage for minorities and does not ac- 
cept the proposition that there ought to 
be a fair and decent minimum below 
which people should not be expected to 
work.’’ 

In addition to rejecting the Thomas 
nomination, the Executive Council 
called on Congress and the administra- 

Continued on Page 6 

Strong OSHA 
reform bills 
introduced 

By Arlee C. Green 

L abor-supported legislation to reform 
the Occupational Safety and Health 
Act was introduced in the Senate and 
House, aimed at expanding both the 
act’s coverage and the role that workers 
have in assuring safe and healthful 
workplaces. 

The nearly, identical bills, S. 1622 
and H.R. 3160, also would revamp the 
Occupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration’s standard-setting and en- 
forcement activities. The sponsors are 
Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and 
Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) and 
Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.) 

At a Capitol Hill press conference, 
Metzenbaum, an author of the 1970 
law, said that “too often today the 
workplace is a Tittle shop of horrors.’ 
Forty workers a day are killed on the 
job — one every 36 minutes. Every 13 
seconds another worker is disabled.’’ 
Metzenbaum said he was hopeful that 
the bills would be enacted during this 
session of Congress. Asked about the 
administration’s position on the bills, he 
said there has been “no response’’ 
whether it would support the reforms. 

Kennedy, a co-sponsor of the 1970 
job safety act, said much has been 
learned about occupational injuries and 
illnesses over the past 20 years. It is 
clearly evident that there are “serious 
weaknesses in the law,’’ he said. In 
underscoring the worker involvement in 
job safety and health, Kennedy noted 
that Oregon and Washington already re- 
quire joint safety committees, as do 
many European countries. 

Aware of the knee-jerk reaction 
businesses might have to an improved 
OSHA, Kennedy pointed out that work- 
place injuries and illnesses now cost the 
nation nearly 2 percent of the gross na- 
tional product, or $84 billion — $31 
billion for medical care and $53 billion 
Continued on Page 8 



Jobless workers from the East Coast corridor rally on the 
steps of the Labor Department in Washington to press 
for the extension of benefits for the long-term unem- 
ployed. Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.), a key sponsor 
of the House legislation, assails opposition of the Bush 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

administration to the benefits extension and calls for 
immediate congressional action on the measure. The 
Senate overcame delaying tactics by opponents to pass 
extended benefits, and the House followed suit with 
similar legislation before the August recess. See Page 10. 








limillll 


mil 


11*11 


Justice is Solidarity Day ’91 goal 






Rail unions condemn 'shameful’ board rulings 


By Arlee C. Green 

R ailroad union leaders assailed the 
binding recommendations of a 
special board that locked them into new 
contracts without modifying the 
devastating work rule changes made by 
a presidential emergency board in 
January. 

The special board, set up by Congress 
April 1 8 in legislation designed to shut- 
down a day-old nationwide strike 
against the nation’s freight lines, issued 
its recommendations July 18. More than 
235,000 workers had been on strike. 

Empowered solely to consider union 
and management challenges to the 
report of Presidential Emergency Board 
No. 219, the three-member special 
panel heard and rejected more than 40 
challenges from eight rail unions con- 
cerning recommendations in the emer- 
gency board’s report. Management had 
said it was basically satisfied with the 
emergency board recommendations. 

Robert O. Harris, chairman of the 
emergency panel, also chaired the 
special board, which essentially rubber- 
stamped the recommendations of the 
presidential board. In its report, the 
special board said that “evidence and 
argument in support of the modifica- 
tions was insufficient, in each and every 


respect, to rebut the statutory presump- 
tion of validity” of the original wage 
and work rule recommendations. 

The United Transportation Union, 
Locomotive Engineers and the Main- 
tenance of Way Employees were the 
most severely damaged by the outcome 
of the binding recommendations, as the 
stringent work rule changes will result 
in either a loss of jobs, longer hours for 
less pay or conditions requiring mem- 
bers to work possibly thousands of 
miles from home for months at a time. 

BLE President Larry McFather 
called the special board report “com- 
pletely unfair to the locomotive 
engineers, a corruption of Congress’s 
intent and a shame on the Bush ad- 
ministration.” 

He said engineers would lose $5,000 
a year in pay because of increases in the 
basic workday. 

BMWE President Mac Fleming said, 
“The outrageous presumption by the 
special board that no relief is needed 
flies in the face of reality . The carriers 
have stonewalled for three years and 
now have been rewarded for it.” 

At the UTU, elimination of a brake- 
man position could cost the union a 
quarter of its membership. When the 
board’s recommendations were re- 


leased, a UTU spokesman said, “It’s 
a black day for the UTU and all of rail 
labor.” 

The UTU has since challenged the 
constitutionality of the legislation set- 
ting up the special board. The suit, filed 
July 29 in the U.S. District Court for 
the District of Columbia, seeks an in- 
junction to block the contract recom- 
mendations from taking effect. The suit 
says the government violated the Fifth 
Amendment of the Constitution regard- 
ing due process and exceeded its power 
under the commerce clause of the 
Constitution. 

The suit uses language from the 
emergency board’s report that it had no 
jurisdiction over the crew, but decided 
rather than “dropping the matter on 
legal grounds,” recommended that car- 
riers take up the issue in local 
bargaining. 

The union holds that this violates the 
crew-size agreements the UTU had with 
many carriers, making it an unconstitu- 
tional “taking” without due process. 

The rail carriers also filed suit in the 
same court seeking an affirmation of the 
constitutionality of the statute establish- 
ing the board. 

The 10 rail unions had participated in 
the negotiations with the National 


Railway Labor Conference, repre- 
senting the major carriers, for new con- 
tracts since early 1988. The unions 
considered the emergency board’s 
recommendations so damaging and pro- 
management that they served strike 
notice in hopes of getting the carriers 
back to the table. 

In the final hours before the strike, 
three unions — Railroad Signalmen, 
Train Dispatchers and the Transporta- 
tion Communications Union’s white- 
collar and clerical division — essen- 
tially agreed to the conditions in recom- 
mendations and settled. The remaining 
unions — TCU’s Carmen division, 
Locomotive Engineers, Maintenance of 
Way Employees, Boilermakers, Elec- 
trical Workers, Firemen and Oilers, 
Sheet Metal Workers, and the United 
Transportation Union — struck on 
April 17. 

The contracts now in force run 
through January 1995 and provide 3 
percent pay increases on July 1, 1991 
and June 1, 1993, a 4 percent raise on 
July 1, 1994, lump-sum payments equal 
to 3 percent of annual pay on July 1 , 
1992, Jan. 1, 1993, and Jan. 1, 1994, 
as well as a $2,000 lump-sum signing 
bonus in lieu of retroactive pay back to 
1988. 


Pan Am bailout will cost thousands of union jobs 


By James B. Parks 

I f Pan Am Airlines is restructured, 
thousands of workers could lose their 
jobs, but their pensions will be pro- 
tected under federal provisions. 

Several restructuring proposals are on 
the table, including one by Trans World 
Airlines and another by Delta. The 
plans involve the sale of some of Pan 
Am’s assets and the reorganization of 
the remainder of the company. 

If either proposal is accepted, 
“thousands of people are going to go 
out the door,” said John Kerrigan, 
secretary-treasurer of the Transport 
Workers and director of the union’s 
airline division. 

The situation is “very fluid,” said 
Marv Griswold, director of the airline 
division for the Teamsters. “Unfor- 
tunately the bottom line is that jobs will 
be lost,” he said. “We are trying to in- 
sure that the maximum number of jobs 
will go along with the sale of Pan Am’s 
assets.” 

Griswold and Kerrigan said their 
unions are not supporting any restruc- 
turing plan at this time. When the final 
proposals are presented, both said they 
would back the one that produces the 
most jobs. 

As far as pensions, the Pension 
Benefit Guaranty Corp. July 24 moved 
to protect about 35,000 Pan Am em- 


ployees and retirees with a bailout of the 
company’s pension plans. 

The PBGC asked a federal court in 
New York to terminate two under- 
funded plans after the airline missed 
several pension fund payments. Pan Am 
immediately challenged the takeover. 
The court has set a Sept. 13 hearing on 
the case. 

“Pan Am acted in an irresponsible 
manner by seeking to delay the hearing 
date,” said PBGC Executive Director 
James B. Lockhart. The PBGC action 
“eliminates the uncertainty over the 
pension liability, thus clearing the way 
for sales of Pan Am assets,” he said. 
Because the other airlines are only try- 
ing to buy part of Pan Am’s assets, they 
would not be responsible for pension 
plan liabilities, he said. 

The pension plans involved are the 
Cooperative Retirement Income Plan, 
with about 34,000 participants in- 
cluding 11,000 retirees which PBGC 
says is $800 million short, and the 
defined benefit plan for flight engineers, 
which has 750 participants including 
550 retirees and is underfunded by 
about $40 million. Both funds were 
frozen in 1983. 

The PBGC’s maximum monthly 
guarantee of $2,250 will cover full 
retirement payments for virtually all the 
members of the cooperative plan. Some 


younger flight engineers may ex- 
perience a small loss, a PBGC statement 
said, but the amount may be increased 
depending on how much the agency re- 
covers on its claims in the bankruptcy 
court. 

The PBGC is still reviewing a third 
Pan Am pension plan covering 2,300 
pilots, but has not taken any^ction. 

Both Kerrigan and Griswold said 
there is confusion over what will hap- 
pen to persons between the ages of 55 
and 65 under the PBGC formula. 

Currently, retirees receive full 
benefits at age 62 and 79 percent of 
benefits at age 55. Under the PBGC for- 
mula, they would receive full benefits 
at age 65 and 45 percent at age 55. 
Depending on who you talk to at the 
PBGC, Kerrigan said, you get different 
answers on which formula would apply 
to persons retiring between ages 55 and 
65. 

The PBGC expects to take a loss of 
$600 million on Pan Am pensions 
before any recoveries, Lockhart said. 
The agency is trying to recover its claim 
in the bankruptcy court. Lockhart said 
the agency is the largest creditor in the 
case and hopes to win the largest set- 
tlement. 

The Pan Am pension problems high- 
light the need for Congress to make 
changes in the bankruptcy laws to im- 


prove the agency’s standing as a 
creditor in bankruptcy cases, the PBGC 
said. 

Lockhart warned that the Pan Am 
pension problems may be the tip of the 
iceberg. 

“Unfortunately, Pan Am is not our 
only problem. The airline industry is 
undergoing restructuring, and there are 
several other carriers whose underfund- 
ed pension liabilities are a major con- 
cern,” he said. 

The real culprit, however, Griswold 
said, is deregulation of the airlines. 
“Make no mistake about it, under- 
funded plans are the effect of deregula- 
tion,” he said. Carriers are attempting 
to cut corners and they are underfun- 
ding pensions to cut costs and there will 
be more fallout and loss of jobs as the 
impact of that underfunding takes hold, 
Griswold said. 

Kerrigan agrees. There will be jobs 
lost and other fallout no matter what 
happens at Pan Am and other already 
bankrupt airlines. But once the issues 
in those plans are settled, then the worst 
will be behind us, he said. 

The airline industry will get to a few 
players, but they have well-funded 
plans, he said. However, most of them 
have defined benefit plans which could 
become a problem if the company has 
a financial decline, Kerrigan said. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 16 



MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1991 


. k6 QR C0MMW/c^ , 



The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00I-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington. D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





IffiMION 


NNNBNHM 


Health care reform plans offered 

AFL-CIO welcomes initiatives in House ; Senate 



By Candice Johnson 

C omprehensive health care reform 
proposals were introduced in both 
the House and Senate during the final 
hours before Congress’s August recess. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the federation welcomed the efforts 
by Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) and 
Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) to “reform our 
nation’s failing health care system” and 
invited all involved parties and the Bush 
adminstration to join in the effort. 

Both plans make considerable prog- 
ress toward the kind of comprehensive 
health care reform the AFL-CIO has 
endorsed — based on the principles of 
access, quality and cost containment. 

Rostenkowski ’s reform package is 
built on the “pay or play” model that 
requires employers to offer health care 
coverage to workers or to pay into a 
fund that will provide benefits to the 
pool of uninsured persons. 

Both the Rostenkowski package and 
Simon’s amendment to the Senate 
leadership health reform proposal — 
also a “pay or play” plan — include 
mandatory cost containment measures. 

Effective, enforceable cost control 
measures “are key to any restructuring 
of the U.S. health care system,” Kirk- 
land said. 

Both measures would establish an in- 
dependent commission to set annual 
cost targets with various types of pro- 

Gas tax-rise 

By Mike Hall 

A revolt by rank-and-file House 
Democrats over one of the funding 
mechanisms for a new, five-year, 
$ 153.5-billion highway bill stalled 
consideration of the legislation until 
September. 

The bill, H.R. 2950, strongly backed 
by the AFL-CIO, would create some 
2 million jobs during the next five 
years and help rebuild crumbling high- 
ways, bridges and transit systems. The 
legislation provides $121.5 billion for 
highway construction and repair and 
$32 billion for mass transit construction 
and expansion. 

But one of the key elements of the 
legislation, a five-cents-a-gallon in- 
crease in the gasoline tax, also was the 
key element in the Democratic mem- 
bers abandoning the bill. Many states 
already have increased gasoline taxes in 
the face of growing economic problems 
on the state level and representatives 
said they were hesitant to increase the 
levy any further. 

House Speaker Tom Foley CD- 
Wash.) countered that “We are not 
talking about a gasoline tax for its own 
sake, but . . . tied to a very large and ef- 
fective infrastructure proposal that is 
much more dramatic and dynamic than 
the administration ’ s . ” 

A recent poll showed that 55 percent 
of all Americans would support a nickel 
gas tax increase if it was used for 
highway and transit programs. The 
poll, conducted by Transit NOW, also 
noted that the support for the increase 
is uniform among differing party affilia- 
tion and regions of the country. 

While the full Public Works and 
Transportation Committee reported the 


viders, including hospitals and physi- 
cians. The Department of Health and 
Human Services would set actual pro- 
vider rates consistent with those targets. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council in 
February called for a commission — 
with consumer, labor, management, 
government and provider represen- 
tatives — to administer a single national 
cost-containment program. This com- 
mission would negotiate payment rates, 
set targets for spending increases and 
establish a capital budgeting system. 

The AFL-CIO also has called for 
reform that lowers the age of Medicare 
eligibility from 65 to 60, which is a key 
aspect of both the Rostenkowski and 
Simon plans. 

Lowering the Medicare eligibility age 
is “a needed step. . .to ensure a fairer 
distribution of the cost of providing 
retirees with the health security,” Kirk- 
land noted. 

The congressional action would al- 
leviate a major problem unions and 
employers are encountering at the bar- 
gaining table by proposing to cover 
retiree health needs through a public 
plan. 

Currently, employers who provide 
coverage for retired workers and their 
families are disproportionately penal- 
ized, and find themselves at a growing 
disadvantage to companies that do not 
offer retiree coverage. 


bill by an overwhelming 49-7 bipartisan 
margin July 25, the Ways and Means 
Committee approved the bill by a nar- 
row 19-17 vote at its July 31 mark up, 
disagreeing over the gas tax. 

“Study after study throughout the last 
decade have documented the frighten- 
ing decline in America’s highways, 
bridges and transit infrastructure,” said 
AFL-CIO Legislative Director Robert 
M. McGlotten in a letter to House 
members. “The need for this legisla- 
tion is simply overwhelming in every 
region of our nation.” 

The Senate passed a $ 123-billion , 
highway bill in June. When the House 
returns in September it will face three 
likely scenarios: consider H.R. 2950 
without a gas tax; consider a new and 
rewritten bill or simply reauthorize 
highway programs for one year. Trans- 
portation programs under the last five- 
year reauthorization will expire Sept. 
30, the end of the fiscal year. 

Certain elements from H.R. 2950 are 
expected to remain in the legislation 
when the House returns. Like the 
Senate bill, H.R. 2950 set new ways to 
distribute funds to the states, including 
the establishment of Metropolitan Plan- 
ning Organizations (MPOs), which in 
the House bill would determine how 
two-thirds of a state’s transportation 
money is spent, on highways or mass 
transit. 

The AFL-CIO will work to maintain 
H.R. 2950 provisions that, unlike the 
Senate version, gives organized labor 
a seat at the table where the money will 
be divided by requiring the MPOs to 
consult “with any affected employee 
representatives” during their deter- 
minations on how to allocate the funds. 


The Rostenkowski proposal estab- 
lishes a Medicare-type public plan 
covering low-income families and 
workers not offered benefits by their 
employers and calls for a progressive 
tax-based finance structure. Both bills 
offer separate reforms for small em- 
ployers and groups — those with fewer 
than 100 employees. 

At a news conference during the Ex- 
ecutive Council session in Chicago, 
Kirkland said health care reform must 
be built on an enforceable system of 
cost control, because the current stag- 
gering increases in health care costs are 
“undermining the value of health in- 
surance plans that are in existence.” 

“We want a practical approach that 
will give us practical relief” encom- 
passing the three principles the AFL- 
CIO has set — quality, access and cost 
control, Kirkland said, noting that the 
federation is talking to “all the players” 
about legislative proposals. 

AFL-CIO Vice President John Swee- 
ney, who chairs the committee on health 
care, told the Executive Council that the 
federation and several affiliates are 
working to find common ground with 
employers who are grappling with ris- 
ing costs. Steelworkers President Lynn 
Williams reported that a meeting with 
five major steelmakers have resulted 
“in a set of principles, including an 
agreement for strong cost containment.” 


The House bill also contains stronger 
labor provisions covering Davis-Bacon 
prevailing wage protections and Section 
13C labor protections for transport 
workers. The 13C provisions protect 
transit workers and their collective 
bargaining rights from adverse impacts, 
when transit system ownership is trans- 
ferred, for example, from private to 
public. 

Among H.R. 2950 provisions that 
may be retained, though the dollar 
amounts may change, are: 

• A $79. 2-billion flexible highway 
program in which up to two-thirds of 
the funds may be transferred to mass 
transit, at the discretion of state and 
local officials. States with significant 
portions of their populations in clean air 
non-attainment areas may transfer all of 
their highway funds to mass transit. 

• A stronger role for local officials 
in strengthened Metropolitan Planning 
Organizations. MPOs would be given 
direct authority over urban mobility 
funds and, working with states, would 
help develop and implement the state’s 
Transportation Improvement Plan. 

• An increase from 85 to 90 percent 
of the guaranteed minimum allocation 
for each state relative to its share of 
Highway Trust Fund contributions. 

• A federal-state match of 80-20 for 
all programs except Interstate construc- 
tion and repairs, which would remain 
at 90-10. 

• An allocation of $12. 1 billion for 
transit new starts and rail moderniza- 
tion projects, a 118 percent increase 
over existing levels. 

• A $16. 5 -billion. program to re- 
habilitate and replace obsolete and defi- 
cient bridges. 


Capitol Digest 


T he Senate approved labor-backed 
legislation which places severe 
restrictions on the renewal of Most 
Favored Nation (MFN) trading status 
for China. The 55-44 vote fell short of 
being veto-proof. 

The bill, S.1367, would continue 
MFN for a year. Before it can be ex- 
tended further, the president must cer- 
tify that China meets the conditions 
outlined in the legislation, such as the 
release of all political prisoners and the 
halt of exports made by forced labor. 

The bill also requires that there be 
significant progress in worker and 
human rights and a halt to intimidation 
of Chinese citizens in the U.S. It would 
also end MFN status if China sells 
nuclear and ballistic missile technology. 

The AFL-CIO supported S.1367 
along with a resolution to deny outright 
the extension of MFN. That resolution 
did not reach the Senate floor, although 
the House passed such a measure, 
223-204. 

A conference committee will try in 
September to reconcile the two versions 
of the legislation. 

The Bush administration is opposed 
to any attempts to put conditions on 
China’s MFN status. 

In other action on Capitol Hill: 
BANKING — The Senate Banking, 
Housing and Urban Affairs Committee 
was expected to approve the continua- 
tion of “pass-through” insurance for 
employee pension plans. Pass-through 
insurance provides up to $100,000 for 
each beneficiary in a pension plan when 
those plans invest their funds in bank 
deposits. The original version of the 
bill, S.543, limited the insurance pro- 
tection to $100,000 for the entire pen- 
sion plan. The committee also refused 
to weaken the AFL-CIO-backed Com- 
munity Reinvestment Act. The act is 
designed to eliminate the practice of 
“redlining” or refusing to lend money 
in older, inner city, low-income or 
minority neighborhoods. The full 
Senate is expected to take up the bill 
after the August recess. 

DRUG TESTING -The House 
Energy and Commerce subcommittee 
on health and environment approved an 
AFL-CIO-backed bill which sets strong 
standards for laboratories involved in 
worker drug testing. The labs would 
have be certified by the Department of 
Health and Human Services before an 
employer could use it for testing 
workers. The legislation now moves to 
the full committee. 

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS - The 
House approved a bill which sets stan- 
dards for the consecutive number of 
hours flight attendants may be on duty 
and specifies minimum rest periods. 
The Federal Aviation Administration 
already sets similar standards for pilots 
and air traffic controllers. A similar bill 
awaits action in the Senate. 

RECESS — The House and Senate 
were scheduled to adjourn Aug. 3 for 
their annual summer recess. Congress 
will reconvene Sept. 11. 


fears detour highway bill 





Locals mobilizing caravans for Solidarity Day journey 


By James B. Parks 

G rass-roots enthusiasm and coopera- 
tion has skyrocketed as local unions 
prepare to send thousands of their mem- 
bers to Washington for Solidarity Day 
’91. 

The Machinists, for example, have 
built on early momentum and fundrais- 
ing to mobilize some 600 to 800 IAM 
members from the West Coast, who 
could not attend the first Solidarity Day 
because of the Air Traffic Controllers 
strike. This year, they will come via 
chartered planes or take advantage of 
special fares offered by United Airlines, 
said Barbara Shailor, the union’s Soli- 
darity Day coordinator. 

In the South, Solidarity Day coor- 
dinators and union officers in Virginia, 
Tennessee, and West Virginia are 
organizing a caravan of at least 50 buses 
to carry members to the march, said 
Dan Anderson, Solidarity Day coor- 


dinator for the Roanoke, Va., Central 
Labor Council. 

The caravan will begin in Chat- 
tanooga, Tenn., picking up more buses 
in Knoxville and Bristol, Tenn., and 
Abingdon, Christiansburg, Marion and 
Roanoke in Virginia. Other stops are 
being arranged, including one desig- 
nated by the Shenandoah Valley Labor 
Council and a possible hook-up point 
for workers from West Virginia. 

Other local people are helping in a big 
way. A catering business owned by the 
family of C.W. Toney, business agent 
for Painters Local 891, is providing box 
lunches for the marchers at a minimal 
price, Anderson said. Also, a Roanoke 
television station and a local newspaper 
plan to cover the trip. 

“I hope all of us traveling together 
will have an impact,” Anderson said. 
“This solidarity is important” and 
could spread beyond Solidarity Day 


’91 to lots of other projects, he added. 

Five local restaurants plan to open 
special buffets for the caravan at 3 a.m. 
Aug. 31 to feed the marchers, Ander- 
son said. Some of the restaurants are 
open all night, but two will open early 
to feed the crowd, he said. “We are try- 
ing to accommodate our brothers and 
sisters from the South,” Anderson said. 

Putting together an effort like this re- 
quires enthusiasm, coordination and 
cooperation from all unions, said An- 
derson, who is a member of the Fire- 
men and Oilers System Council 6. 

He said his office contacted CLCs in 
the three states as well as local officers 
and individual Solidarity Day coor- 
dinators designated by the various 
unions. Each person’s name was added 
to a computerized mailing list. 

Communication is the key, said An- 
derson, whose office has been keeping 
in touch with the various CLCs and 


union offices weekly through phone 
calls and letters. 

Shailor agreed, saying the IAM pro- 
duces a weekly newsletter for all locals 
and districts that includes updates from 
the national Solidarity Day office as 
well as reports on the progress of the 
union’s efforts. 

The union runs the United Airlines 
800 number on all its newsletters to help 
those members from the West Coast 
who want to come. There also will be 
an “incredible emphasis” on recruiting 
marchers from IAM locals within a 
100-mile radius of Washington, Shailor 
said. 

Using the theme that Solidarity Day 
can be a “fun event” for the entire 
family and a special opportunity for 
labor to show its strength, IAM head- 
quarters staff will be out in force dur- 
ing August to meet with locals around 
Washington. 



Anne Martens/Page One Photography 


Three-story tall banner adorns AFL-CIO building in Washington. 


Show of force will spotlight 
weak labor laws, exploitation 

Council reviews final march plans 


Continued from Page 1 

while workers face “a long drawn-out 
process of litigation” through the Na- 
tional Labor Relations Board and then 
through courts, and the remedy “usu- 
ally comes too late to be of any value. ’ ’ 

It would take years, for example, to 
enforce the increasing unfair labor prac- 
tice of “firing or discharging workers 
who support the organization of a trade 
union in their workplace,” Kirkland 
said. 

Such deficiencies in the law “create 
a hostile environment that undermines 
collective bargaining and fosters a class 
of union-busters who exploit the 
weaknesses in the law,” he said. 

The legal violation of trade union 
rights, an assault on the basic right of 
freedom of association, is among the 
reasons that labor is mobilizing a 
massive show of force for Solidarity 
Day ’91. 

The final plans for the event were 
unveiled to the Executive Council by 
COPE Director John Perkins, Solidarity 
Day coordinator. 

Perkins thanked the international 
unions rallying their members to answer 
the call of Solidarity Day and said the 
major organizational need with less than 
30 days remaining before the march is 
for local coordinators to return bus cap- 
tains ’ cards. 

Thousands of buses have been chart- 
ered, and the Solidarity office is work- 


ing on a plan to “deadhead” many 
buses — sending them from other loca- 
tions to areas where the demand is 
greatest. 

Special discount rates have been ar- 
ranged through United and TWA air- 
lines, and seven Amtrak trains have 
been chartered to make Solidarity runs 
from cities in the Northeastern corridor. 

Trade unionists from around the 
country will be converging on parking 
lots at the Pentagon and RFK Stadium, 
on Union Station and National Airport, 
where they will take the Metro subway 
system to the Mall on an honor system. 
The AFL-CIO is still negotiating with 
Metro on fees. Metro is offering free 
parking for Washington-area unionists. 

Marchers will gather around the 
entertainment area near the Washington 
Monument, where international union 
banners will be posted. The march 
begins at noon and Perkins said he ex- 
pects the crowd, marching along three 
separate columns, to be in place at the 
speakers platform in front of the Capitol 
by 3 p.m., when the main program be- 
gins. 

Marchers will include officials of the 
emerging trade unions in Eastern and 
Central Europe, as well as labor leaders 
from Latin America and South Africa. 
In addition, more than 150 non-labor 
organizations have endorsed Solidarity 
Day ’91 and their members will be mar- 
ching alongside union members. 


AFL-CIO reaffirms stand for South Africa sanctions 


Chicago 

T he South African government’s 
secret funding of political parties and 
their so-called “trade union” wings 
“raises doubts about the authorities’ in- 
tentions to fairly negotiate a political 
settlement that will lead to democratic 
constitutional change and equal oppor- 
tunity for all people of South Africa,” 
the AFL-CIO Executive Council 
declared. 

Recent disclosure of the payments, 
which went to organizations in both 
South Africa and Namibia, “indicates 
the scope of the South African govern- 
ment’s attempts to undermine the demo- 
cratic development in the region,” the 
statement said. 

“The AFL-CIO calls on the South 
African government to reveal the full 


extent of its covert manipulation in- 
tended to destabilize organizations and 
pervert negotiations to its own ends,” 
the federation said. 

The council said the disclosures bear 
out the federation’s belief that President 
Bush’s decision to lift economic sanc- 
tions against South Africa “was pre- 
mature and inappropriate” and confirm 
the federation’s decision not to deal 
with the United Workers Union of' 
South Africa, which was among the 
groups that received the secret funding. 

The council called for all remaining 
sanctions, including those by the Inter- 
national Monetary Fund, to stay in 
place. 

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue, who was a frater- 
nal delegate to the July convention of 


the Congress of South African Trade 
Unions, told the council that COSATU 
General Secretary Jay Naidoo will be 
among the international guests at 
Solidarity Day ’91. 

In other action, the council; 

• Called for a new international 
policy toward China, keyed to the pro- 
motion of democracy, to replace the 
current assisted-trade policy that 
enriches Western businessmen while 
propping up a tyrannical regime that is 
an “affront to its own people, and to 
the conscience of the world.” 

“The most powerful motivating force 
behind the U.S. embrace of Beijing is 
the hunger for profit,” the council said. 
It called on the government to 4 ‘judge 
such business dealings from a broader 
perspective than can be expected from 


those Americans who have offices in 
Beijing or who are trafficking with 
China out of Hong Kong skyscrapers. ’ ’ 

• Called upon the leaders of the 
Yugoslavian republics “to join together 
in ending the bloodshed and turn instead 
to forging peaceful solutions to the dif- 
ficult problems confronting the people 
of Yugoslavia.” 

The recent renewal of ethnic and 
political conflicts in Yugoslavia 
threatens progress made toward 
democracy and freedom of assocation 
for trade unionists, the council said. 

“Workers and their trade unions are 
among the first victims of the violence; 
already, independent trade union lead- 
ers are being intimidated, threatened 
and arrested for representing their 
members’ interests,” the council said. 






Strikebreaker campaign focuses on Senate 


Presidential candidates to debate in Detroit 


Chicago 

A ll announced candidates for the 
Democratic presidential nomina- 
tion will be invited to the 1991 AFL- 
CIO Convention in Detroit to debate 
the issues. 

The political debate, which will be 
held Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 12, 
during the Nov. 11-14 convention, 
will be one of the first such face-off 
for candidates before the primary 
season begins with the Iowa 
caucuses Feb. 17. 

The debate will be videotaped and 
sent, along with a transcript of the 
proceedings, to all affiliated unions 
and state and local central bodies for 
use in membership and COPE 
meetings. 


In addition to the debate, the Ex- 
ecutive Council approved voluntary 
guidelines for the presidential pro- 
cess designed to keep labor unified, 
calling on affiliated unions to refrain 
from public endorsements of any 
presidential candidates before the 
AFL-CIO convention. 

The guidelines, similar to those 
adopted in 1987, provide that union 
officers and staff should not join can- 
didate committees or solicit funds 
from union members on behalf of 
presidential candidates. 

But it does allow for unions to 
make “start-up” contributions, on 
which the legal limit is $5,000, to 
candidates that unions feel should be 
in the race. 


Otherwise, unions are encouraged 
to extend normal courtesies to all the 
candidates as long as those candi- 
dates are not endorsed. 

In the past, delegates to the AFL- 
CIO convention have endorsed a 
presidential candidate, as they did 
with Walter Mondale in 1983, or 
adopted a procedure for later con- 
sideration of endorsement, as hap- 
pened with Michael Dukakis in 
1988. 

The council also heard a report on 
the upcoming special Senate election 
in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Harris 
Wofford, who was appointed to the 
seat on the death of Sen. John Heinz, 
will probably be running against At- 
torney General Richard Thornburgh. 


By Michael Byrne 
Chicago 

L abor’s grass-roots campaign that con- 
vinced House members to over- 
whelmingly pass legislation to ban 
“permanent replacements” for strikers 
is being re-energized to perform the 
same feat in the Senate, where the pro- 
cedural rules tend to frustrate the will 
of the majority. 

At a news conference during the Ex- 
ecutive Council meeting, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland said, “it is not 
a matter of a simple majority in the 
Senate,” and S. 55 may have to muster 
60 votes to end an expected filibuster 
by opponents. 

Kirkland said the federation, in con- 
sultation with the Democratic leader- 
ship, will carefully gauge the timing for 
a vote in the Senate that will maximize 
the chances for passage. Meanwhile, 
labor again will marshal its forces at the 
grass roots, he said. 

“The main thrust of our efforts will 
be to make sure that members of the 
Senate hear from their constituents in 
the states that they represent in 
Washington,” Kirkland said. 

The success of that wide-ranging 
strategy was evident in the House, 
which passed H.R. 5 by a comfortable 
247-182 margin. 

A multi-media advertising campaign, 
coupled with a massive outpouring of 
postcards, mailgrams and telephone 


calls to House members, swayed more 
than half of the lawmakers who were 
originally uncomitted, said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. 

The final vote, better than labor vote- 
counters had expected, could have been 
even higher if four supporters had not 
been absent with illnesses, he said. 

The Senate bill has 33 co-sponsors 
and McGlotten predicted that labor can 
find more than the 5 1 votes needed for 
passage. But the federation will have to 


pull out all the stops to muster the 
necessary 60 votes to force cloture on 
a filibuster, he said. 

Even more votes, a two-thirds ma- 
jority in both the Senate and the House, 
would be needed to override a presiden- 
tial veto, which has been threatened by 
White House officials. 

But Kirkland dismissed that threat. 

“Our immediate goal is to force 
cloture and to put it on the president’s 
desk,” he said. “If he vetoes it, he’ll 
have to answer to the millions of union 


members who have rallied to this cam- 
paign.” 

Indeed, Executive Council members 
noted that striker replacement has 
mobilized union members and galva- 
nized the labor movement like few other 
issues in recent years. 

“This issue has really done some- 
thing for our membership,” said 
Machinists President George Kourpias. 
“We need to make clear to these poli- 
ticians that the issue will follow them 
all the way to Election Day.” 


Roll call: House votes 247-182 to ban strikebreakers 


Following is the vote by House members, 
by district, on H.R. 5, the Workplace Fair- 
ness Bill, which passed 247-182. (Key: R — 
voted right; W — voted wrong; A — absent, 
did not vote or make position known.) 


ALABAMA 

1 CALLAHAN (R) W 

2 DICKINSON (R) W 

3 BROWDER (D) R 

4 BEVILL (D) R 

5 CRAMER (D) R 

6 ERDREICH (D) R 

7 HARRIS (D) R 

ALASKA 

I YOUNG, DON (R) R 

ARIZONA 

1 RHODES, III (R) W 

2 VACANT 

3 STUMP (R) W 

4 KYL (R) W 

5 KOLBE (R) W 

ARKANSAS 

1 ALEXANDER (D) R 

2 THORNTON (D) R 

3 HAMMERSCHMIDT (R) W 

4 ANTHONY (D) W 

CALIFORNIA 

1 RIGGS (R) W 

2 HERGER (R) W 

3 MATSUI (D) A 

4 FAZIO (D) R 

5 PELOSI(D) R 

6 BOXER (D) R 

7 MILLER, G. (D) R 

8 DELLUMS (D) R 

9 STARK (D) R 

10 EDWARDS, DON (D) R 

I I LANTOS (D) R 

12 CAMPBELL, TOM (R) W 

13 MINETA (D) R 

14 DOOLITTLE (R) W 

15 CONDIT (D) R 

16 PANETTA (D) R 

17 DOOLEY (D) R 

18 LEHMAN, R. (D) R 

19 LAGOMARSINO (R) W 

20 THOMAS, W. (R) W 

21 GALLEGLY (R) W 

22 MOORHEAD (R) W 

23 BEILENSON (D) R 

24 WAXMAN (D) R 

25 ROYBAL (D) R 

26 BERMAN (D) R 

27 LEVINE, MEL (D) R 

28 DIXON, JULIAN (D) R 

29 WATERS (D) R 

30 MARTINEZ (D) R 

31 DYMALLY, M. (D) R 

32 ANDERSON (D) R 

33 DREIER, DAVID (R) W 

34 TORRES (D) R 

35 LEWIS, JERRY (R) W 

36 BROWN, GEORGE (D) R 

37 MCCANDLESS (R) W 

38 DORNAN, R. (R) W 

39 DANNEMEYER (R) W 

40 COX, C. (R) W 

41 LOWERY, BILL (R) W 

42 ROHRABACHER (R) W 

43 PACKARD (R) W 

44 CUNNINGHAM (R) W 

45 HUNTER (R) W 


COLORADO 

1 SCHROEDER (D) R 

2 SKAGGS (D) R 

3 CAMPBELL, BEN (D) R 

4 ALLARD (R) W 

5 HEFLEY (R) W 

6 SCHAEFER (R) W 

CONNECTICUT 

1 KENNELLY (D) R 

2 GEJDENSON (D) R 

3 DELAURO (D) R 

4 SHAYS (R) W 

5 FRANKS, GARY (R) W 

6 JOHNSON, NANCY (R) W 

DELAWARE 

1 CARPER (D) R 

FLORIDA 

1 HUTTO (D) W 

2 PETERSON, PETE (D) R 

3 BENNETT (D) R 

4 JAMES (R) W 

5 MCCOLLUM (R) W 

6 STEARNS (R) W 

7 GIBBONS (D) W 

8 YOUNG, BILL (R) W 

9 BILIRAKIS (R) W 

10 IRELAND (R) W 

1 1 BACCHUS (D) R 

12 LEWIS, TOM (R) W 

13 GOSS (R) W 

14 JOHNSTON, H. (D) R 

15 SHAW (R) W 

16 SMITH, L. (D) R 

17 LEHMAN, W. (D) R 

18 ROS-LEHTINEN (R) W 

19 FASCELL (D) R 

GEORGIA 

1 THOMAS, L. (D) W 

2 HATCHER (D) W 

3 RAY (D) W 

4 JONES, BEN (D) R 

5 LEWIS, JOHN (D) R 

6 GINGRICH (R) W 

7 DARDEN (D) R 

8 ROWLAND, ROY (D) W 

9 JENKINS (D) W 

10 BARNARD (D) W 

HAWAII 

1 ABERCROMBIE (D) R 

2 MINK (D) R 

IDAHO 

1 LAROCCO (D) R 

2 STALLINGS (D) R 

ILLINOIS 

1 HAYES, C. A. (D) R 

2 SAVAGE (D) R 

3 RUSSO (D) R 

4 SANGMEISTER (D) R 

5 LIPINSKI (D) R 

6 HYDE (R) W 

7 COLLINS, C. (D) R 

8 ROSTENKOWSKI (D) R 

9 YATES (D) R 

10 PORTER (R) W 


1 1 ANNUNZIO (D) R 

12 CRANE (R) W 

13 FAWELL (R) W 

14 HASTERT (R) W 

15 EWING (R) W 

16 COX, JOHN (D) R 

17 EVANS, LANE (D) R 

18 MICHEL (R) A 

19 BRUCE (D) R 

20 DURBIN (D) R 

21 COSTELLO (D) R 

22 POSHARD (D) R 

INDIANA 

1 VISCLOSKY (D) R 

2 SHARP (D) R 

3 ROEMER (D) R 

4 LONG (D) R 

5 JONTZ (D) R 

6 BURTON (R) W 

7 MYERS (R) W 

8 MCCLOSKEY (D) R 

9 HAMILTON (D) R 

10 JACOBS (D) R 

IOWA 

1 LEACH, JAMES (R) W 

2 NUSSLE (R) W 

3 NAGLE (D) R 

4 SMITH, NEAL (D) R 

5 LIGHTFOOT (R) W 

6 GRANDY (R) W 

KANSAS 

1 ROBERTS, PAT (R) W 

2 SLATTERY (D) R 

3 MEYERS (R) W 

4 GLICKMAN (D) R 

5 NICHOLS (R) W 

KENTUCKY 

1 HUBBARD (D) R 

2 NATCHER (D) R 

3 MAZZOLI (D) R 

4 BUNNING (R) W 

5 ROGERS (R) W 

6 HOPKINS (R) W 

7 PERKINS (D) R 

LOUISIANA 

1 LIVINGSTON (R) W 

2 JEFFERSON (D) R 

3 TAUZIN (D) W 

4 MCCRERY (R) W 

5 HUCKABY (D) W 

6 BAKER (R) W 

7 HAYES. J. A. (D) R 

8 HOLLOWAY (R) W 

MAINE 

1 ANDREWS. T. (D) R 

2 SNOWE (R) W 

MARYLAND 

1 GILCHREST (R) W 

2 BENTLEY (R) R 

3 CARDIN (D) R 

4 MCMILLEN, TOM (D) R 

5 HOYER (D) R 

6 BYRON (D) R 

7 MFUME (D) R 

8 MORELLA (R) W 

MASSACHUSETTS 

1 OLVER (D) R 

2 NEAL, RICHARD (D) R 

3 EARLY (D) R 


4 FRANK, BARNEY (D) R 

5 ATKINS (D) R 

6 MAVROULES (D) R 

7 MARKEY (D) R 

8 KENNEDY, J. (D) R 

9 MOAKLEY (D) R 

10 STUDDS (D) R 

1 1 DONNELLY (D) R 

MICHIGAN 

1 CONYERS (D) R 

2 PURSELL (R) W 

3 WOLPE (D) R 

4 UPTON (R) W 

5 HENRY (R) W 

6 CARR (D) R 

7 KILDEE (D) R 

8 TRAXLER (D) R 

9 VANDER JAGT (R) W 

10 CAMP (R) W 

1 1 DAVIS, ROBERT (R) R 

12 BONIOR (D) R 

13 COLLINS, B. (D) R 

14 HERTEL (D) R 

15 FORD. WILLIAM (D) R 

16 DINGELL (D) R 

17 LEVIN, SANDER (D) R 

18 BROOMFIELD (R) W 

MINNESOTA 

1 PENNY (D) R 

2 WEBER (R) W 

3 RAMSTAD (R) W 

4 VENTO (D) R 

5 SABO (D) R 

6 SIKORSKI (D) R 

7 PETERSON, C. (D) R 

8 OBERSTAR (D) R 

MISSISSIPPI 

1 WHITTEN (D) W 

2 ESPY (D) R 

3 MONTGOMERY (D) W 

4 PARKER (D) R 

5 TAYLOR, GENE (D) W 

MISSOURI 

1 CLAY (D) R 

2 HORN (D) R 

3 GEPHARDT (D) R 

4 SKELTON (D) R 

5 WHEAT (D) R 

6 COLEMAN, T. (R) W 

7 HANCOCK (R) W 

8 EMERSON (R) W 

9 VOLKMER (D) R 

MONTANA 

1 WILLIAMS, PAT (D) R 

2 MARLENEE (R) W 

NEBRASKA 

1 BEREUTER (R) W 

2 HOAGLAND (D) R 

3 BARRETT (R) W 

NEVADA 

1 BILBRAY (D) R 

2 VUCANOVICH (R) W 

NEW HAMPSHIRE 

1 ZELIFF (R) W 

2 SWETT (D) R 

NEW JERSEY 

1 ANDREWS. R. (D) R 

2 HUGHES (D) R 

3 PALLONE (D) R 


4 SMITH, C. (R) R 

5 ROUKEMA (R) W 

6 DWYER (D) R 

7 RINALDO (R) R 

8 ROE (D) R 

9 TORRICELLI (D) R 

10 PAYNE, D. (D) R 

1 1 GALLO (R) W 

12 ZIMMER (R) W 

13 SAXTON (R) W 

14 GUARINI (D) R 

NEW MEXICO 

1 SCHIFF (R) W 

2 SKEEN (R) W 

3 RICHARDSON (D) R 

NEW YORK 

1 HOCHBRUECKNER (D) R 

2 DOWNEY, T. (D) R 

3 MRAZEK (D) R 

4 LENT (R) W 

5 MCGRATH (R) R 

6 FLAKE (D) R 

7 ACKERMAN (D) R 

8 SCHEUER (D) R 

9 MANTON (D) R 

10 SCHUMER (D) R 

1 1 TOWNS (D) R 

12 OWENS, MAJOR (D) R 

13 SOLARZ (D) R 

14 MOLINARI, S. (R) W 

15 GREEN (R) R 

16 RANGEL, C. (D) R 

17 WEISS (D) A 

18 SERRANO (D) R 

19 ENGEL (D) R 

20 LOWEY, NITA (D) R 

21 FISH (R) R 

22 GILMAN (R) R 

23 MCNULTY (D) R 

24 SOLOMON (R) R 

25 BOEHLERT (R) R 

26 MARTIN, DAVID (R) W 

27 WALSH (R) W 

28 MCHUGH (D) R 

29 HORTON (R) R 

30 SLAUGHTER, L. (D) R 

31 PAXON (R) W 

32 LAFALCE (D) R 

33 NOWAK (D) R 

34 HOUGHTON (R) W 

NORTH CAROLINA 

1 JONES, WALTER (D) R 

2 VALENTINE (D) W 

3 LANCASTER (D) W 

4 PRICE, DAVID (D) R 

5 NEAL, STEPHEN (D) W 

6 COBLE (R) W 

7 ROSE (D) R 

8 HEFNER (D) R 

9 MCMILLAN, ALEX (R) W 

10 BALLENGER (R) W 

11 TAYLOR, CHARLES (R) W 


NORTH DAKOTA 
1 DORGAN, BYRON (D) R 


OHIO 

1 LUKEN. CHARLES (D) R 


2 GRADISON (R) W 

3 HALL, TONY (D) R 

4 OXLEY (R) W 

5 GILLMOR (R) W 

6 MCEWEN (R) W 

7 HOBSON (R) W 

8 BOEHNER (R) W 


9 KAPTUR (D) R 

10 MILLER, C. (R) W 

1 1 ECKART (D) R 

12 KASICH (R) W 

13 PEASE (D) R 

14 SAWYER (D) R 

15 WYLIE (R) W 

16 REGULA (R) R 

17 TRAFICANT (D) R 

18 APPLEGATE (D) R 

19 FEIGHAN (D) R 

20 OAKAR (D) R 

21 STOKES (D) R 

OKLAHOMA 

1 INHOFE (R) W 

2 SYNAR (D) R 

3 BREWSTER (D) W 

4 MCCURDY (D) W 

5 EDWARDS, M. (R) W 

6 ENGLISH (D) W 

OREGON 

1 AUCOIN (D) R 

2 SMITH, R. F. (R) W 

3 WYDEN (D) R 

4 DE FAZIO (D) R 

5 KOPETSKI (D) R 

PENNSYLVANIA 

1 FOGLIETTA (D) R 

2 GRAY, WILLIAM (D) R 

3 BORSKI (D) R 

4 KOLTER (D) R 

5 SCHULZE (R) W 

6 YATRON (D) A 

7 WELDON (R) R 

8 KOSTMAYER (D) R 

9 SHUSTER (R) W 

10 MCDADE (R) R 

1 1 KANJORSKI (D) R 

12 MURTHA (D) R 

13 COUGHLIN (R) W 

14 COYNE, W. (D) R 

15 RITTER (R) W 

16 WALKER (R) W 

17 GEKAS (R) W 

18 SANTORUM (R) R 

19 GOODLING (R) W 

20 GAYDOS (D) R 

21 RIDGE (R) W 

22 MURPHY (D) R 

23 CLINGER (R) W 

RHODE ISLAND 

1 MACHTLEY (R) W 

2 REED (D) R 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

1 RAVENEL (R) W 

2 SPENCE (R) W 

3 DERRICK (D) W 

4 PATTERSON (D) W 

5 SPRATT (D) W 

6 TALLON (D) W 

SOUTH DAKOTA 
1 JOHNSON, T. P. (D) R 

TENNESSEE 

1 QUILLEN (R) W 

2 DUNCAN. JR. (R) W 

3 LLOYD (D) R 

4 COOPER (D) W 

5 CLEMENT (D) R 

6 GORDON (D) R 

7 SUNDQUIST (R) W 

8 TANNER (D) R 

9 FORD, HAROLD (D) R 


TEXAS 

1 CHAPMAN (D) R 

2 WILSON, C. (D) R 

3 JOHNSON, SAM (R) W 

4 HALL, RALPH (D) W 

5 BRYANT, JOHN (D) R 

6 BARTON (R) W 

7 ARCHER (R) W 

8 FIELDS (R) W 

9 BROOKS (D) R 

10 PICKLE (D) W 

1 1 EDWARDS, CHET (D) R 

12 GEREN (D) W 

13 SARPALIUS (D) R 

14 LAUGHLIN (D) R 

15 DE LA GARZA (D) R 

16 COLEMAN, R. (D) R 

17 STENHOLM (D) W 

18 WASHINGTON (D) R 

19 COMBEST (R) W 

20 GONZALEZ (D) R 

21 SMITH, LAMAR (R) W 

22 DELAY (R) W 

23 BUSTAMANTE (D) R 

24 FROST (D) R 

25 ANDREWS, MIKE (D) R 

26 ARMEY (R) W 

27 ORTIZ (D) W 

UTAH 

1 HANSEN (R) W 

2 OWENS, WAYNE (D) R 

3 ORTON (D) R 

VERMONT 

1 SANDERS (I) R 

VIRGINIA 

1 BATEMAN (R) W 

2 PICKETT (D) W 

3 BLILEY (R) W 

4 SISISKY (D) W 

5 PAYNE, LEWIS (D) W 

6 OLIN (D) R 

7 SLAUGHTER, D.F. (R) W 

8 MORAN (D) R 

9 BOUCHER (D) R 

10 WOLF (R) W 

WASHINGTON 

1 MILLER, JOHN (R) W 

2 SWIFT (D) R 

3 UNSOELD (D) R 

4 MORRISON, SID (R) W 

5 FOLEY (D) R 

6 DICKS (D) R 

7 MCDERMOTT (D) R 

8 CHANDLER (R) W 

WEST VIRGINIA 

1 MOLLOHAN (D) R 

2 STAGGERS (D) R 

3 WISE (D) R 

4 RAHALL (D) R 

WISCONSIN 

1 ASPIN (D) R 

2 KLUG (R) W 

3 GUNDERSON (R) W 

4 KLECZKA (D) A 

5 MOODY (D) R 

6 PETRI (R) W 

7 OBEY (D) R 

8 ROTH, TOBY (R) W 

9 SENSENBRENNER (R) W 


WYOMING 

1 THOMAS, CRAIG (R) W 





Council calls for funding of children’s programs 



AFL-CIO News/Steve Yarmola 

NAACP Director Benjamin Hooks discusses the poor quali- Presidents Owen Bieber and Jack Skeinkman, 
ty of Bush judicial appointments with the AFL-CIO Ex- Secretary-Treasurer Thomas Donahue, Hooks, President 
ecutive Council. Shown, left to right, are AFL-CIO Vice Lane Kirkland and Vice President Susan Bianchi-Sand. 


Continued from Page 1 

tion to bolster programs that assist 
families and children and urged the 
federal government to reassume its 
responsibilities to states and localities 
now struggling to maintain public serv- 
ices in the face of funding deficits. 

The council also heard from Dr. 
Benjamin Hooks, executive director of 
the NAACP, and Jim Hightower, 
former Texas agriculture secretary who 
is developing a radio program to air this 
fall that will give a national voice to 
working people. 

Hooks did not discuss the Thomas 
nomination with the AFL-CIO since the 
executive council of the NAACP would 
meet the next day, when it also voted 
to oppose Thomas. But Hooks did 
criticize the progression of poor and 
mediocre candidates nominated by the 
Bush and Reagan administrations for 
federal courts. 

“If they can’t find any better judges, 
maybe they should just leave the seats 
vacant,’’ he said. “I think we would be 
better served to just keep piling up the 
vacancies.” 

Besides the NAACP, other labor and 
civil rights groups that have announced 
their opposition to the Thomas nomina- 
tion include AFSCME, Service Em- 
ployees, Coalition of Black Trade 
Unionists, Labor Council for Latin 
American Development, Congressional 
Black Caucus, People For the American 
Way, American Association of Univer- 
sity Women, and Women’s Legal 
Defense Fund. 

The AFL-CIO background paper on 
Thomas compared his flimsy judicial 
record with the work of Marshall, a 
legal giant who, as lead counsel for the 
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, argued 
scores of cases including the landmark 
Brown vs. Board of Education. 

In stark contrast to Marshall’s serv- 
ice, Thomas, as an EEOC chair who 
opposed affirmative action to remedy 
discrimination against minorities and 
women, “has demonstrated an insen- 
sitivity that should disqualify him from 
serving on the Supreme Court,” the 
paper stated. 

Perhaps even more troubling is that 
“he has consistently argued that various 
government policies to mediate between 
the individual and market results — or 
otherwise to seek a fairer distribution 
of society’s burdens and advantages — 
are antithetical to freedom.” 

In his writings, Thomas rails against 
Franklin Roosevelt and “his latter-day 
political heirs” for their belief in a 
government role in attacking social and 
economic problems. He warns that 
those who advocate “income redistribu- 
tion, compensatory job training, com- 


pensatory medical services, special 
schooling and the like” would “put us 
on the road to serfdom. 

“The trade union movement, in con- 
trast, holds firm to the conviction that 
government is not the enemy, and that 
the ultimate measure of a government’s 
worth is its efforts to create a humane 
and just society for all its citizens,” the 
AFL-CIO said. 

The failure of government to meet its 
obligations’ was very much on the mind 
of the Executive Council, which called 
on Congress and the Bush administra- 
tion to help meet the needs of children 
and to provide funding for social pro- 
grams transferred to hard-pressed state 
and local governments. 

“More than 20 percent of America’s 
children live in poverty,” the council 
said. “Children represent one-third of 
those without health care coverage. 
Such conditions are inexcusable for one 
of the richest economies in the world. ” 

The federation pledged to support 
reforms called for by the National Com- 
mission on Children, including health 
care, education, prenatal care, reliable 
day care, family leave and programs 
that meet the needs of the growing 
number of single-parent families. 

While many states have responded to 
financial pinches by drastically cutting 
programs and services, and the jobs of 
workers who provide those services, 


business interests have exploited the 
budget crises by pushing for reductions 
in workers’ compensation programs as 
a price for accepting tax increases. 

“State budgets must not be balanced 
on the backs of public employees or in- 
jured workers,” the AFL-CIO said. 

In other action, the council: 

• Urged Congress to enact legisla- 
tion to reverse the Supreme Court rul- 
ing in Rust vs. Sullivan that allows the 
government to prohibit health care pro- 
fessionals in public clinics from inform- 
ing and counseling patients about legal 
medical options such as abortion. 

“A patient whose visit to a physician 
is financed by the government should 
receive the same medical information 
and advice as a patient whose visit is 
financed by insurance or self-pay- 
ment,” the council said. 

• Expanded the associate member- 
ship program in Los Angeles, where the 
California Immigrant Workers Associa- 
tion among Hispanics has been highly 
successful. As the CIWA associate 
member benefit programs have become 
more popular, widening the structure to 
workers outside the Hispanic neighbor- 
hoods will assist in organizing drives 
and first-contract negotiations, said 
Service Employees President John J. 
Sweeney, chair of the organizing 
committee. 

CIWA’s contributions since it was 


established in May 1987 have been con- 
siderable, Sweeney said. The organiza- 
tion has helped at least 20 local unions 
identify new organizing leads and to 
win elections and first-contract battles 
where the workforce is predominantly 
Latino. “In June alone, CIWA suc- 
ceeded in bringing in 1,000 new 
members largely through the efforts of 
existing CIWA members who partici- 
pate in a volunteer recruitment cam- 
paign,” Sweeney said. 

• Approved the merger of the 
Machinists and Pattern Makers, which 
will become a division of the I AM. The 
president of the 7,000-member Pattern 
Makers becomes an administrative 
assistant to IAM President George 
Kourpias and the three full-time vice 
presidents will serve as Machinists 
representatives. The merger leaves the 
AFL-CIO with 89 affiliates. 

• Heard a report on the upsurge of 
racket papers, which have been prey- 
ing on union locals around the country. 
Rex Hardesty, director of the AFL-CIO 
information department, told the coun- 
cil of wider efforts to warn unsuspect- 
ing labor bodies not to get involved with 
phony operations that prey on adver- 
tisers for ad-filled, highly profitable 
newspapers and “directories.” 

• Approved the appointment of 
Homer C. LaRue as Article XX 
mediator. 


AT&T maternity leave settlement hailed as breakthrough 


M ore than 13,000 women who 
worked for AT&T could begin 
receiving checks in about two years as 
part of a $66 million settlement of a 
pregnancy discrimination case. 

“At a time when high-level govern- 
ment support for the rights of women 
and minorities is waning, this settlement 
sends a clear message to corporate 
America that discrimination is definitely 
not profitable,” said Communications 
Workers President Morton Bahr. The 
CWA was a plaintiff in the class-action 
suit. 

The settlement is the largest cash set- 
tlement in the history of the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission, 
which heard the case. Under the settle- 
ment, AT&T will pay $66 million plus 
accrued interest until the funds are paid 


to successful claimants. The commis- 
sion expects to mail the first checks in 
1993 to women whose claims are ap- 
proved. 

The suit began in 1978 over mater- 
nity policies at AT&T’s Western Elec- 
tric subsidiary. Western Electric be- 
came AT&T Technologies in 1984 after 
the AT&T divestiture and was merged 
with AT&T last year. 

Western Electric required women to 
take unpaid maternity leave six or seven 
months into their pregnancy. It allowed 
them only 30 days’ credit toward their 
seniority while other employees on dis- 
ability leave received full credit. The 
company also did not guarantee that the 
pregnant employee’s job would be held. 

Mildred Leisure, the suit’s first plain- 
tiff, was forced to take unpaid mater- 


nity leave in 1972 when she began suf- 
fering from morning sickness after two 
months of pregnancy. She tried to 
return to her job in the wiring depart- 
ment of the company’s now-defunct 
Cicero, 111., plant, but was refused. She 
was not recalled until 1977, losing five 
years of seniority. She was laid off for 
the last time in 1985. 

Under the settlement, Leisure and 
other women who lost their jobs are 
guaranteed up to three years pay plus 
interest. For those who got their jobs 
back, but at a lower wage, the settle- 
ment will allow them the difference in 
pay plus interest. 

EEOC Chairman Evan J. Kemp Jr. 
said that, although AT&T has elimi- 
nated the illegal practices, “there are 
still employers who discriminate against 


pregnant women. These employers 
should pay close attention to this settle- 
ment.” 

Bahr said the settlement shows the 
need for a new civil rights bill to pro- 
tect workers’ rights. “As we celebrate 
with the women who will directly bene- 
fit from this settlement, we must think 
of the millions who are not so fortunate, 
who experience discrimination past and 
present and feel they have no recourse. 
For those people, we must fight for 
passage into law of the 1991 civil rights 
bill,” he said. 

“More than anything else,” Bahr 
added, “this settlement calls on women 
and minorities who experience discrim- 
ination to speak up, fight back, and be 
ever vigilant in demanding their 
rights.” 




UNION NEWS 


Utility Workers select 
Hicks to succeed Joy 



Utility Workers Photo 

Retiring Utility Workers President James Joy, right, raises the hand of his 
successor, Marshall Hicks, who served 20 years as secretary-treasurer. 


T he Utility Workers convention 
elected by acclamation new top of- 
ficers, naming Marshall Hicks as presi- 
dent to succeed James Joy Jr., who 
became president emeritus. Joy’s retire- 
ment concluded a 42-year labor career. 
He spent the last ten years in his union’s 
top post. 

Hicks, 59, has been the union’s 
secretary-treasurer for the past 20 
years. He served 10 years as a local 
union president before becoming vice 
president and later president of the 
Michigan State Utility Workers Coun- 
cil. Hicks was also a regional director 
for the union and president of the 
Jackson County, Mich., AFL-CIO, 
before being elected to the secretary- 
treasurer post. 

Francis Owens was re-elected to his 
third term as executive vice president; 
Donald E. Wightman, president of 
Boston Local 369 was elected vice 
president; and John M. Walsh, presi- 
dent of New York Local 1-2, was 
chosen as secretary-treasurer. 

Underscoring the need for organiz- 
ing, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 


Thomas R. Donahue pointed out the 
difficulties of negotiating for better 
wages and benefits while locked in a 
system where unions represent a small 
percentage of the workforce. “If we are 
going to continue to drive wages in this 
country, if we are going to be the stan- 
dard setters for the nation, then this 
trade union movement has to grow. We 
need not to be 14 million, but 28 million 
members.” 

Donahue said unions need to reach 
out, further involve their members in 
the organization and get them politically 
active in order to make the trade union 
movement stronger and the nation a bet- 
ter place to live. 

The convention reaffirmed the 
union’s commitment to organizing, 
adopting a resolution requiring the ex- 
ecutive committee to evaluate current 
organizing opportunities and expend 
“significant financial and human 
resources to the task of organizing.” 

The delegates also called for a na- 
tional energy policy that would en- 
courage utility companies to build 
generating plants in the United States, 


rather than look to the importation of 
electrical energy from neighboring na- 
tions. Such a policy should recognize 
the advantage of nuclear power in the 
mix of generating technologies and en- 
courage generating processes that do 
not rely on foreign supplies for raw 
materials. 

In another key resolution, the conven- 
tion called for a national strategy to 


make America energy independent, ex- 
pressed its opposition to attempts to 
reform the Public Utility Holding Com- 
pany Act of 1935. 

Convention delegates also backed ef- 
forts to gain legislation on a “perma- 
nent replacement” ban, family and 
medical leave, health care reform, civil 
rights, and reform of the Occupational 
Safety and Health Act. 


AFT calls for national learning goals 


T eachers can counter efforts to 
privatize the nation’s public educa- 
tion system by developing a proposal 
“the public can support,” Teachers 
President Albert Shanker told more than 
3,000 teachers and education profes- 
sionals attending the AFT’s Quality 
Educational Standards in Teaching 
(QUEST) conference in Washington. 

Shanker warned that the movement 
toward private school choice is grow- 
ing despite test results that show “in 
American education, private schools do 
no better than public schools.” 

Real improvement will come only 
when schools are restructured to allow 
students to learn in a variety of ways, 
and when children’s needs — including 
health care, nutrition and shelter — are 
met, he said. 

Simply raising academic standards is 


not enough, because “just raising the 
hurdle doesn’t mean kids will be able 
to jump it” if their basic needs are not 
met, Shanker said. 

Shanker called for establishment of 
national goals for learning and perform- 
ance, noting that the United States is 
the only industrialized country that 
separates student accomplishment from 
college admission and employment op- 
portunities. 

Participants discussed ways that 
teams of teachers, para-professionals, 
administrators, parents and others can 
reshape schools and the learning proc- 
ess. This was the first year in more than 
20 conferences that education profes- 
sionals other than teachers were invited 
to attend. 

The conference was organized 
around workshops that covered the pro- 


fessionalization of teaching; school -to- 
work transition; services for children 
that support learning; challenges to 
public education; strategies for active 
learning; and teacher concerns about 
school violence, drug-exposed children 
and bilingual and AIDS education. 

Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, chair- 
man of the National Education Goals 
Panel, called for a stable funding base 
for kindergarten through high school 
education; the development of standards 
that demonstrate the importance of 
education; and changes in school 
management to give teachers a “more 
effective say about what happens in that 
school site.” 

Other speakers included Education 
Secretary Lamar Alexander and Ira 
Magaziner, who chairs the “America’s 
Choice” commission on education. 



AFT Photo 


Teachers President Al Shanker outlines 
proposals to counter the growing 
campaign to “privatize" public 
schools. 


AFTRA convention approves massive restructuring 


T he Television and Radio Artists’ con- 
vention approved a massive restruc- 
turing of the union’s government, ad- 
ministration and finances, the first such 
fundamental reorganization in the 
union’s 54-year history. 

“The purpose of these far-reaching 
changes is to strengthen our union and 
expand the services that national 
AFTRA provides to its locals and their 
members,” said AFTRA President 
Reed Farrell. 

The restructuring calls for creating 
new executive staff positions to oversee 
specific contract areas and organiza- 
tional functions; streamlining the 
union’s governance, including creation 
of an administrative committee; com- 
bining economically or organizationally 
dependent locals; and implementing 
fiscal changes to provide about $1.2 
million in additional annual revenue. 
Of particular importance, union of- 


ficials said, is the creation of a special 
committee and department to identify 
and respond to the needs of members 
who work as broadcast station staff. 

On finances, AFTRA eliminated all 
temporary and additional payments 
from locals in favor of a single per 
capita tax and a minimum initiation fee. 
Eventually, the national dues will 
become independent of local dues. 

Former AFTRA President Bill Hill- 
man, chairman of the Health and 
Welfare Trustees, reported that the 
$700-million AFTRA Retirement Plan 
is in excellent shape and the union’s 
health plan isn’t. “Barring government 
intervention, we will be paying 86 per- 
cent more for our health benefits in 
1994 than we paid for them last year, ’ ’ 
he said. To avoid cutting benefits, 
AFTRA members will pay $50 a month 
for dependent coverage, beginning 
Jan. 1, 1992, and $75 a month a year 


later, payable in quarterly installments. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the convention that “with 37 
million of our fellow citizens lacking 
any health insurance at all . . . the old 
scare words such as ‘socialized medi- 
cine,’ ‘rationed care,’ and ‘waiting 
lines’ will no longer deter an equitable 
solution . . .It’s obvious we already have 
the worst kind of health care rationing 
in place — those who can afford 
medical coverage get the rationing 
cards.” 

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) 
stressed the need for every American 
to have access to health care. “The 
President of the United States has the 
finest health care available, and it is 
free, and he should have it,” Kennedy 
declared, “but it is absolute hypocrisy 
for any elected official to utilize the free 
facilities of Walter Reed Hospital or 
Bethesda (Naval Hospital) for ourselves 


and our families, and then declare that 
this nation cannot provide health care 
for the rest of our citizens.” 

Convention delegates also unani- 
mously re-elected Farrell, a Chicago 
actor-announcer, to his second two-year 
term as president. News broadcaster 
Shelby Scott, president of the Boston 
local, and actor-announcer Denny Dalk, 
president of the San Francisco local, 
were elected first and second vice 
presidents, respectively. 

Elected as vice presidents were: Nik 
Hagler, Houston; Mike James, Seattle; 
and Marion Guyot, Atlanta. Lillian 
Clark of New York was elected treas- 
urer. Re-elected as vice presidents 
were: Marvin Kaplan of Los Angeles; 
Belva Davis of San Francisco; Lois 
Davis of New York; and Bob Edwards 
of Washington/Baltimore. Fred Ander- 
son of Los Angeles was returned as 
recording secretary. 




AFL-CIO, 30 unions seek emergency ergonomic rule 


By Arlee C. Green 

T he AFL-CIO and 30 affiliates jointly 
petitioned the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration for an 
emergency standard to protect workers 
from crippling injuries caused by 
repetitive motions, injuries that have in- 
creased nearly five-fold in the past 
decade and have the potential to afflict 
more than half the nation’s work force. 

The petition explains that the alarm- 
ing increase in such injuries has come 
about from very substantial changes in 
the work place “created by new tech- 
nology, such as video display terminals, 
increased pace, and the breaking down 
of jobs into smaller, more repetitive 
tasks.” Cumulative trauma disorders 
cause damage, which can become per- 
manent, to the hands, wrists or 
forearms, neck and back. 

The unions also requested OSHA to 
promulgate a permanent standard 
within six months after issuing a tem- 
porary rule, noting that “at the pace 
OSHA is proceeding, a permanent stan- 


dard on ergonomic hazards will not be 
issued for at least five to seven years. ’ ’ 

During this time, hundreds of thous- 
ands of workers will suffer from pain- 
ful repetitive motion injuries and the 
businesses will have to foot the bill for 
the delay. OSHA has estimated that 
back injuries alone cost businesses $16 
billion a year. Carpal tunnel syndrome 
injures 23,000 workers a year, costing 
$690 million if surgery is needed. 

In seeking an emergency temporary 
standard, the unions said such a 
measure should cover a wide range of 
musculoskeletal disorders and require 
employers to implement a comprehen- 
sive ergonomic program. 

In a cover letter to Labor Secretary 
Lynn Martin, Food and Commercial 
Workers President William H. Wynn 
stressed the magnitude of such injuries 
on the nation’s work force and said, 
“The solutions to these problems are at 
hand, but the tools of enforcement are 
not. It is clear that an emergency tem- 
porary standard is necessary to stem the 


rising tide of these painful disorders.” 

The petition detailed the areas that 
should be addressed in any such rule, 
including hazard identification, job 
analysis, evaluation of new equipment 
and processes, hazard prevention 
through engineering and work organi- 
zation controls, job-specific training, 
general education on repetitive motion 
injuries, joint safety committees, 
record-keeping and worker protection 
language, and work control provisions 
for video display terminal users. 

The unions stressed that cumulative 
trauma disorders are now the leading 
cause of reported occupational injury in 
the nation. Workers with such injuries 
suffer pain, loss of functional capacity, 
and in many cases permanent disabili- 
ty. The number of reported cases doubl- 
ed in the past two years, the unions said, 
noting “the magnitude of this increase 
in unprecedented in the agency’s 
history.” 

Underscoring that increase, the 
unions pointed to data from the National 


Institute for Occupational Safety and 
Health shows cumulative trauma 
disorders afflict 40 percent of 
newspaper employees, 41 percent of 
meatpackers, 50 percent of grocery 
cashiers, 20 percent of poultry workers 
and 20-30 percent of specialty glass 
workers. 

Some 40 million workers now use 
VDTs on the job resulting in a stagger- 
ing increase in injuries. A Communica- 
tions Workers’ survey of 12,000 mem- 
bers in 1989 found 63 percent of the in- 
tensive VDT users reporting symptoms 
of cumulative trauma disorders. 
Medically diagnosed injuries such as 
tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome 
occurred at rates of 14-18 percent and 
4-6 percent respectively. 

In the past, all but one of the 
emergency standards OSHA has issued 
were thrown out by the courts because 
they did not meet the “grave and im- 
mediate danger” test. Only the tem- 
porary rule on asbestos was allowed to 
stand. 


Court orders OSHA review 
of lockout/tagout policies 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Chief sponsors of OSHA reform legislation — Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.), 
Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- 
Mass.) — field reporters' questions. 

Labor hails OSHA legislation, 
pledges to work for passage 


T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration was ordered by a 
federal appellate court to review and ex- 
plain its “significant risk” judgments 
in its lockout/tagout standard, in a deci- 
sion that also rejected challenges by the 
UAW. 

The UAW sued following its release 
of the standard in September 1989, 
holding that OSHA failed to set the 
most effective standard possible. The 
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District 
of Columbia Circuit rejected the union’s 
contentions. It instead agreed with the 
Secretary of Labor that language in the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act re- 
quiring the agency to “set the standard 
which most adequately assures, to the 
extent feasible . . . that no employee will 
suffer material impairment of health or 
functional capacity ...” applies only to 
health standards. 

The lockout/tagout rule addresses the 
procedures necessary to disable equip- 
ment and to prevent the release of 
potentially hazardous energy during 
maintenance and servicing activities that 
would activate machinery and poten- 
tially harm a worker. 

The UAW had challenged OSHA’s 
decision to allow under certain cir- 
cumstances the use of plastic tags to 
alert workers that tagged out equipment 
may not be operated, instead of locks 


T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration is going ahead with 
union-backed revisions to its formalde- 
hyde standard after the White House 
Office of Management and Budget 
abruptly dropped its opposition. 

The standard would lower the per- 
missible worker exposure limit from 1 
part formaldehyde per million parts of 
air (ppm) to 0.75 ppm. Further, medi- 
cal removal protections would be added 
and training improved. 

OSHA said any recommendation for 
restricted work activity or removal 
would be based on a physician’s recom- 
mendation. Workers must be removed 
to a job location where the exposure is 
below the “action level” of 0.5 ppm. 
Annual training would be required 


to prevent accidental restoration of 
energy to the equipment. The standard 
generally requires an employer to use 
lockout procedures, unless it can show 
that tagout will provide the same level 
of safety. 

The union also urged the court to 
reverse OSHA’s decision to exempt 
from the lockout provisions “minor 
servicing activities” and “complex 
group operations.” The court, 
however, found OSHA’s reasoning on 
the exemptions was “reasonable.” 

The National Association of Manu- 
facturers also challenged the standard, 
contending that the federal safety law 
invalidly delegates legislative authori- 
ty to the executive branch agency. In 
rejecting that claim, the court relied 
heavily on the 1980 Supreme Court 
benzene ruling, which held that OSHA 
must find a significant risk exists before 
promulgating a standard. 

The employer group also questioned 
OSHA’s determination of “significant 
risk,” in regard to safety standards, 
OSHA may only adopt a such a stan- 
dard if its benefits outweigh its costs. 

The employer group wanted a break 
down of OSHA injury data, suggesting 
that industries with few injuries should 
be exempt because their cost of com- 
plying with the standard would exceed 
the cost of paying for any injuries. 


for all workers exposed to formalde- 
hyde at levels above 0. 1 ppm. 

OSHA was sued by the UAW, Mold- 
ers, Ladies’ Garment Workers and the 
Clothing and Textile Workers in 1987 
when the final rule was released. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
District of Columbia Circuit in June 
1989 had ordered OSHA to reconsider 
certain provisions of the standard. In 
April 1991, the unions asked the court 
to enforce its earlier order. 

Labor and industry, working to- 
gether, agreed on provisions OSHA in- 
corporated into proposals it submitted 
to the OMB in August 1990. OMB ob- 
jected to the proposed changes, but later 
dropped its opposition after the unions 
returned to court. 


Continued from Page 1 

in lost worktime. And the human toll, 
the most troubling aspect, cannot be 
measured in dollars, he said. 

Ford told reporters that the failure to 
provide a safe workplace for every 
worker is harming the economy. “This 
is something we wouldn’t accept if it 
were proposed to us as a policy.” he 
said. As a co-author of the original law, 
Ford recounted that “my father went to 
work one day at the age of 42 and didn’t 
come home. ’ ’ He said he had hoped that 
after 20 years he could tell his children 
that doesn’t happen to workers any- 
more. 

But to underscore the point, Ford said 
that in Wyoming the average OSHA 
fine against an employer involved in a 
worker’s death is $29. “I’ve never met 
a $29 American,” he said, indicating 
the legislation would boost criminal 
penalties against employers. Asked 
what the OSHA reform legislation 
might cost employers, Ford said, “It’ll 
cost them more than $29 to kill a 
worker in Wyoming.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
welcomed the introduction of the 
legislation, stressing that after 20 years’ 
experience under the original OSHA 
law, “it’s time for a renewed commit- 
ment to protect the safety and health of 
American workers.” 

Kirkland said the bill is “based on the 


premise that workers — given proper 
training and the right to act in matters 
affecting their own safety — can play 
a major role in reducing the toll of 
workplace injury and illness.” 

The legislation would require 
employers to establish an occupational 
safety and health program and provide 
for joint worker-management safety 
committees that will work to identify 
and correct job hazards. A key provi- 
sion would require abatement of 
hazards found by OSHA inspectors, 
even if the employer contests the 
citation. 

The legislation would grant employ- 
ees new rights to participate in the 
OSHA enforcement process, and pro- 
tect them from retaliation when they 
seek to correct hazards they encounter 
on the job. It would expand coverage 
to public employees at all government 
levels and to workers at federal nuclear 
facilities, and sets a timetable for issu- 
ing certain health and safety standards. 

Kirkland indicated the federation and 
its affiliates are “committed to work 
with Congress to improve the OSHA 
law.” 

AFL-CIO Vice President Lynn R. 
Williams told the Executive Council 
that unions will need to quickly mount 
an educational campaign on the bill to 
counter almost certain employer 
opposition. 


Labor gains new revision 
of formaldehyde standard 





ILA President John Bowers addresses delegates during the union's recent convention. 

Longshoremen hail legislative victories 


San Juan, P.R. 

D uring the four-day Longshoremen’s 
convention, delegates stood up and 
cheered when they learned that the 
House passed the Workplace Fairness 
bill to ban strikebreakers. 

ILA President John Bowers told the 
gathering that their union played a key 
role swinging pivotal House votes to 
support the legislation, H.R. 5. Bowers 
reminded the delegates that only half of 
the battle was won. The companion bill, 
S.55, still has to pass the Senate. He en- 
couraged the members to keep working 
to support the grass-roots campaign to 
pass the legislation. 

The 350 delegates unanimously re- 
elected Bowers to a second four-year 
term. Robert E. Gleason, formerly the 
secretary-treasurer of the ILA’s Atlan- 
tic Coast District, was elected interna- 
tional secretary treasurer, replacing 
Walter L. Sullivan, who held the post 
for eight years. Sullivan is retiring. 


R esponding to union complaints, the 
government’s Overseas Private In- 
vestment Corp. moved to suspend all 
new business with South Korea until 
President Roh’s regime improves its 
labor relations record. 

Citing continuing worker rights 
abuses, OPIC said it was taking the ac- 
tion after determining that South Korea 
is not providing sufficient safeguards to 
workers on collective bargaining, free- 
dom of association and other areas. 

The long-awaited move by OPIC 
came in response to a petition filed by 
the UAW last fall, testimony by AFL- 
CIO representatives at agency hearings 
and prodding by the federation’s Ex- 
ecutive Council. 

Union briefs accused the Roh regime 
of the unjust jailing of 500 unionists as 
well as using severe force to break 
strikes and worker protests. 


A fter a three-year struggle, striking 
union workers in Jay, Maine, would 
receive some $3 million in back pay 
under a settlement of an unfair labor 
practices complaint agreed to by Inter- 
national Paper Co. 

More than 100 members of Paper- 
workers Local 14 and the Firemen and 
Oilers Local 246 would share in the set- 
tlement announced by the National 
Labor Relations Board, with some get- 
ting as much as $100,000. The com- 
pany already has recalled many of the 
2,300 workers that it “permanently 
replaced’’ in the 1988 strike, thereby 
limiting its liability. 

Exact settlement terms are not final, 
since the unions may appeal certain por- 


Elected to their first terms on the ILA 
executive council were Benny Holland 
and Gerald Owens. Holland, who 
serves as president of the ILA’s South 
Atlantic and Gulf Coast District, was 
installed as vice president and Gerald 
Owens of Newark, N.J., is the union’s 
new assistant general organizer. 

In his keynote address, Bowers 
pledged ILA’s physical and financial 
support for Solidarity Day on Aug. 31 
in Washington. 

The union is expecting representation 
from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Virginia and the South 
Atlantic District to march in support of 
banning ‘ ‘ permanent replacement ’ ’ 
workers, a national health care policy 
and freedom of association at home and 
abroad. 

Delegates endorsed the formation of 
an ILA committee to push for the civil 
rights legislation now before Congress. 
The convention also expressed support 


“To our knowledge, no other coun- 
try has jailed more unionists than 
Korea,” the UAW petition said. 
“These arrests are, in most instances, 
the result of government repression of 
the right to freedom of association and 
to organize and bargain collectively,” 
the union said. 

In May, the Executive Council noted 
that South Korea continued to crack 
down on workers with mass arrests. 
“Regrettably,” the council said, “the 
government’s record since has made it 
clear that those acts were not aberra- 
tions, but part of a systematic pattern 
of anti- worker conduct.” 

It cited the arrest of 69 union leaders 
in April, attacks on the independent 
teachers’ union, a court ruling that 
limits union participation in settling 
labor disputes. It also condemned the 
failure to reform anti-worker laws im- 


tions of the plan, said Jeffrey Neil 
Young, an attorney for the unions. 

The NLRB complaint charged that IP 
illegally promoted several replacement 
workers rather than recall union work- 
ers when the strike was settled. In seek- 
ing to “permanently replace” its union 
work force, the company ran adver- 
tisements a full week before Local 14 
went on strike, drawing scabs from as 
far away as Louisiana and the Carolinas 
to take the union jobs. 

Under terms of the proposed settle- 
ment, 14 previously unreinstated strik- 
ers also would be recalled and 30 “per- 
manent replacements” demoted to 
lower paying positions they held prior 
to the conclusion of the strike. 


for civil and human rights efforts 
abroad. 

In a convention ceremony, Bowers 
and Longshoremen’s and Warehouse- 
men’s President James R. Herman were 
honored by the Federal Mediation and 
Conciliation Service for their commit- 
ment to collective bargaining. In 
presenting the awards, FMCS Director 
Bernard DeLury said it was comforting 
to know that unions are just as dedicated 
to collective bargaining as the means of 
resolving labor-management conflicts 
as they are in expanding their horizons 
into international trade. 

DeLury cited Bowers as having an 
excellent concept of a true labor- 
management relationship which re- 
sulted in the 46-month agreement 
reached in recent negotiations. Herman, 
who is retiring as the head of ILWU, 
was credited for “his leadership of the 
union and for his 40 years of service to 
the labor movement.” 


posed by the former military 
dictatorship. 

While OPIC President Fred Zeder 
credited South Korea with reducing the 
legal workweek and allowing the for- 
mation of more unions, he noted serious 
limitations on worker rights remained 
and that President Roh vetoed a bill 
which would have provided for more 
labor rights. 

OPIC, a quasi-government agency 
established by Congress in 1969, in- 
sures and finances private U.S. invest- 
ment in developing countries and pro- 
motes foreign aid. 

The agency’s ruling means that OPIC 
will not accept new applications for loan 
guarantees or insurance for U.S. com- 
panies seeking to invest in South Korea. 
But it will continue to honor claims on 
active insurance policies on Korea 
business, OPIC said. 


The settlement marks the second time 
in a month that IP has agreed to pay 
large sums to settle complaints against 
it by the government. The paper com- 
pany also has agreed to pay $2.2 million 
in fines to the Environmental Protection 
Agency for violations of federal en- 
vironmental laws. 

The EPA settlement is the second 
largest fine ever levied on a corpora- 
tion for violations of the Clean Air Act 
and Clean Water Act. Ironically, Presi- 
dent Bush has appointed IP top execu- 
tive John A. George to the President’s 
Commission on Environmental Quali- 
ty, which will recommend how to bal- 
ance environmental protection against 
corporate expense. 


Food workers 
locked out by 
UN caterer 

New York 

U sing the pretext of the legality of 
‘ ‘ permanent replacements ’ ’ for 
strikers in the United States, the cater- 
ing contractor for the United Nations 
has locked out workers who sought af- 
filiation with the Hotel Employees and 
Restaurant Employees Local 100. 

Restaurant Associates has refused to 
recognize Local 100 even though 101 
of the 105 catering facility’s workers on 
June 17 presented a petition seeking to 
be represented by HERE. Instead, the 
contractor repeatedly responded with 
anti-union letters — on UN logo — 
■stating they would “hire replacement 
workers.” 

When the workers struck over the 
company’s refusal to recognize the 
union and to bargain in good faith, they 
were replaced the next day. In a letter 
to the workers, the company stated they 
had hired “permanent replacements and 
consequently there are insufficient 
openings to offer positions to all em- 
ployees.” Only 25 of the 105 workers 
are back to work. 

HERE Local 100 President Anthony 
Amodeo has protested the lockout to 
UN Secretary General Javier Perez de 
Cuellar, asking him to “send a very 
clear and beautiful message to working 
people throughout the world that the 
United Nations is hoping to live up to 
its own preamble,” which states it is 
“determined. . .to employ international 
machinery for the promotion of the 
economic and social advancement of all 
peoples.” 

Unfair labor practice charges have 
been filed with the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board and the International Labor 
Organization, which expressly states 
“freedom of association and the protec- 
tion of the right to organize must not 
be violated.” 

Food Handlers 
approve vote on 
UFCW merger 

T he 5,000-member Independent Food 
Handlers and Warehouse Employ- 
ees, representing food store workers in 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, voted 
overwhelmingly to affiliate with the 
Food and Commercial Workers. The 
union will become a UFCW local. 

The unaffiliated union, formed in 
1947, represents workers at 21 Shaw’s 
Supermarkets and the company’s ware- 
house. IFWE President James G. 
Schmit said members are counting on 
close ties with the UFCW to help in up- 
coming contract talks with Shaw, which 
was bought in 1987 by British food 
retailer J. Sainsbury Ltd. 

“The UFCW’s close ties with the 
British union that represents employees 
of Shaw’s parent company was an im- 
portant factor in many members’ 
minds,” Schmit said. 

The company is demanding nearly 70 
concessions, including changes in 
health care coverage, despite record 
sales and profits. 

Union negotiators described current 
contract talks as the “toughest” in the 
Shaw union’s history, a major turn- 
around from more than 44 years of 
working labor-management relations. 

The UFCW also will work with the 
new local in organizing campaigns 
among workers at other non-union 
Shaw outlets in Massachusetts, Maine 
and New Hampshire. 


Unions win suspension of Korean investment 


Maine strikers get $3 million back pay 







Congress hammers out jobless benefits extension 



By John R. Oravec 

C ongress passed emergency legisla- 
tion extending unemployment bene- 
fits up to 20 weeks more for long-term 
jobless workers trapped in the linger- 
ing recession. 

The Senate acted first, overcoming 
Republican delaying tactics to approve 
the measure on a voice vote before the 
scheduled adjournment for the month- 
long August recess. The House follow- 
ed with an overwhelming 375-45 vote 
for the bill. 

In the week before the congressional 
action, Bush administration officials 
warned that the president would veto 
any version of the measure, contending 
that the recession is over and the bene- 
fits extension wasn’t needed. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, at 
its mid-summer meeting in Chicago, 
pointed out that unemployment is at a 
crisis stage and urged Congress to take 
immediate action to extend benefits, 
stressing that “the recession is not 
over.” 

“Each day continues to bring an- 
nouncements of further layoffs,” the 
council said. “Even the administra- 
tion’s own rosy economic recovery 
scenario does not see the jobless rate 
falling to a pre-recession level until 
1996.” 

The council noted that the federation 
has long urged the extension of benefits 
and other improvements in the unem- 
ployment insurance program. 

“Long-term unemployment is grow- 
ing at an alarming rate, as the number 
of workers who can’t find a job in 26 
weeks has nearly doubled in the past 
year,” the council said. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
at a news conference in Chicago, call- 


ed the American system of unemploy- 
ment insurance compensation “the 
poorest — the most restricted, the most 
limited — of any industrial country, 
certainly of any of the democracies.” 

The system has been weakened so 
severely over the years by government 
indifference that it now provides ‘ ‘bene- 
fits to the lowest proportion of the 
unemployed population in our history,” 
Kirkland said. “Only a minority of 
unemployed workers qualify and re- 
ceive benefits at all.” 

The legislation could help more than 
1.6 million Americans who have ex- 
hausted their regular 26 weeks of un- 
employment insurance benefits since 
the start of 1991. It would extend 
unemployment insurance benefits four 
to 20 weeks, retroactive to April 1, and 
would remain in effect through June 
1992. 

Under current law, benefits can be 


extended four 13 weeks when jobless 
rates reach a certain level. According 
to Labor Department estimates, 3.4 
million jobless workers will exhaust 
their benefits in the coming year. 

Following the Senate action, the 
House Ways and Means Committee re- 
shaped its legislation, which was co- 
sponsored by Reps. Dan Rostenkowski 
(D-Ill.) and Thomas Downey (D- 
N.Y.), closely patterning it on the 
Senate measure. 

AFL-CIO Legislative Director Robert 
M. McGlotten had advised House 
members that hundreds of thousands of 
workers have exhausted jobless benefits 
in the continuing recession. “At the 
same time,” he noted, “the Extended 
Benefits Trust Fund now has a surplus 
of $8 billion.” 

The Senate bill was reported out of 
the Finance Committee earlier on a 16-4 
vote. It was introduced by Finance 


Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen 
(D-Texas), along with Majority Leader 
George Mitchell (D-Maine) and Sens. 
Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Donald 
Riegle (D-Mich.). 

The legislation would require the 
president to declare an emergency, 
which is provided in last year’s budget 
agreement. That would mean no new 
taxes would be needed and the exten- 
sion would be covered by the current 
surplus in the trust fund. 

Both the Senate and House bills use 
the total unemployment rate (TUR) in 
each state as the trigger to extend 
benefits — a position long advocated by 
the AFL-CIO. Currently, extended 
benefits are not triggered on until the 
insured unemployment rate (IUR) 
reaches a certain percentage. 

The IUR trigger, union witnesses told 
congressional committees, fails to 
reflect surging unemployment condi- 
tions and lags far behind the actual 
jobless rates in many states. Despite 
the current high unemployment rates, 
only three states and Puerto Rico now 
qualify for extended benefits. 

During the floor debate in both the 
House and Senate, Democrats pointed 
out that Bush had repeatedly declared 
budget emergencies to assist people in 
the Middle East, but at the same time 
refuses to provide assistance to 
Americans trapped in the recession. 

“We should be helping working peo- 
ple of this country who deserve our 
help — not last, but first,” Riegle said 
during the Senate debate. Rep. Robert 
Wise (D-W.Va.) stressed similar points 
on the House floor. 

The legislation gives Bush 10 days to 
declare an emergency under provisions 
of last year’s budget agreement. 


Concerns raised over fast-track trade negotiations 


By John R. Oravec 

S ome members of Congress are voic- 
ing reservations about the direction 
of the U.S. -Mexico free trade negotia- 
tions now that the Bush administration 
has started shaping the agreement with 
a two-year extension of fast-track 
authority. 

Their concerns are over what impact 
a wide-open trading arrangement be- 
tween the United States, Canada and 
Mexico would have on American em- 
ployment and living standards. 

And they have reason to be con- 
cerned, according to a study sponsored 
by the National Planning Association, 
which warns that a poorly crafted trade 
pact “could worsen the U.S. trade 
deficit, resulting in long-term down- 
ward pressures on the dollar and U.S. 
living standards.” 

Although President Bush promised 
Congress an unprecedented role in the 
trade discussions, cooperation from the 
administration has been lacking. 

As a result, House Majority Leader 
Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. 
Sander Levin (D-Mich.) have asked 
congressional investigators for in-depth 
data on the negotiations. Among their 
prime concerns are what impact a trade 
accord would have on wage and em- 
ployment levels in certain U.S. in- 
dustries, Mexican environmental and 
safety standards, as well as the in- 


fluence of foreign ownership of Mex- 
ico’s maquiladora factories. 

Gephardt has repeatedly called for the 
creation of a congressional trade office 
to provide data that the administration 
has been unwilling to provide. 

Several weeks ago, Gephardt asked 
the Treasury Department for details on 
the percentage of foreign-made auto 
parts in cars that qualify under the 
North American Free Trade Agreement 
(NAFTA). 

Treasury officials said initially that 
such information would not be releas- 
ed on grounds of executive privilege. 
They still have given no indication 
whether the department would comply 
with the request. 

To fill in the gap, Gephardt and Levin 
have asked the General Accounting Of- 
fice, Congressional Research Service 
and the Office of Technology Assess- 
ment to conduct the investigations. 

Similar concerns on the trade talks 
have been raised by Reps. Don J. Pease 
(D-Ohio), Jim Moody (D-Wis.) and 
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) in a letter to 
Bush. 

“If a balanced NAFTA worthy of 
congressional approval is to be nego- 
tiated,” they wrote, “it will require 
. . . congressional input into the substan- 
tive give-and-take of the negotiations. 
Periodic executive-legislative consulta- 
tions will not suffice.” 


Other members of Congress also 
have protested the administration’s 
failure to provide hard information on 
how the negotiations will affect U.S. 
workers and businesses. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue, reporting to the 
Executive Council in Chicago, said 
labor representatives will continue to 
meet with members of Congress and 
other working groups and continue to 
call attention to labor’s concerns with 
rallies and demonstrations. 

Attempts by the Labor Advisory 
Group to set up meetings with the U.S. 
Trade Representative, however, have 
been frustrated by delays that now call 
for a meeting Oct. 24, when negotia- 
tions should be near completion, 
Donahue said. 

In August, the AFL-CIO and affili- 
ates plan demonstrations in Kansas Ci- 
ty and Seattle to press labor’s case for 
workplace standards and environmen- 
tal protections in the trade agreement. 

The U.S. Trade Representative is 
meeting with trade ministers from Mex- 
ico and Canada on Aug. 19 in Seattle, 
where unions plan to demonstrate with 
pickets and balloons that rise to the 50th 
floor meeting room with the message, 
“Let us in.” 

The NPA study, “Trade Talks with 
Mexico: A Time for Realism,” con- 
cludes that if the NAFTA is to be 


negotiated in the context of a interna- 
tional challenges, it must be carefully 
structured to serve U.S. economic 
interests. 

Written by Prof. Peter Morici of the 
University of Maine, the report ex- 
amines both the potential benefits and 
the pitfalls for American workers and 
business. 

A basic problem in the trade talks for 
the United States is that Mexico wants 
preferential access to the U.S. market 
in exchange for opening up its markets 
and investment to all nations, Morici 
notes. 

In that context, he cites the possibili- 
ty of Japanese multinational corpora- 
tions outmaneuvering U.S. companies 
with their access to capital, manufac- 
turing technology and skilled labor. 

Morici cautions that Mexico could 
become a back door and a final staging 
area by the Japanese Keiretsu for an 
assault on American and Canadian 
markets. 

“The United States might be able to 
cope with such a market access dis- 
advantage if it enjoyed a superior com- 
petitive position in technology and 
human resources, but it does not,” 
Morici writes. 

Free trade proponents relish the bene- 
fits of swapping low- wage jobs for 
high- wage jobs under a U.S. -Mexico 
agreement, he observes. 





Richard Ravitch, a New York City 
lawyer and businessman, was elected 
chairman of the board of trustees of the 
AFL-CIO’s Housing Investment Trust, 
and appointed chairman of the advisory 
board for the federation’s Building In- 
vestment Trust. Ravitch, a builder for 
20 years, has been responsible for the 
construction of more than 50,000 
union-built apartment units in the 
United States and Puerto Rico. AFL- 
CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue praised Ravitch, saying “his 
willingness to take on the chairmanship 
of the Trusts augurs well for their con- 
tinued growth and success.” 

Mary Miller Cracraft has been ap- 
pointed to a second five-year term on 
the National Labor Relations Board by 
President Bush. Cracraft, a Democrat, 
originally was appointed to the board 
by President Reagan. Prior to her board 
service, she was an attorney with the 
management law firm of Gage and 
Tucker in Kansas City, Mo., and had 
been a field attorney in NLRB Region 
17. The NLRB is required by law to 
have a bipartisan make-up. 

Patrick M. Cleary, an attorney and 
former Labor Department official, has 
been designated chairman of the 
National Mediation Board, effective 
July 1. Cleary has been a member of 
the board since 1989, and prior to that 
was a partner in the Brock Group, a 
firm headed by former Secretary of 
Labor William Brock that specializes 
in international trade and labor-manage- 
ment issues. Cleary succeeds Joshua 
M. Javits as board chairman. The 
three-member NMB selects its own 
chairman for one-year terms. The other 
board member is Kimberly A. Madi- 
gan. 

Delbert Leon Spurlock Jr. has been 
nominated deputy secretary of labor to 
succeed Roderick A. DeArment. Spur- 
lock has been with the law firm of 
George D. Thatch in Washington, 
D.C., and worked in several posts with 
the Department of the Army prior to 
1989. 

Marshall Jordon Breger was nomi- 
nated by President Bush to be solicitor 
for the Department of Labor, succeed- 
ing Robert P. Davis. Since 1985, 
Breger has been chairman of the Ad- 
ministrative Conference of the United 
States, an independent federal agency 
that makes recommendations on ways 
to improve regulatory affairs in all three 
branches of the federal government. 

Arline Neal, the first woman to serve 
on the Metropolitan Washington AFL- 
CIO and president of Service Employ- 
ees Local 82 for nearly 20 years, was 
honored July 27 at a retirement dinner. 
Neal, 74, fought her way through child 
abuse, rape, social discrimination and 
poverty to become one of most effec- 
tive labor leders in the District of Col- 
umbia, said the SEIU, which noted that 
she is also a founder of the D.C. Foster 
Grandparents program. 

Thanong Pho-arn, president of the 
Labor Congress of Thailand and an 
outspoken critic of the new military 
regime, disappeared on June 19 in 
Bangkok shortly before his scheduled 
departure for a meeting of the Interna- 
tional Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions in Geneva. In a letter to Hiram 
Lawrence, chairman of the Generalized 
System of Preferences Subcommittee in 
the Office of the U.S. Trade Represen- 


tative, AFL-CIO Research Director 
Rudy Oswald expressed concern for 
Thanong’ s safety. His letter followed up 
the AFL-CIO’s June 1, 1991, petition 
to the GSP Subcommittee seeking an 
expedited review of allegations against 
the government of Thailand. 

DEATHS 

Songwriter and performer Earl 
Robinson, whose works have chron- 
icled the struggles and fulfillment of 
America’s unions, died July 20 in Seat- 
tle of injuries he sustained in a traffic 
accident. He was 81. 

His best known labor ballad is “Joe 
Hill,” which he frequently sang at labor 
festivals, including the Great Labor 
Arts Exchange at the George Meany 
Center for Labor Studies. 

Robinson’s other musical composi- 
tions include “The House I Live In,” 
recorded by Frank Sinatra; “Hurry 
Sundown,” sung by Peter, Paul and 
Mary; “Ballad for Americans,” in- 
troduced more than 50 years ago by 
Paul Robeson, and “The Lonesome 
Train,” a cantata about the death of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

“Robinson’s death is a great loss for 
the American labor movement as well 
as for all the American people,” said 
Larry Rubin of the Labor Heritage 
Foundation. 

A classically trained composer, 
Robinson graduated from the Univer- 
sity of Washington in the early 1930s. 
Unable to find work as a music teacher 
during the Great Depression, he joined 
the Workers’ Laboratory Theater in 
New York City as a performer and song 
writer. His works ranged from a piano 
concerto to music for radio, television, 
theater and films. Robinson was a mem- 
ber of the Musicans. 

In 1938, he composed the music to 
a poem by Alfred Hayes about Joe Hill, 
a union organizer who was executed in 
Utah in 1915. 



Earl Robinson 


AWARDS 

Barry Feinstein, president of Team- 
sters Local 237 for 24 years, received 
the “Good Scout Award” from the Boy 
Scouts of America Greater New York 
Councils at the 1991 Labor Luncheon 
which generated more than $81,000 in 
donations for the Scouts. Feinstein is 
vice president of IBT Joint Council 16 
and chairman of the New York State 
Public Employees Conference. Sonny 
Hall, president of Transport Workers 
Local 100, was chairman of the 
luncheon. 

The AFL-CIO Blood Bank in Lan- 
caster, Pa., was presented the Lancaster 
City and County Medical Society’s an- 
nual Benjamin Rush Award, which 
recognizes an outstanding voluntary 
contribution to the health of the com- 
munity. Elmer Dixon, who helped 
establish the blood bank in 1963, and 
who is head of the Carpenters Local 
287, received the individual award for 
his efforts. 


New stamp will honor Meany 


T he U.S. Postal Service announced 
it will issue a commemorative 
postage stamp of the first president 
of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, on 
the centennial of his birth in 1994. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council 
at its February 1991 meeting had 
urged the federation affiliates to 
write to the Postmaster General re- 
questing the Postal Service issue a 
commemorative stamp that would 
serve as an appropriate recognition 
of Meany ’s service to all working 
Americans. 

The council had pointed out that 
Meany “fought for every worker’s 
right to join a union, for the fairness 
of collective bargaining, for equal- 
ity and opportunity for every 
American and for the cause of 
human rights and freedom for work- 
ing people around the world.” 
AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland, in a letter to Postmaster 
General Anthony Frank, said the 
decision to issue a commemorative 
stamp honoring Meany is “greatly 
appreciated. The AFL-CIO and its 
affiliated unions look forward to the 
stamp with great anticipation.” 

The USPS and its Citizens Stamp 



George Meany 


Advisory Committee selected 
George Meany as a commemorative 
subject from some 1,500 topics 
suggested annually, a USPS 
spokesman said. The design sub- 
committee of the advisory group 
now will begin work in selecting an 
appropriate design for the stamp, 
which will go into production in 
1994. 


AFL-CIO to Latin leaders: 
help Chanes to leave Cuba 


M ario Chanes de Armas, released 
from a Cuban jail July 17 after 
enduring 30 years as a political 
prisoner, should be permitted to leave 
Cuba under humanitarian status, the 
AFL-CIO said. 

In a letter to Latin American leaders 
attending the “Cumbre Ibero- Ameri- 
cana” in Guadalajara, Mexico, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland said that 
Chanes wanted to rejoin his family now 
in Florida. 

“I would like to request that you use 
your good offices with the government 
of Cuba, as a humanitarian gesture, to 
support his request for an exit permit,” 
Kirkland wrote. 

Chanes was the last of the historic 
“plantados,” who refused to be indoc- 
trinated or to wear prison uniforms — 
the plantados’ expression of their de- 
fiance. The leader of the Cuban brew- 
ery workers, Chanes was believed to be 
the longest-held political prisoner in the 
world. He was arrested July 18, 1961, 
after he renounced his government post 
and openly criticized Fidel Castro’s in- 
tention to establish a communist dic- 
tatorship. 

Upon his release, Chanes went di- 
rectly to a cemetery where he placed 
flowers on the grave of his son, who 
died after a minor operation during his 
father’s imprisonment. 


The federation and its Labor Com- 
mittee for a Free Cuba have been work- 
ing through international channels for 
the past year to secure the release of 
Chanes and Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, 
another “plantado” who was released 
in March after spending 23 years in a 
Cuban prison. 

Diaz, who traveled to Washington in 
May to thank the AFL-CIO for its sup- 
port and to plead with President Bush 
and members of Congress to secure 
Chanes ’s release, currently is touring 
Europe, speaking about human rights in 
Cuba. To maintain his sanity in prison, 
he says, he began writing poetry and 
now has nine published volumes. 

The AFL-CIO has extended invita- 
tions to Diaz and Chanes to attend both 
Solidarity Day ’91, Aug. 31, in Wash- 
ington, and the AFL-CIO convention, 
Nov. 11-14, in Detroit. 

The AFL-CIO’s Labor Committee 
for a Free Cuba estimates there are 
some 30,000 political prisoners still in 
Cuban jails. The federation has pre- 
sented proof of Cuban worker and 
human rights abuse to the International 
Labor Organization in Geneva. 

During his meeting with Diaz and 
Belen Chanes Lopez, sister of Mario 
Chanes, Bush called for a free and 
democratic Cuba and urged Castro to 
free the political prisoners. 



CONFERENCES 

Breaking the Barriers: White Col- 
lar Women on the Move, an interna- 
tional conference sponsored by the 
AFL-CIO Department for Professional 
Employees, will be held Sept. 5-7 at the 
Washington Court Hotel in Washing- 
ton. For information, contact Pamela 


Wilson or Marjorie Wheeler at DPE, 
AFL-CIO, 815 16th St. N.W., Wash- 
ington, D.C. 20006. 

PUBLICATIONS 

The Hours We Work: New Work 
Schedules in Policy and Practices is 

a digest published by the International 
Labor Organization. The digest con- 
tains the latest developments in legisla- 
tion and collective agreements as well 
as detailed descriptions of over 30 case 
studies in diverse industries and serv- 
ices in various countries. For more in- 
formation contact the ILO Publication 
Center, 49 Sheridan Ave., Albany, 
N.Y. 12210. 





Union community services 
aim to fill Bush policy void 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Alice Rains hugs AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland after accepting the Murray- 
Green-Meany Award on behalf of her son, Rep. Mickey Leland. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

B ush administration failures to ad- 
dress community needs leave a large 
void to fill by “community service 
through union action,” delegates to the 
AFL-CIO ’s 29th annual Community 
Services Conference in Washington 
were told. 

“Just because the Bush administra- 
tion doesn’t give a damn about the less 
fortunate in our society doesn’t mean 
that we should back away one single 
bit,” said Letter Carriers President Vin- 
cent Sombrotto, chair of the AFL-CIO 
Committee on Community Services. 
“In fact, it means that we must do 
more, with more people, with more 
money.” 

The 700 delegates were nearly dou- 
ble the number who attended the 1990 
conference in Denver, a credit to the 
union activists who have devoted their 
time to community service, said Som- 
brotto. 

“The often overlooked hard work 
that you perform day in, day out in 
communities all across America is the 
bedrock of the labor movement,” Som- 
brotto said, noting the assistance pro- 
vided to such causes as the Center for 
Creative Non-Violence and food banks 
that feed the homeless. 

Sombrotto announced that the 
NALC, in cooperation with the AFL- 
CIO Department of Community Serv- 
ices and local community service 
liaisons, will conduct food drives this 
fall in 10 cities across the nation. The 
10 areas selected for the pilot program 
include Harrisburg, Pa.; Long Island, 
N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Peoria, 111.; 
Louisville, Ky.; Jacksonville, Fla.; San 
Antonio, Texas; Dallas; Portland, Ore.; 
and San Jose, Calif. 

“Millions of Americans are hungry 
or homeless and their only opportunity 
for a good meal is a local food bank,” 
Sombrotto said. 

The failure of the Bush administra- 
tion makes the mission of union com- 


munity services more urgent, said 
department Director Joe Valesquez. 
“America’s families are hurting, 
despite what anyone in this administra- 
tion tells you,” he said. “That’s why 
we’re here: to help the unemployed, 
and underemployed reach real, full 
employment.” 

That point was underscored during 
the week by the release of a study by 
the Center on Budget and Policy Pri- 
orities, which noted that the rich got 
richer and the poor got poorer during 
the Reagan-Bush years. 

Other speakers castigated the Bush 
and Reagan administrations for insen- 
sitivity to those in need. Sen. John D. 
“Jay” Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) blamed 
the “voodoo economics” of the 1980s 
for the increases in health care costs, 
taxes on middle-income America and 
the retreat on education. 

“If you paid taxes, you lost ground,” 
Rockefeller said. “If you were a wage 
earner, you lost ground. If you were a 
child, you lost ground. And if you were 
a union family, trying to raise your 
kids, pay your bills, and tuck a little 
money aside — you were practically 
ground into dust during the Reagan- 
Bush era.” 

To honor communities that have 
worked to improve the lot of the “have- 
nots,” the conference designated five 
communities as winners of 1991 AFL- 
CIO Model City in Community Service 
Awards — Columbus, Ohio; Buffalo, 
N.Y.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Kansas City, 
Mo.; and Orange County, Calif. 

“Each of these communities can 
serve as a model for the rest of the na- 
tion on how volunteer agencies, the 
United Way and unions work together 
for the betterment of all the residents,” 
he said. 

The winners were selected based on 
a detailed survey emphasizing effective 
health and human services programs 
developed by volunteer union commit- 
tees. Each community was awarded a 


sign suitable for display on a highway 
entering the area designating it as a 
“model city.” 

A conference highlight was the 
Murray-Green-Meany Award, pre- 
sented by AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland posthumously to Rep. Mickey 
Leland (D Texas). Alice Rains, 
Leland ’s mother, accepted the award. 

“His concern for the human condi- 
tion did not stop at our national 
borders,” Kirkland said. “Mickey’s 
fight against hunger, disease and in- 
justice brought him to the most God- 
forsaken regions of the world — places 
where people needed most desperately 
his message of hope and solidarity.” 

Leland died in 1990 in an airplane 
crash in Ethiopia, where he had gone 
to survey the conditions of a refugee 
camp. 

In accepting the award, Rains said, 
“Mickey always appreciated labor as 
one of his greatest supporters and I 
know he would be proud of this 
award.” 

The Murray-Green-Meany Award 


consists of a commemorative medallion 
and a $5,000 grant. Previous recipients 
include Marion Wright Edelman, Rep. 
Claude Pepper, Rev. Theodore Hes- 
burgh, and Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Delegates participated in a number of 
afternoon breakout sessions on issues 
such as disaster damage assessment, 
housing, unemployment, AIDS, and 
strategies for helping strikers. 

AFL-CIO vice presidents addressing 
the conference were: Owen Bieber, 
George J. Kourpias, Susan Bianchi- 
Sand, John J. Sweeney, William H. 
By water, Robert A. Georgine, and 
Joyce Miller. 

Other speakers included Reps. 
Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Patricia 
Schroeder (D-Colo.) and Bill Richard- 
son (D-N.M.); D.C. Delegate Eleanor 
Holmes Norton; Baltimore Mayor Kurt 
Schmoke; American Red Cross Presi- 
dent Elizabeth Dole; Gracia Hillman, 
executive director of the League of 
Women Voters; and Ernesto Cortes, 
Texas director of the Industrial Areas 
Foundation. 


INSIDE 

AFL-CIO will oppose 
Thomas nomination 

Citing his bias toward unregulated 
markets, the AFL-CIO announced it 
will oppose the nomination of Clarence 
Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. 


OSHA reform bill 
expands worker role 

Labor-supported legislation would 
strengthen OSHA’s standard setting and 
increase the role of workers in ensur- 
ing workplace safety and health. 



0 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 16 
AUGUST 5, 1991 



House ‘ pay or play” 
plan adds cost controls 

House Ways and Means Committee 
Chairman Dan Rostenkowski introduces 
a health care reform package that in- 
cludes cost containment measures. 

Striker replacement 
roll call vote in House 

As the Senate prepares to take up the 
Workplace Fairness bill, which bans the 
“permanent replacement” of strikers, 
we list the roll call vote in the House. 




Emergency standard 
needed, labor says 

The AFL-CIO and 30 unions petition 
OSHA for an emergency standard to 
protect workers from the crippling in- 
juries caused by repetitive motions. 

Congress votes to extend 
unemployment benefits 

Despite a Bush veto threat, the Senate 
approved legislation extending jobless 
benefits up to 20 weeks. The House 
followed suit on a vote of 375-45. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


8 / 5/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






By Arlee C. Green 

M any faces. One voice. From around 
the country — indeed, from 
around the world — union members 
and their allies from 151 different 
organizations will fill the streets of 
Washington on Aug. 31 with the unified 
message of Solidarity Day ’91. 

“We are one,” they will say, in call- 
ing for passage of the Workplace Fair- 
ness bill, for reform of the nation’s 
health care system and for freedom of 
association for workers here and 
abroad. 

“Those who attended the first 
Solidarity Day 10 years ago know what 
a great success it was,’’ AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland said. “As with 
the first Solidarity Day, we hope to 
achieve an impressive turnout in order 
to convince our national political 
leaders that this trade union movement 
is united and determined to prevail on 
critical issues.’’ 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

Transportation coordinator Vincent O'Brien, right, and national office staff make final preparations. 


The planning has been continuous 
over the six months since the AFL-CIO 
Executive Council declared Aug. 31 as 
Solidarity Day ’91. Allied groups also 
have jumped into the action. One of the 
151 organizations that has endorsed 
Solidarity Day, the NAACP, is 
distributing 20,000 fliers to churches 
urging people to come to the event. 

In addition to addressing the three 
major themes, those allies will join in 
the march to draw the nation’s attention 
to the need for pay equity, civil rights 
legislation, pension protections, invest- 
ment in education, fair trade, OSH A 
reform, adequate funding for states and 
cities, fair housing, child care, family 
and medical leave, and sound policies 
aimed at rebuilding America and 
preserving its environment. 

In the final days before the historic 
return of workers on the 10th anniver- 
sary of the 1981 Solidarity Day, the in- 
tensity of the event can be felt wherever 
trade unionists gather. 


Some 3,500 buses have been reserved 
to bring union members to Washington. 
Each bus will have a captain responsi- 
ble for keeping track of the riders and 
seeing that all make it back to the bus 
for the return trip home. To ease the 
task, packets of detailed information 
and instructions have been sent to each 
captain — a mammoth mailing task. 

Buses are being routed to parking lots 
at RFK Stadium and the Pentagon 
where riders will be directed to the 
Metro system for a short ride downtown 
to the stops along the parade route. 
Food and Commercial Workers’ buses 
are being sent to UFCW Local 400 in 
Landover, Md., where riders can catch 
the Metro. 

For groups smaller than a busload 
and for some areas unable to get buses, 
vans will bring union members to the 
march — from cities within 12 hours or 
less driving time from Washington. 

Continued on Page 5 


Willie Nelson tops entertainment 


E ntertainer Willie Nelson will 
headline the growing list of 
singers and actors who will perform 
on stages at each end of the Solidar- 
ity Day ’91 march route. 

Nelson has long been involved in 
workers’ causes, including Farm 
Aid. “Save the Family Farms’’ is 
one of the goals of Solidarity Day. 

The list of performers also in- 
cludes folk singers Pete Seeger and 
Arlo Guthrie, actress Jean Stapleton, 
actors Theodore Bikel and Ron 
Silver, lead singer Florence LaRue 
of the Fifth Dimension, Metropoli- 
tan Opera soloist Pamela Warrick- 
Smith, blues singer Carol Woods, 
and performers Ngoma and Jaribu 
Hill of Serious Business. Stapleton, 
Bikel and Silver are all current 


or former leaders of their unions. 

Also performing will be Kenny 
Winfree, Baldemar Velasques, 
Fruits of Labor, Tom Juravich, Ed- 
die Starr, Ann Feeney, Gloria Brit- 
ton, Joe Uehlein, Laurel Blaydes, 
Jeanne Mackey, Tony McGuffm, 
Jane Brody and Si Kahn. 

The ILGWU Chorus from the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers will per- 
form and bands are being provided 
by the Musicians, Postal Workers 
and Letter Carriers. 

The stage at 17th St. and Constitu- 
tion Ave. will feature entertainment 
from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., while the 
main stage at 3rd St. and the Mall 
will have performers from 1 p.m. to 
3 p.m. The Electrical Workers’ 
bagpipes will lead the march. 


Congress on the move to confront health care issue 


By Candice Johnson 

A new round of health care proposals 
introduced as Congress was prepar- 
ing for its August recess promises to 
raise the level of debate, moving the na- 
tion closer to comprehensive health care 
reform. 

Both a measure introduced by House 
Ways and Means Committee Chairman 
Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) and an 
amendment by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) 
to the Senate leadership’s health reform 
proposal include mandatory cost con- 
tainment, a feature the AFL-CIO con- 
siders vital to any restructuring of the 
nation’s health care system. 


The proposals open the door to real 
reform based on the AFL-CIO ’s prin- 
ciples of universal access, quality and 
cost containment, AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland said. They also would 
help alleviate ‘ ‘a major problem unions 
and employers are encountering at the 
bargaining table by proposing to cover 
retiree health needs through a public 
plan’’ and lowering the age for Medi- 
care eligibility to 60, he noted. 

AFL-CIO Vice President John 
Sweeney applauded the actions and 
added that, with the introduction of 
these bills, “we now have the ingre- 
dients on the table for national health 


care reform.’’ Sweeney, who is presi- 
dent of the Service Employees, heads 
the AFL-CIO committee on health care. 

The Rostenkowski proposal would 
establish an employer-based health care 
system that provides universal coverage 
and mandatory cost controls and spend- 
ing limits. 

Simon’s bill, S. 1669, builds on the 
comprehensive reform proposal in- 
troduced by the Senate leadership this 
summer, adding an independent federal 
health expenditure board to oversee 
cost-setting and rates. 

Rostenkowski said he will schedule 
hearings on his bill, H.R. 3205, this fall 


and indicated that he was willing to 
discuss alternative proposals to meet the 
objectives of access and cost. The Ways 
and Means Committee, which oversees 
the Medicare program and also is re- 
sponsible for writing tax legislation, 
would play a key role in determining the 
finance provisions of any health care 
proposal. 

While noting there is not yet a broad 
consensus on the way health care re- 
form should be achieved, Rostenkowski 
stressed that “there is no more impor- 
tant problem confronting our country 
today than health care. It is time to 
Continued on Page 3 







Delta buys Pan Am assets 

Unions trying to recapture lost jobs 


By James B. Parks 

D elta Air Lines’ takeover of most of Pan 
American World Airways’ operations will save 
about 78 percent of the bankrupt carrier’s jobs, and 
union officials are working to try and keep more 
jobs from being cut. 

“Compared to Eastern, it’s great,’’ said John 
Kerrigan, secretary-treasurer of the Transport 
Workers. “Half of our people kept their jobs. With 
Eastern they all lost. But for that half that lost their 
jobs and those who hoped for a resurrected Pan Am, 
it’s a disaster.’’ 

However, the deal was the best possible at the 
time, union officials said. “This is the best deal 
from the standpoint of the employees, ’ ’ said George 
Miranda, vice president of Teamsters Local 732, 
which represents Pan Am customer agents. The 
Delta proposal saved more jobs than the offers from 
other buyers and guaranteed that there would be a 
unionized workforce at what remains of Pan Am, 
he said. The deal also includes $80 million in cash 
to help Pan Am operate until the sale is approved, 
Miranda said. 

13,500 jobs saved 

Under the plan approved Aug. 12 by U.S. Bank- 
ruptcy Judge Cornelius Blackshear, Delta will pay 
$621 million to Pan Am’s creditors and assume 
about $700 million in liabilities. The creditors also 
will receive 55 percent equity in a reorganized Pan 
Am. 

In return, Delta will receive Pan Am’s European 
routes and operations, the Pan Am shuttle, and a 
45 percent stake in the reorganized Pan Am. 

The sale will save about 13,500 of the carrier’s 
remaining 17,300 jobs. Pan Am announced Aug. 
2 it was eliminating about 5,000 of its 22,000 jobs. 
Other bids by United, American, Trans World and 
Northwest would have saved fewer jobs, Miranda 
said. 

If the sale is approved by the U.S. Department 
of Transportation, a total of 6,600 Pan Am 
employees would be transferred to Delta, while 
another 6,900 would retain jobs in the reorganized 
Pan Am. The reorganized airline would retain only 
existing Latin American routes. 

TWU takes heavy hit 

As part of the deal, Pan Am will close its New 
York-based maintenance facilities, where the bulk 
of the Pan Am TWU members work, said Kerrigan, 
who also heads the union’s airline division. At the 
same time, Delta does not have the capacity to ab- 
sorb all the maintenance work that will be required. 
Kerrigan said he is meeting with Delta and Pan Am 
officials in hopes of keeping some or all of the 
maintenance operation open thereby improving the 
job situation. 

TWU represents 6,147 mechanics, dispatchers 
and building service representatives at Pan Am. Of 
the group, 1,318 will transfer to Delta with full 
seniority, Kerrigan said, while 1,650 will stay with 
a reorganized Pan Am. But 3, 179 will lose their jobs 
unless the negotiations over maintenance are 
successful. 

The Teamsters represent 5,400 customer contact 
agents and general clerical workers. At Delta, the 


pilots and the dispatchers are union members. 

Miranda, who serves on the Pan Am creditors’ 
committee, said he would have preferred to have 
kept Pan Am whole and not split it up. When it 
became obvious that it was impossible, he said, 
labor insisted that employees’ jobs be protected in 
any deal. 

Kerrigan also said he would have preferred a 
whole Pan Am. But now, “Pan Am is gone. All 
that’s left is a tax shelter for a small amount of Pan 
Am,’’ he said. Pan Am holds over $1 billion in tax 
credits that only it can use, so the buyers had to keep 
the entity alive to take advantage of those credits, 
Kerrigan said. 

ALPA praises deal 

Laid-off employees will receive preferential hir- 
ing for future jobs at Pan Am and Delta, Kerrigan 
and Miranda said. 

The Airline Pilots estimated that 1,400 of its 

2.000 members at Pan Am would keep their jobs 
after the sale. In a statement, ALPA praised the deal 
as “the best we could have hoped for.’’ The pro- 
posed sale “offers a new lease on our professional 
life’’ for many Pan Am pilots, the statement said. 

Brian Moreau, president of the Independent 
Union of Flight Attendants, said more than 3,000 
of the union’s 4,283 members would have jobs after 
sale, with 1 ,800 transferring to Delta and 1 ,400 or 
1 ,500 staying with Pan Am. Those laid off, he said, 
would have recall rights at Pan Am and be given 
priority by Delta in future hiring. 

Delta will not assume any of Pan Am’s pension 
liabilities, but those benefits will be protected under 
federal provisions. The Pension Benefit Guaranty 
Corp. moved July 24 to protect about 35,000 Pan 
Am employees and retirees with a bailout of the 
company’s underfunded pension plan. 

Pension fight in court 

The PBGC asked a federal court in New York 
to terminate the Cooperative Retirement Income 
Plan — with about 34,000 participants, including 

11.000 retirees — which the agency says is $800 
million short. It also wants to terminate the defined 
benefit plan for flight engineers, which has 750 par- 
ticipants, including 550 retirees, and is underfund- 
ed by about $40 million. Both funds were frozen 
in 1983. 

Pan Am challenged the pension takeover and the 
court has set a Sept. 13 hearing. 

Meanwhile, two bills designed to save Pan Am 
jobs were introduced on Capitol Hill. S. 1565, spon- 
sored by Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), and H.R. 
3178, co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Manton (D- 
N.Y.) and Dante Fascell (D-Fla.), would require 
the new owners of Pan Am’s international routes 
to retain current U.S. employees to service and 
operate those routes. 

“European laws protect workers in this situation, 
but our laws are deficient. The United States is leap 
years behind other civilized countries in protecting 
workers,’’ said Marv Griswold, director of the 
Teamsters airline division. 

“Our fight is for basic fairness. Other countries 
protect airline employees in the event of route 
transfers and we should too,’’ Graham said. 


AFA and United 
tentatively agree 
after 4 years 

By Candice Johnson 

A final, marathon bargaining session 
and the support of the AFL-CIO helped 
the Flight Attendants jettison four years of 
frustrating contract talks to reach a tentative 
settlement with United Airlines. 

The proposed agreement would cover 
16,000 United attendants, many of whom 
have been working without a pay raise since 
1986. After reviewing the tentative agree- 
ment, the union’s United Master Executive 
Council recommended that the membership 
ratify the accord. Details of the settlement will 
be made public after the vote. 

Joining the talks were National Mediation 
Board chairman Patrick Cleary and mediator 
Sam Cogneta. 

Over the course of negotiations, the AFA 
had been pressing for a wage increase, point- 
ing out that United attendants earned about 
12 percent less than their counterparts at Delta 
and American Airlines. The union also was 
seeking other contract improvements like 
seniority guarantees and the elimination of 
body weight restrictions. 

Finally tiring of four years of fruitless 
bargaining, the AFA in May petitioned the 
NMB to release it from further talks to begin 
the process leading to “self-help” by the 
union. That petition should trigger the 30-day 
“cooling-off period,” after which AFA 
would be free to strike. 

The NMB took no action, however, despite 
the carrier’s failure to respond to the AFA’s 
latest proposal and the stalemate in negotia- 
tions reached in July. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland then 
wrote to United chairman Stephen Wolf and 
members of the airline’s board of directors, 
expressing his concern about United’s 
“failure to promptly and fairly conclude col- 
lective bargaining” with the AFA. 

“The flight attendants at United, members 
of an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, have asked 
for our assistance. They are understandably 
frustrated and angry over the treatment they 
have received at the bargaining table and in 
the workplace,” he wrote, pointing out that 
the company had completed negotiations with 
its other unions in the past. 

Kirkland reminded the United officials that 
when collective bargaining “does not yield 
an agreement due to corporate intransigence, 
labor must unite and directly act to achieve 
a just settlement.” He noted that the 
AFL-CIO would be watching the situation 
closely. 

At the same time, Kirkland contacted the 
NMB with an appeal to get the talks moving 
or release the AFA from mediation. Cleary 
arranged for a round of mediated talks to 
resume on Aug. 8 — talks that led to the ten- 
tative agreement. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 17 <g« ^gjg ^ .3 MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 



Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






Civil rights bill alive and well, despite Bush 


By James B. Parks 

T wo key senators pledged to work to 
pass the Civil Rights Act of 1991 
despite the White House’s efforts to 
sabotage the process. 

After weeks of futile negotiations 
with the administration over a possible 
compromise, Sen. John Danforth (R- 
Mo.) said he planned to introduce a 
consolidated civil rights bill, possibly 
when Congress returns after the August 
recess. 

Civil rights groups praised Danforth 
for his efforts to fashion a compromise. 
Ralph Neas, executive director of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 
which includes the AFL-CIO and 184 
other labor, civil rights, and consumer 
groups, noted however that the group 
has some concerns about parts of the 
latest version of the bill. 

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), 
chairman of the Labor and Human 
Resources Committee, said he would 
work with Danforth to produce a bill 
that could pass the Senate with a veto- 
proof margin. 

The bill would reverse several 1989 
Supreme Court decisions that narrowed 
the remedies available to victims of job 
discrimination. 

“President Bush’s refusal to support 
the Danforth compromise seriously 
undermines the rights of millions of 
working women and minorities to be 
free from discrimination on the job,” 
Kennedy said. 

Danforth announced Aug. 1 that his 
talks with the White House on the bill 
had been an exercise in “rainbow- 
chasing.” The talks followed weeks of 
efforts by a group of Democrats, Dan- 
forth and other moderate Republicans 
to fashion a bill that could garner 
enough votes to pass the Senate and 


All-out fight pledged to stop Thomas nomination 

S aying his confirmation would place portunity Commission, “decided to that “freedom requires” that prop- 
the “far-right wing” in firm con- enforce those laws and court deci- erty rights and the free market should 
trol of the Supreme Court, the sions with which he agreed, and to not be disturbed. In one argument 
Leadership Conference on Civil ignore and defy those with which he against workers’ quest for job secur- 
Rights vowed an all-out fight against disagreed.” ity, Thomas wrote that security and 

Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Neas released a lengthy LCCR freedom “are mutually exclusive.” 
high court. report that documented numerous ac- In contrast, in announcing opposi- 

If Thomas joins the court, “fund- tions by Thomas in which he denied tion to Thomas, AFL-CIO President 
amental civil and constitutional rights or delayed redress for thousands of Lane Kirkland said: “Judge Thomas 
could be lost overnight,” said Ralph minorities, senior citizens, women believes that unfettered markets and 
Neas, LCCR’s executive director. The and persons with disabilities in job private property rights are 
conference is a coalition of 185 groups discrimination cases. sacrosanct. We do not. We believe 

including the AFL-CIO, unions, civil The AFL-CIO Executive Council that society can and should soften the 
rights and consumer groups. voted to oppose the Thomas nomina- harsh edges of a market economy to 

Neas was joined at the press con- tion July 31 at its meeting in Chicago, allow wage earners and the less 
ference by William Lucy, secretary- Several affiliated unions have an- privileged to share in the nation’s 
treasurer of AFSCME and president nounced their opposition to Thomas economic well-being.” 

of the Coalition of Black Trade and the Coalition of Labor Union The AFL-CIO also noted that 

Unionists. Lucy said Thomas’ Women, which scored his treatment Judge Thomas’ assertion “that 

record, speeches and writings show of women during his time at the natural rights and higher law 

a “clear insensitivity to the concerns EEOC, also has announced its oppo- arguments are the best defense of 

of working people.” sition. liberty and of limited government” 

The coalition opposes the nomina- Labor’s opposition is based on suggests a return to “the pre-New 
tion, Neas told a Washington press Thomas’ outspoken writings in which Deal judicial activism, which 

conference, because Thomas, as an he attacks the concept that govern- prompted the courts to deny effect to 

Education Department official and as ment should ever help workers, con- needed social and economic legisla- 

head of the Equal Employment Op- sumers or other individuals. He holds tion” for decades. 


override a certain presidential veto. 

The major difference is over a 1971 
ruling by the Supreme Court in Griggs 
v. Duke Power, which stated that job 
requirements that exceed those needed 
to perform the job are unlawful if they 
screen out a disproportionate number of 
minorities. The court in 1989 weakened 
that rule in Wards Cove v. Antonio. 

Danforth’s bill and legislation passed 
in the House would restore the Griggs 
rule, which the administration opposes. 


Danforth rejected White House argu- 
ments, saying it would be a “serious 
mistake for the president ... to turn the 
clock back on civil rights. ” The White 
House seems determined, Danforth 
said, to allow businesses to use degree 
requirements in hiring even if they shut 
out of the job market 50-year-olds who 
lack a diploma. 

Danforth said the nation would not 
accept as fair an administration bill that 
allows diploma requirements for jani- 


tors, or permits employers to impose 
with impunity height and weight re- 
quirements that consistently screen out 
women. 

The House passed a labor-backed 
civil rights bill in June. That bill has not 
been introduced in the Senate. If the 
Senate passes another version, the dif- 
ferences would have to be worked out 
in conference committee, said AFL- 
CIO legislative representative Jane 
O’Grady. 


New health care initiatives raise expectations for reform 


Continued from Page 1 

abandon the catchy slogans and gear up 
for the legislative long march.” 

Ten health care proposals have been 
introduced in the 101st Congress and 
others are anticipated, including one by 
the House leadership in the fall and one 
by the Bush administration early next 
year. 

One proposal, H.R. 1300, the Uni- 
versal Health Care Act, introduced by 
Rep. Marty Russo (D-Ill.), is a single- 
payer plan similar to the Canadian 
health care system that has gained some 
labor support. 

The AFL-CIO has said it would back 
measures that “continue the labor 
movement’s long-held goal of a social 
insurance national health care program, 
while recognizing that reform may 
come about in stages.” 

‘Play or pay’ systems 

Like the Senate Democratic leader- 
ship plan, Rostenkowski’s proposal 
would set up a “play or pay” system, 
but the House version spells out how the 
system would be funded. 

Under the Rostenkowski bill, 
employers would be required to provide 
insurance for workers or pay a payroll 
tax of about 9 percent, which would 
finance the public health plan that 
covers all other persons. An additional 


tax on personal and corporate in- 
come — initially 6 percent and increas- 
ing to 9 percent by 1996 — also would 
be levied. 

The plan would boost the taxable 
wage base for the Medicare health in- 
surance tax, now $125,000, to 
$200,000 by 1993 and would increase 
in the Medicare tax rate both employers 
and workers pay from the current 1.45 
percent to 1.65 percent in 1996. 

The bill would establish a national 
health care budget, with a federal health 
care cost containment commission set- 
ting expenditure targets, developing a 
capital budget and allocating the budget 
among the various sectors of the health 
care delivery system. 

The Secretary for Health and Human 
Services would establish payment rates 
for health care services and would 
regulate insurance practices, in most 
cases eliminating the industry’s clauses 
on pre-existing conditions. 

The Rostenkowski bill also proposes 
that eligibility for Medicare be reduced 
to age 60, ensuring retirees better ac- 
cess to health care services. 

The Senate leadership’s “play or 
pay” bill, as amended by Simon, would 
set up a federal health expenditure 
board to establish spending targets both 
nationally and by state and region. It 
would give states the option of estab- 


lishing a single-payer system that meets 
the expenditure targets set at the federal 
level. 

Payment rates for physicians would 
be set under a practice cost system 
similar to that used by Medicare while 
hospital rates would be based on 
diagnostic related groups. 

Both payment rates would be adjusted 
for geographic and other factors and 
states could develop alternative pay- 
ment methods. 

In addition to adding mandatory cost 
control measures, the Simon bill also 
would reduce the age of Medicare 
eligibility to 60. 

AFL-CIO proposals 

In February, the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council called for Congress to establish 
a national social insurance program that 
includes workers, the unemployed and 
others not in the labor force and incor- 
porates Medicare and Medicaid. 

While recognizing that reform may 
come about in stages, the federation 
called for reforms that include: 

• A national commission to ad- 
minister a cost containment program 
that includes a cap on health expen- 
ditures, a capital budget that manages 
technology and improves the allocation 
of resources, and a federal authority 
that negotiates uniform reimbursement 


rates (with hospitals, doctors and other 
providers) to be used by all payers. 

• A core package of health care 
benefits, with supplemental benefits 
provided on a voluntary basis or 
through collective bargaining. 

• Progressive and equitable finan- 
cing that requires all employers to con- 
tribute toward health care coverage. 

• An administrative structure with 
requirements to standardize claims 
forms, restrict the number of entities 
participating in the system, improve 
delivery of care and assure that no in- 
dividual will be denied coverage, 
regardless of age, income, employment 
status or prior health care history. 

• Lowered Medicare eligibility to 
age 60, putting the program in line with 
the average retirement age. 

• Improved quality through the 
widespread dissemination of informa- 
tion to physicians through practice 
guidelines, a national system for 
technology assessment and a national 
data base on the cost and quality of care. 

• Encouragement for physicians to 
avoid unnecessary tests and medical 
procedures and a better system for 
handling malpractice disputes. 

• Provide all Americans access to 
long-term care and make home care 
available to the chronically ill. 





State workers 
take message 
into streets 



Norman Pastor 


Rev. Jesse Jackson leads “Rebuild America” march Moran, Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, New York City 
through Bridgeport, Conn., to spotlight the plight of Mayor David Dinkins, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee 
America's cities. From left: Bridgeport Mayor Mary and Lottie Williams, Conference of Black Mayors. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

P ublic employees throughout the na- 
tion are fighting back against the 
knee-jerk reaction of state officials that 
cutting jobs is the way to balance 
deficit-ridden budgets. 

The California State Employees As- 
sociation, a Service Employees affiliate, 
has set a mid-September deadline to 
take a strike authorization vote if con- 
tract talks with state officials remain 
stalled. 

“If the state stands firm in its 
demands for rollbacks, members must 
be given the opportunity to exercise the 
ultimate weapon of labor, the with- 
holding of services and concerted ef- 
forts,” said Perry Kenny, director of 
CSEA’s civil service division. 

Workers’ contracts expired June 30 
and negotiations have shown little pro- 
gress in three months, Kenny said. The 
state has halted talks with three of the 
nine CSEA bargaining units, despite re- 
quests by the union for additional 
bargaining dates. 

Under the budget passed in July, state 
agencies must cut workers’ pay and 
benefits by $800 million. Union 
negotiators say the cutbacks would 
reduce salaries and benefits by up to 30 
percent for some workers. 

Although the budget calls for major 
cutbacks for state workers, a Superior 
Court judge has ruled the state must pay 
higher health care costs for its workers, 
even though there is no money in the 
budget for the increases. State Con- 
troller Gray Davis argued Gov. Pete 
Wilson illegally charged workers for in- 
creased health care costs without 
negotiating the issue in collective 
bargaining. The ruling will cost the 
state $1.8 million a month. 

“Gov. Wilson knows the law re- 
quires him to negotiate any changes in 
health benefits at the bargaining table. 


Now he knows that the courts will 
uphold the law,” CSEA spokeswoman 
Pat McConahay said. 

California is only one of some 34 
states experiencing major fiscal prob- 
lems caused primarily by the recession, 
weak state and local tax systems, and 
the rapid growth of state and local spen- 
ding as the federal government dumps 
it responsibilities on them. 

Connecticut, the only state in the 
country that has yet to approve a 
budget, has three of the ten poorest 
cities in the nation. A judge recently 
blocked an attempt by Bridgeport, 
Conn, to file bankruptcy. 

To call attention to the need to help 
the American worker and to “rebuild 
America,” hundreds of marchers in- 
cluding union members, elected of- 
ficials, as well as business and com- 
munity leaders and members of con- 
sumer and civil rights organizations 
joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in a 
54-mile march from Bridgeport to 
Hartford. 

The march emphasized the need to 
shift the commitment to domestic 


issues — including jobs, health care, 
education, affordable housing, and fair 
taxes. 

In a statement endorsing the march, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said 
the efforts of the ‘ ‘Reagan and Bush ad- 
ministrations to transfer responsibility 
for vital domestic programs to the states 
and cities without providing them funds 
to maintain programs and services 
worsened the economic and social 
crises facing state and local govern- 
ments.” 

“We can’t allow cities like Bridge- 
port to go bankrupt and renege on the 
promise they made to their citizens to 
provide needed services. We can’t 
allow the contracts of municipal 
employees to be tom up,” said Connec- 
ticut AFL-CIO President John Olsen. 

Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker 
has vetoed the budget three times and 
urged the state legislature to either over- 
ride the veto or give up its opposition 
to an income tax. The state is currently 
operating on a fourth continuing resolu- 
tion and the legislature is in a special 
session to negotiate another budget. 


In Michigan, 1 1 ,000 employees were 
furloughed Aug. 15 and 16 and will 
have to take off again Aug. 19 and 20 
to help reduce the budget deficit. An ad- 
ditional 25,000 employees have volun- 
teered to give up as many as 32 hours 
of paid working time by Sept. 30. 

Gov. John Engler and legislators 
negotiated the layoffs as part of a plan 
to balance this year’s spending levels. 
The deal settled spending issues until 
the new budget year begins Oct. 1. 

Engler also said the state would not 
be able to assist Detroit in making its 
$54 million payment to the police and 
fire pension board. The admission came 
after a Wayne County judge on Friday 
ruled Detroit must pay the remaining 
portion of the city’s annual contribution 
to the pension system. 

In Pennsylvania, AFSCME Council 
13 loaned members who were not paid 
in July as much as $100 each. “State 
employees feel betrayed by a legislative 
process that currently forces financial 
hardship on them through no fault of 
their own,” said Council 13 Executive 
Director Edward Keller. 


Executive Life collapse could hurt 27 unions’ pensions 


By James B. Parks 

E xecutive Life Insurance failed be- 
cause state and federal regulators 
took a “head in the sand” approach that 
“encouraged small groups of specu- 
lators to terminate pension plans to free 
up cash to take over and, in many cases, 
destroy companies, send workers to 
unemployment lines and devastate their 
local communities,” the AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Council was told. 

Karen Ignagni, director of the federa- 
tion’s Department of Employee Bene- 
fits, reported that a study by her depart- 
ment shows that the collapse of Ex- 
ecutive Life could jeopardize the pen- 
sion benefits of members of 27 affiliated 
unions. 

Fifty-seven employers with 90,792 
workers terminated their pension funds 
to recapture “excess” pension assets 
and bought annuities from Executive 
Life. The company’s court-appointed 
conservator has reduced the payments 
from the annuities to 70 percent of the 
promised benefit. The number of poten- 
tial victims could easily number in the 
hundreds of thousands, Ignagni said. 

Also in danger are pension benefits 
of employees covered by ongoing plans 
that purchased annuities from Executive 
Life. Another 100 companies and seven 
public funds with defined contribution 
plans bought 176 “guaranteed invest- 
ment contracts” (GICs) with the defer- 
red wages and voluntary contributions 
of workers, the report said. 


Several unions have filed suit against 
employers involved in leveraged buy- 
outs through Executive Life junk bonds. 
The Electronic Workers have two suits 
pending, against Magnatec and Unisys, 
IUE President William By water noted. 

Clothing and Textile Workers Presi- 
dent Jack Sheinkman told the Executive 
Council that the plight of retirees in the 
wake of the Executive Life failure was 
a major issue in an ACTWU organiz- 
ing campaign for 7,500 workers at 
Fieldcrest Mills, the former Cannon 
Mills, in Kannapolis, N.C. 

“The former owner, David Mur- 
dock, transferred Cannon’s pension 
funds to Executive Life when he sold 
the company,” Sheinkman said. “Some 
13,000 employees had their pension 
payments, which were only at $75 a 
month, cut by 30 percent when Ex- 
ecutive Life failed.” 

Although Murdock recently an- 
nounced he would make up the dif- 
ference in the 30 percent shortfall, at 
$1 million, he ended up pocketing some 
$30 million by terminating the pension 
plan. 

“There is another lesson in this,” 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
remarked. “It may be almost as 
dangerous to a let a pension fund 
become overfunded as it is to become 
underfunded. It becomes a target for the 
sharpshooters and buyout artists.” 
The situation points up the need for 
Congress to revise the 1974 Employee 


Retirement Income Security Act 
(ERISA) to protect the victims of the 
Executive Life collapse and future 
retirees in case of another insurer’s 
demise, Ignagni added. 

The federation has proposed a legis- 
lative strategy that would protect par- 
ticipants in plans that are terminated or 
whose ongoing plans purchase annuities 
or whose defined contribution plans in- 
vest in GICs. 

“The AFL-CIO believes that it is 
critical that Congress move decisively 
to ensure that there is an adequate safety 
net to protect pension benefits promised 
to workers,” Ignagni said. “The fed- 
eral government is the primary insurer, 
and it should have the regulatory au- 
thority to carry out this mandate in a 
way that protects pensioners and tax- 
payers.” 

Had current provisions discouraging 
terminations been in effect, or had there 
been checks on the placement of a 
assets, she said, then Executive Life 
might never have collapsed. 

The legislation, which has not yet 
been introduced, would call for: 

• Strengthening pension plan 
reporting and disclosure requirements. 
“Workers, pensioners and their unions 
have a right to know how their pensions 
are being managed and whether any 
changes are being contemplated that 
jeopardize their benefit security,” 
Ignagni said, adding that they should be 
allowed to comment before annui- 


ties are purchased with pension funds. 

• Providing broader coverage by 
the U.S. Labor Department’s Pension 
Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC) to all 
pension obligations, including guaran- 
teeing annuities purchased by any plan. 
The PBGC, which insures the benefits 
of terminated plans, has been preoc- 
cupied with limiting its liability for 
underfunded plans that are involuntarily 
terminated and not with funds that are 
voluntarily ended to purchase annuities, 
Ignagni said. 

• Requiring, in situations where 
plans are terminated, that the annuities 
be purchased only from insurers that 
meet specific federal standards. 

• Regulating the levying of current 
and possible future Internal Revenue 
Service liens against Executive Life and 
similar insurers. If the IRS enforced its 
claims against Executive Life, it would 
force the liquidation of the company and 
increase the injury to the company. 

• Considering proposals to require 
joint trusteeship with employees of 
single employer and public sector plans 
as a way of balancing the interests of 
employers in maximizing returns. 

• Extending ERISA-like protection 
to public employee pensions. 

The report called for Congress to act 
quickly to resolve the problems because 
the victims of the current crisis “can- 
not afford to wait in economic limbo 
until the necessary permanent solutions 
and remedies are developed.” 




Union members, allies on the march to Solidarity Day 


Union Yes ad to air Aug. 31 


Continued from Page 1 

Special Amtrak trains will be coming 
from Boston; New Haven, Conn.; New 
York; Trenton, N.J.; and Philadelphia. 
Transportation coordinator Vincent 
O’Brien said that some seats are still 
available from the Trenton and Phila- 
delphia areas. 

In addition, several thousand more 
unionists are planning to fly into 
Washington-area airports — National, 
Dulles and Baltimore /Washington Inter- 
national — where volunteer transporta- 
tion marshals will greet them and direct 
them to the appropriate ground trans- 
portation. 

The AFL-CIO negotiated special air 
fares with United, Northwest, TWA 
and USAir carriers that are based on a 
zone system, with the least expensive 
round-trip fare being $100 from airports 
in New England, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and 
North Carolina. The round-trip from 
the West Coast is only $250. 

Motorcyclists from UAW Local 735 
are taking a week of vacation to travel 
to Washington from Canton, Mich. 
And Roy Kruse of the Newspaper Guild 
Local 117 in Hawaii will spend 22 
hours in the air to and from Washington 
to show his solidarity with unionists 
from the mainland. 

Besides the union members traveling 
by bus, train, airplane, van and motor- 
cycle, unionists within 60 miles of 
Washington are receiving letters and 
maps asking them to attend the event, 
noting that union members from distant 
locations who are unable to come to 
Washington would be counting on them 
to make sure their union is well 
represented. An estimated 600,000 
trade unionists live within that 60-mile 
radius. 


T he AFL-CIO will unveil its new 
Union Yes commercial, 
“Benefits,” on network newscasts 
on Solidarity Day, Aug. 31. 

The commercial is a straightfor- 
ward, powerful spot that details the 
many benefits unions have won for 
all workers at the bargaining table. 
The gains include the eight-hour 
work day, higher wages, pensions, 
paid health care, sick leave, paid 
vacations and paid holidays. 

These improvements have become 
so standard that many workers 
believe such benefits are the creation 
of their employers. Using the sim- 
ple technique of listing those 


Union members driving in can park 
at Metro station lots where some 30,000 
spaces have been made available at 
these satellite lots: in Maryland, Shady 
Grove (Red Line), Wheaton (Red 
Line), New Carrollton (Orange Line), 
Addison Road (Blue Line), Silver 
Spring (Red Line); in Virginia, Vienna 
(Orange Line). See map, next page. 

There will be hundreds of volunteer 
marshals handling a myriad of duties, 
from greeting marchers at the airports 
and bus parking lots, to serving as 
guides at Metro lots and stations, pro- 
viding press credentials, security, 
sanitation, lost and found; and after- 
wards, answering emergency phones at 
the federation headquarters to aid 
travelers returning home. 

The American Red Cross will have 
several first-aid stations and handicap- 
ped transportation will be provided at 
march time from 15th St. and Independ- 


benefits, accompanied by the Union 
Yes music, the commercial brings 
home the message by concluding: 

“The preceding has been brought 
to you by the men and women of the 
unions of the AFL-CIO who won 
them at the bargaining table and set 
the standard for all working peo- 
ple.” 

The commercial will be used to 
support organizing campaigns and 
legislative initiatives, and can be 
tagged with local union identifica- 
tion. For information on customiza- 
tion, contact the Labor Institute of 
Public Affairs at 800/242-UNION or 
202/637-5334. 


ence Ave. to the rally site near 4th St. 
A Postal Service station located near the 
Ellipse will issue commemorative Soli- 
darity Day covers with hand-canceled 
postmarks. 

Solidarity Day Coordinator John 
Perkins said that the participants should 
group themselves on the Mall along the 
Constitution Ave. corridor between 
14th St. and 17th St., where an enter- 
tainment stage, at the corner of Con- 
stitution Ave. and 17th St., will feature 
a variety of performers from 10 a.m. 
until 2 p.m. 

At noon, the march toward the 
Capitol will begin from 14th St., where 
the first wave of unionists have 
assembled at the pre-march staging 
areas. 

Perkins said announcements will be 
made over the loudspeakers in advance 
telling members of each union where 
and when to assemble, so that par- 


ticipants can enjoy the entertainment 
right up to the time of the march. Some 
unions will have banners or signs in- 
dicating where their members should 
meet ahead of time. 

The parade route runs along Constitu- 
tion Ave. toward the Capitol, with the 
bulk of the marchers making a right 
turn on 7th St. Once on the Mall, 
marchers will continue up to the 
speakers’ platform which is at 3rd St. 
From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., there will be 
introductions , acknowledgements , 
entertainment and brief remarks. The 
formal program runs from 3 p.m. to 
4:30 p.m. 

International trade unionists in 
Washington for the march will par- 
ticipate in a seminar at the George 
Meany Labor Studies Center on Aug. 
29, two days before Solidarity Day. 

“Solidarity Day 1991 takes place in 
the midst of a remarkable era in the 
history of the free trade union move- 
ment,” Kirkland said. 

“It’s a time when labor is playing a 
critical role in the new democratic order 
that is asserting itself in every corner 
of the plant. 

“From the shipyards of Gdansk to the 
streets of Santiago, from Pretoria to 
Tirana — even in the Soviet Union — 
workers pursuing their natural aspira- 
tions to breathe free are the essential 
source of peaceful democratic revolu- 
tions that are sweeping aside tyranny 
and exploitation.” 

After Solidarity Day, workers from 
Solidamosc in Poland — where the 
“aspiration to breathe free” changed 
the world — will get on the Solidarity 
Day buses and start their tour in the 
United States by riding home with the 
trade union delegation from Fort 
Wayne, Ind. 



10 years later 
air controller 


woes remain 


By John R. Oravec 

T en years ago, President Reagan fired 
1 1 ,400 federal air traffic controllers 
who struck the Federal Aviation Ad- 
ministration because of rotten working 
conditions, long hours and burnout. 

But a decade after the strike and mass 
firings, many of the same safety con- 
cerns that prompted the 1981 walkout 
remain in the FAA facilities through- 
out the country. 

Many of the fired strikers, who had 
been members of the Professional Air 
Traffic Controllers, moved on to new 
careers. Although the strikers carry the 
scars of the decade-old struggle, they 
still maintain ties through an ad hoc 
organization called PATCO Lives. 

Some 300 of the old PATCO mem- 
bers recently came to Washington for 
a four-day national reunion. “It’s a 
family reunion in every sense of the 
word,” said Bill Taylor, the head of 
PATCO Lives. “It’s time to celebrate 
our recovering from the strike.” 

Ten years ago, PATCO fielded a 
large contingent of marchers in the first 
Solidarity Day. Taylor said plans were 
made at the reunion for participation in 
Solidarity Day ’91. At least 100 former 
PATCO members are expected to be 
back for the Aug. 31 rally. 

Many of the discharged controllers 
are succeeding in other careers, but 
some who have sought federal jobs out- 
side the FAA found the doors closed. 
The FAA has flatly refused to rehire 
any of the strikers, despite the prodding 
of the AFL-CIO and some members of 
Congress. 


At the first Solidarity Day, marchers show their support for fired air traffic 


Some participants at the reunion 
estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 of the 
fired controllers would go back to work 
immediately if they were allowed. But 
they continue to be barred under 
Reagan’s blackball, which is still in 
effect. 

Faulty equipment, understaffing, 
long hours, heavy traffic and poor labor 
relations continue to plague the federal 
air control system, today’s working 
controllers insist. 

The National Air Traffic Controllers 
Association, which now represents the 
FAA’s working controllers, said that 
virtually nothing has been done to 
rebuild the system after the 1981 strike 


even though government witnesses 
promised Congress the needed overhaul 
would be completed in less than three 
years. 

“They were wrong then, and they are 
wrong today,” said NATCA President 
R. Steve Bell. “The air traffic control 
system has not been rebuilt. There are 
not enough controllers working, nor in 
the pipeline to meet today’s, much less 
tomorrow’s air traffic demands.” 

Bell noted that nearly 3,000 fewer 
controllers handle 30 percent more traf- 
fic than in 1981 . And some FAA facili- 
ties are far worse off. He pointed out 
that the Washington-area control center 
has seen a 70 percent increase in traf- 


fic while staffing dropped 30 percent. 

NATCA officials said some equip- 
ment dates back to the 1950s while 
modernization is years behind schedule 
and running billions of dollars over 
budget. The union said new equipment 
is unreliable, prone to breakdowns and 
cannot meet capacity. 

“We need more air traffic con- 
trollers, not just the dribs and drabs that 
the administration serves up each 
year,” Bell stressed. “Allowing the 
fired controllers to reapply competi- 
tively for new positions would solve 
many of these problems and save the 
taxpayers millions of dollars in training 
costs.” 


controllers. 


AFL-CIO News file photo 







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UNION NEWS 


Associate memberships spreading labor’s message 


By Candice Johnson 

A ssociate membership programs are 
proving to be an effective way of 
getting out labor’s message while bring- 
ing the benefits of union membership 
to workers not yet covered by a collec- 
tive bargaining agreement. 

Affiliates’ associate member pro- 
grams and the AFL-CIO initiatives also 
have expanded to spur community wide 
efforts for such needs as family and 
medical leave. The AFL-CIO programs 
show these recent developments: 

• In the Los Angeles area, the 
California Immigrant Workers Associa- 
tion (CIWA) has proven so successful 
that its concepts are being used in an ex- 
panded, area- wide associate member- 
ship program. 

• In Cincinnati, the National 
Association of Working Americans is 
building a bridge between the labor 
community and those individuals who 
don’t have a union with the goal of in- 
troducing the union advantage to a new 
group of workers. 

• The Montana Family Union 
(MOFU) has been working to increase 
economic development in the state and 
to stave off assaults on working people 
by the National Right to Work Commit- 
tee. The broad-based group includes 
members from Native American 
groups, senior citizen and conservation 
organizations, family farmers and 
ranchers as well as workers and others 
without access to a union. 


CIWA grew out qf labor’s efforts 
beginning in 1987 to help guide 
Hispanic workers through the immigra- 
tion legalization process, now has more 
than 4,000 active members. 

CIWA members as a group are not 
covered by a collective bargaining 
agreement, but they can take advantage 
of benefits available through the Union 
Privilege Benefit Programs, legalization 
and education programs sponsored by 
the AFL-CIO Labor Immigrant Assis- 
tance Project and a local benefits 
package designed to help immigrant 
workers meet food, health care and 
other costs. 

CIWA’s newest offering is a health 
care benefit that gives members a 
reduction of up to 70 percent on non- 
hospital health care costs. The plan is 
designed for the vast majority of CIWA 
members whose families who are not 
covered by employer-paid health in- 
surance plans, CIWA executive direc- 
tor Jose De Paz said. 

CIWA also is working with Los 
Angeles and Orange County area 
unions in organizing campaigns and ef- 
forts to win a first contract. 

Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 770, locked in a dispute for a con- 
tract with the Farmer John chain now 
for more than a year, is using the CIWA 
program to assist the 1,200 UFCW 
members and help them get a contract. 
By enrolling them in CIWA — the 
membership fee is $20 per year per 


member — the local hopes to help 
workers meet their food and health care 
needs, while continuing the fight for a 
contract. 

The Clothing and Textile Workers 
have enrolled 150 cemetery workers in 
CIWA in their fight to win union 
recognition and a first contract with the 
area’s Catholic cemeteries. In addition, 
the Carpenters are using CIWA to 
bolster their residential housing 
campaign. 

CIWA also played a major role in the 
Machinists’ organizing victory among 
1,200 workers at American Racing 
Equipment. 

In Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, 
the NAWA program is built around 
three principles: advocacy on key local 
and national concerns, ranging from 
health care and community service to 
family and medical leave; the offer of 
Union Privilege and local benefits; and 
assistance with workplace problems. 

Daniel Radford, president of the Cin- 
cinnati AFL-CIO, says of the NAWA 
program that “associate membership 
gives members additional tools to work 
with, but it can’t take the place of a col- 
lective bargaining agreement and peo- 
ple are realizing that.’’ 

“We hope the program will help us 
expand and assist our neighborhood 
coalitions, knowing that these coalitions 
will assist us on projects directly affec- 
ting labor,” he added. 

Radford noted that NAWA organ- 


izers have gathered some 5,000 peti- 
tions endorsing legislation for family 
and medical leave. NAWA members 
also join in the AFL-CIO’s legislative 
action committees, meeting with 
legislators on labor and national issues. 

Begun in May 1990, NAWA now has 
1,600 members. The program is open 
to all working people not represented 
by a union, at a cost of $20 a year. In 
addition to the Union Privilege benefits, 
members can take advantage of locally 
arranged discounts, manuals and pub- 
lications for jobseekers and a hotline 
members can call with questions about 
their rights and problems on the job. 

The Montana Family Union, begun 
in 1990, was able to block the anti- 
union Right-to-Work efforts by playing 
a key role in the 1990 electoral activities 
and campaigns, Montana AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Secretary Don Judge said. 

Now with 800 members, MOFU also 
is working with affiliated unions, serv- 
ing as a means for unions to keep in 
contact with workers in campaigns 
where an organizing drive may not have 
been successful. The organization has 
also returned its attention to the right- 
to-work opposition, which has targeted 
the 1992 legislative races. 

The El Paso, Texas, program is 
labor’s newest associate member in- 
itiative, begun this year. Like CIWA, 
the El Paso is focusing primarily on 
Hispanic immigrant workers and has 
just begun to recruit members. 



Bud Federici/Affiliated Graphics 


Re-elected to lead the Iron Workers were, from left, Treasurer James E. 
Cole, President Jake West, and Secretary LeRoy E. Worley. 


Iron Workers 
girding up 
for future 

By Muriel H. Cooper 
Las Vegas 

D elegates to the 38th convention of 
the Iron Workers re-elected their top 
officers and laid out a program designed 
to strengthen the union into the next 
decade. 

They also urged participation in 
Solidarity Day, rebuilding of the na- 
tion’s highways and bridges and pas- 
sage of health care reform, workplace 
safety reform and the Workplace Fair- 
ness Bill, S.55. 

“It is my goal to bring to our union 
every bit of strength that is needed to 
produce for our members all the re- 
wards that their skills and honest hard 
work deserve,” President Jake West 
told the 929 delegates after his 
re-election. 

“I am confident that this convention 
will provide us with the leadership and 
solidarity to maintain our great union 
through the 90s and into the 21st Cen- 
tury,” he said. 

The Iron Workers future was on dis- 
play in a videotape presentation that 
focused on the union’s commitment to 
apprenticeship and on-the-job training 
programs. “We are a united organiza- 
tion with a united purpose — to help 
one another, to grow and to prosper to- 
gether,” West said. 

Also re-elected were Vice Presidents 
William H. Sullivan, James J. Willis, 
James A. Martin, O.C. Yancy, Fhane 
B. Jones, Donald W. O’Reilly, Richard 


Zampa, Raymond J. Robertson and 
Alan Simmons, along with General 
Secretary LeRoy E. Worley and 
Treasurer James E. Cole. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told the delegates 
that if the United States is to be a 
healthy nation, “we need a good system 
of roads and bridges. More than 40 per- 
cent of the bridges in the United States 
are unsound. We must let our represen- 
tatives know how we feel.” 

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) criticized 
the commitment of the Bush administra- 
tion to rebuilding America. “George 
Herbert Walker Bush has a domestic 
agenda for many other countries that he 
spends time traveling to, but he needs 
to devote more time to America’s prob- 
lems.” 

Gerard Scanned, head of the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Administra- 


tion, said his agency is now consider- 
ing regulations on scaffolds, tying off, 
crane safety and other improvements. 
“I can assure you that we in OSHA are 
as interested as you are in achieving job 
safety,” he said. 

Several speakers urged delegates to 
join in the march on Washington Aug. 
31, Solidarity Day ’91, focusing on the 
passage of the Workplace Fairness Bill, 
national health care reform and freedom 
of association at home and abroad. 

Other speakers included Reps. 
William D. Ford (D-Mich.) and 
Thomas J. Manton (D-N.Y.); Nevada 
Gov. Robert Miller; Robert A. 
Georgine, president of the Building and 
Construction Trades Department; 
Claude Evans, executive secretary- 
treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO and 
Federal Mediation and Conciliation 
Service Director Bernard DeLury. 


Administrators 
elect Greene 
as president 

San Francisco 

T he School Administrators national 
convention elected a new president 
and discussed the changing role of 
school superintendents and managers, 
as well as trends in education. 

The 145 delegates unanimously 
elected Joe L. Greene to a three-year 
term as president, replacing Ted 
Elsberg who chose not to run again. 

Greene, who has served as AFSA 
treasurer since 1986, also is president 
of AFSA Local 28 in Detroit and head 
of the Michigan Federation of Ad- 
ministrators. He will resign those posts 
to serve as AFSA’s full-time president. 

Green pledged to fight for “more 
resources” for schools and to put AFSA 
in the forefront of issues affecting 
children. 

Other officers elected were Joseph 
Kovaly, executive vice president; David 
Mulholland, secretary; and Joseph 
Chagnon, treasurer. 

In various workshops, the delegates 
reviewed a school restructuring pro- 
gram in Alameda County, Calif., 
discussed special needs of “magnet” 
schools and evaluated year-round 
school programs. 

A panel chaired by Elsberg looked 
ahead to “Education: Year 2000,” and 
examined the roles school-based 
management systems, changing tech- 
nology and the need for further staff 
development will play in schools of the 
future. 




John Keagy/Affiiiated Graphics 

Workers must have the right to strike "without being permanently replaced by 
scabs/' AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland tells the Boilermakers convention. 


Boilermakers pledge battle 
against Bush trade policies 


Las Vegas 

D elegates to the 28th convention of 
the Boilermakers resolved to fight 
against a Bush administration foreign 
trade policy that President Charles W. 
Jones described as “putting us against 
a 10 year old working seven days a 
week.” 

The convention also approved a 
variety of resolutions, including a call 
to ban “permanent replacements for 
strikers,” and voted to increase the per 
capita for the construction division, the 
first such increase since the division was 
established in 1977. 

“One of our biggest concerns is the 
government dismantling the industrial 
and manufacturing base recklessly,” 
Jones said. “If you get rid of the blue- 
collar workers, you are getting rid of 
middle-class, good taxpayers. They’re 
sending our tax base to foreign coun- 
tries. 

“We must have fair trade, not free 
trade. And it must be on an equal 
footing,” he said. “We can compete 
with anybody, but we can’t compete 
with slave labor and unfair foreign sub- 
sidies.” 

The minimum field dues rate for the 
construction division was raised from 
2.5 percent to 3.5 percent, with half of 
the increase going to the locals to in- 
crease construction staff representation 
and develop and institute new leader- 
ship training programs for their con- 
struction business managers. The other 
half will go to the international for use 
primarily in the organizing depart- 
ment’s “fight back” efforts. 


The union has been one of the pio- 
neers in creative methods to “Stay In 
and Fight Back” when up against an 
employer that clearly has no intention 
of bargaining, but seeks only to provoke 
a strike and be rid of the union by hir- 
ing permanent replacements. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the 857 delegates that the fight for 
better living and working conditions 
rests with the trade union movement. 

“Clearly no one else will confront 
these issues, insist on fairness and 
justice for working people, and pursue 
a legislative agenda that will get the 
country moving in the right direction 
again. 

“We can start with a very simple 
proposition that is at the heart of what 
collective bargaining and trade union 
rights are all about . . . and that is the 
right of workers to strike without be- 
ing permanently replaced by scabs,” he 
said. 

Jones was re-elected, along with Sec- 
retary-Treasurer Jerry Willburn and 
Vice Presidents Henry Harden, R. Clay 
Parton, Anthony Yakemowicz, Law- 
rence McManamon, Richard C. 
Albright, Alexander MacDonald, Jerry 
Horseman, Jack Sloan and Henry 
Bechtholdt. 

Other speakers included Canadian 
Federation of Labor President James A. 
McCambly, AFL-CIO Building and 
Construction Trades Department Presi- 
dent Robert A. Georgine, Industrial 
Union Department President Howard 
Samuel and Maritime Trades Depart- 
ment President Michael Sacco. 


Study: Contract workers 
add to chemical hazards 


By Arlee C. Green 

A 19-month federal study of the petro- 
chemical industry confirms the 
belief of union members that the use of 
untrained, little-experienced contract 
workers jeopardizes plant safety and en- 
dangers workers and communities. 

The study was performed for the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration by the John Gray Institute 
of Lamar University in Beaumont, 
Texas. It documents the shortcomings 
of contract employees who often work 
in the most dangerous situations and 
who are inadequately trained to con- 
front emergencies. 

Robert Wages, vice president of the 
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, 
said the report “echoes what we’ve 
been saying all along. Contract workers 
don’t get the same level of training and 
education as direct-hire workers. Nor 
are their skill levels comparable to those 
of permanent employees.” 

Wages stressed that the uneven levels 
of training are “not surprising. 
Everyone knows (that if) employ- 
ers. . . can get cheaper labor and higher 
profits by contracting out work to less 
trained and less experienced workers, 
then that’s exactly what they’re going 
to do.” 

Last January, union members on the 
15-member committee OSHA named to 
direct the JGI study resigned, charging 
the study had become a ‘ ‘political foot- 
ball” and that the White House Office 
of Management and Budget had pres- 
sured OSHA to drop it. 

Of the end result, Wages said that “in 
general, we endorse the Gray Institute’s 
report and findings.” He said most of 
the study’s dozen recommendations are 
necessary to correct inadequate industry 
practices. OCAW, however, “objects 
strongly” to the report’s concept of a 
national task force to address safety and 
health in the petrochemical industry, he 
said. 

4 ‘This task force idea is doomed from 
the get-go because of industry’s refusal 
to admit a problem exists,” Wages said. 
“We keep hearing the same old theme 
from the CMA (Chemical Manufac- 
turers’ Association): the huge and 
growing number of accidents is just a 
series of ‘isolated events’ with no com- 
mon denominators. That attitude is 
hardly a basis upon which to build a 
platform of reform.” 

OCAW strongly supports the recom- 
mendations for a radical change in the 
way data are collected on injuries and 
illnesses. Wages predicted that “we’ll 
get nothing but stonewall opposition 
from the industry.” 

Currently, injuries and illnesses in- 


volving contract workers are not 
counted against the petrochemical firm 
that hired the contract workers. This 
results in a false reading of the actual 
job safety at a particular plant site, 
OCAW said. 

The union also strongly endorses the 
recommendation of uniform health and 
safety training for all petrochemical 
workers. “Parity of training has been 
the cornerstone of our struggle over 
OSHA’s proposed process safety stan- 
dard,” Wages said. “It has been a 
rallying cry by our members throughout 
this industry.” 

In urging Congress to monitor 
OSHA’s progress in acting on the 
study’s recommendations, OCAW said 
the “situation is much too critical to 
tolerate any more foot-dragging, either 
by OSHA or the industry.” 

Michael Wright, health and safety 
director for the Steelworkers, said, 
“The report clearly shows there is a 
safety problem with the use of contrac- 
tors in the industry, and it bolsters the 
case that the USWA, OCAW and others 
have made to OSHA that its chemical 
process safety management standard re- 
quire equal training for contract 
workers.” 

Wright urged OSHA to heed the ex- 
tensive comments the unions made and 
include them in the standard, which 
OSHA said it will issue in the fall. 

The JGI study recommended that 
OSHA establish and implement safety 
and health training standards for all 
petrochemical workers, require plant 
management to assume responsibility 
for the safety and health of all workers 
(direct-hire and contract) at the work 
site, require joint health and safety com- 
mittees and work with labor and man- 
agement to create a comprehensive data 
collection system to aid in analyzing the 
root causes of accidents in the industry. 

OSHA had requested the JGI study 
following the Oct. 23, 1989, explosion 
at the Phillips Chemical complex in 
Pasadena, Texas, which killed 23 
workers and injured 232. 

The concern of OCAW and USWA 
members arises from the nearly 
30-percent drop in directly employed 
workers in the industry during the 
1980s and a corresponding increase in 
the use of contract workers. 

Since 1987, the 12 worst explosions 
in the petrochemical industry have 
killed 81 people, injured nearly 1,000 
and caused roughly $2 billion in dam- 
ages. On June 17 in Charleston, S.C., 
a chemical reactor at the Albright and 
Wilson Americas plant exploded, kill- 
ing seven contract workers and one reg- 
ular employee and injuring 33 others. 


UA delegates invest in future for organizing and service 


By Muriel H. Cooper 
Las Vegas 

G eared to meet the challenges of their 
union’s second century, delegates to 
the Plumbers and Pipefitters convention 
voted to increase per capita payments 
to generate growth through stepped-up 
organizing and service to members. 
Delegates also revised the UA constitu- 
tion and elected general officers. 

President Marvin J. Boede was re- 
elected by acclamation to a new five- 
year term. Marion A. Lee was elected 
secretary-treasurer to succeed Charles 
J. Habig, who is retiring after holding 
the post since 1985. Donald F. 
McNamara was elected assistant 
general president, a newly created post 


that replaces the position of the assis- 
tant secretary-treasurer, which Lee held 
since 1987. 

Re-elected vice presidents are James 
V. Hart, John A. Lindstrom, Martin 
Maddaloni, George L. Meservier and 
Donald J. Devitt. Also joining the 
leadership team is Vice President 
Thomas J. Hunter. 

In his keynote address to the conven- 
tion that marked the UA’s 100th an- 
niversary, Boede reminded the 3,375 
delegates of the victories they had 
obtained. 

‘ ‘Among some of the things we have 
achieved in the political arena in the re- 
cent past are victories like the Clean Air 
and Water Bill, the Hotel, Motel Fire 


Safety Act and most recently in the past 
couple of days we have been able to get 
a bill through the Congress that pro- 
vides for an additional 20 weeks of 
unemployment benefits to those unfor- 
tunate people who have used up their 
benefits,” he said. 

“The labor movement and the UA 
have been in the forefront of all this ac- 
tion to obtain a better break for 
everyone,” Boede said. 

The UA’s roots go back to 1889 and 
it was chartered by the AFL in 1897. 
The union currently has more than 
320,000 members in the United States 
and Canada. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
praised the UA in that it “continues to 


play a critical role in the trade union 
movement’s ongoing effort to help 
working people secure opportunity, 
dignity, justice and a voice they can call 
their own.” 

Kirkland called on UA members to 
continue to take the lead on issues fac- 
ing them, such as the “permanent 
replacement” of striking workers, na- 
tional health care reform and the OSHA 
reform bill. 

Other speakers included House Ma- 
jority Leader Richard Gephardt (D- 
Mo.), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Rep. 
Steny Hoyer (D-Md), President Robert 
Georgine of the AFL-CIO Building 
Trades Department and Nevada Lt. 
Gov. Sue Wagner. 





Real wages 
plunge 1.4% 
for workers 



Bush urged to extend UI benefits 


W orkers lost more purchasing power 
in July as real average weekly 
earnings plunged 1.4 percent even 
though the government’s consumer 
price index for urban wage earners 
(CPI-W) edged up just 0.1 percent. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 
the decline in real wages stemmed 
largely from a 1.2 percent drop in 
average weekly hours and a 0. 1 percent 
dip in hourly pay. 

For production and non-supervisory 
workers, real earnings — wages ad- 
justed for inflation — have been shrink- 
ing through much of the Reagan and 
Bush administrations. The BLS data 
show real pay in July was 2.3 percent 
below the year-ago month. 

Worse yet, AFL-CIO economist 
Anne Draper noted, real weekly pay 
last month was a full 12 percent behind 
July 1979. 

Rudy Oswald, the federation’s chief 
economist, pointed out that the sharp 
drop in real earnings “undermines the 
buying power of 74 million Amer- 
icans — the greatest bulk of all earners 
in our society.” 

Looking at the monetary impact, 
Oswald said, “this is a severe jolt to an 
economy that is struggling to overcome 
recessionary forces.” 

The decline in real earnings dampens 
the outlook of government and private 
analysts who had been counting on a 
surge in consumer purchases to 
generate a solid recovery from the 
lingering Bush recession. 

Over the last 12 months, BLS said 
that both the CPI-W and the price in- 
dex for all urban consumers (CPI-U) 
advanced 4.4 percent. The CPI-U rose 
0.2 percent in July. 

Both food and energy prices declined 
in July. Food prices were 0.6 percent 
below June, but were 2.6 percent above 
July 1990. Gasoline prices dropped 2.3 
percent over the month but were 4.2 
ahead of a year ago. 

Exclusive of food and energy, BLS 
said the price index rose 0.4 percent in 
July and was 4.7 percent ahead of July 
1990. 

The fastest rising components in July 
were apparel prices and upkeep, advan- 
cing 0.9 percent, and medical care, up 
0.5 percent. Medical care costs have 
risen 8.3 percent over the year, higher 
than any other component. 


Source: Senate Finance Committee 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith more than a million workers 
listed as long-term unemployed, 
out of work for six months or longer, 
the AFL-CIO urged President Bush to 
sign legislation to extend long-term 
unemployment insurance benefits. 

“The current unemployment in- 
surance system is clearly not doing the 
job it was intended to do to ease the suf- 
fering of jobless workers and their 
families,” AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland wrote to Bush at his summer 
retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, 
where he is on a month-long vacation. 

On Aug. 2, Congress voted to extend 
jobless benefits up to 20 weeks for the 
long-term unemployed who had ex- 
hausted their 26 weeks of regular com- 
pensation. Bush had until midnight 
Aug. 17 to sign the bill. It would not 
go into effect, however, unless he 
declared an emergency. 

A White House official on Aug. 15 
said Bush would sign the bill, but would 
not declare an emergency to allow the 
extended benefits to begin. The Maine 
AFL-CIO and other groups planned to 
picket Bush’s vacation residence on 
Aug. 16. 

Of the 8.5 million officially jobless 
in July, only 3.3 million were drawing 
unemployment benefits. That left 5.2 
million shut out of coverage. 

AFL-CIO economist Frank Parente 
noted that under the current UA system 


only 28,534 jobless workers qualified 
for extended benefits in July. And the 
number of long-term unemployed, 
those jobless 27 weeks or longer, was 
1.1 million last month. 

With the scarcity of jobs in the linger- 
ing recession, 420,000 workers drop- 
ped out of the labor force in July and 
total employment slipped by 172,000, 
including of 51,000 payroll layoffs. 

However, the Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics reported that the nation’s jobless 
rate declined to 6.8 percent from 7 
percent in June as the official number 
of unemployed workers dropped by 

244,000 to 8.5 million. 

But 5.9 million others who were in 
part-time jobs because of slack work or 
the unavailability of full-time jobs, were 
counted as fully employed by the BLS. 

Consequently, 15.4 million Amer- 
icans were affected by unemployment 
or under-employment in July, Parente 
noted. That number comprises the 8.5 
million officially unemployed, the 5.9 
million in part-time jobs for economic 
reasons and 980,000 discouraged work- 
ers who have given up the futile search 
for jobs. 

According to the BLS payroll survey, 
the nation has lost 1 .5 million jobs since 
July 1990. The losses include 776,000 
jobs in manufacturing, 458,000 in con- 
struction, 515,000 in wholesale and 
retail trade, 48,000 in finance, in- 
surance and real estate, 24,000 in 


transportation and utilities, and 14,000 
each in mining and government. 
Lower-paying service jobs expanded by 

395.000 over the 12-month span. 

In another sign of the hard economic 
times, BLS said the average workweek 
for production workers fell by 0.4 hour 
to 34.1 hours in July, virtually wiping 
out any gains from the previous two 
months. In manufacturing, the work- 
week edged down 0.1 hour to 40.7 
hours and overtime held steady at 3.7 
hours. 

Factory jobs edged up by 13,000 to 

18.4 million, after declining by 50,000 
in June. Construction jobs declined by 

22.000 to 4.7 million. 

The service-producing industry lost 

41.000 jobs, including 22,000 in serv- 
ices and 10,000 in government. 

Among major groups, the July job- 
less rate was 6.5 percent for adult men, 

5.4 percent for adult women, 20.6 per- 
cent for teenagers, 6.2 percent for 
whites, 11.8 percent for blacks, and 9.5 
percent Hispanics. 

Among major states, the unemploy- 
ment rates rose in Florida to 7.8 per- 
cent; in Pennsylvania to 7 percent; in 
Ohio to 6.9 percent; and in Texas to 6.7 
percent. The jobless rate declined the 
second successive month in Massa- 
chusetts to 9. 1 percent, still the highest 
in the nation. And after five straight 
months of decline the Michigan jobless 
rate was still 8.3 percent. 


Foreign trade deficit grows as recession lingers on 


T he recession helped keep the U.S. 

foreign trade deficit below $5 billion 
in May for the third month in a row, 
leading to speculation that the U.S. 
shortfall for 1991 will come in under 
$100 billion — the first time since the 
Reagan recession in the early 1980s. 

The Commerce Department said the 
May deficit of $4.6 billion rose by $67 
million from April even as imports dip- 
ped by $261 million to $39.9 billion, 
although exports declined by $328 
million to $35.3 billion. 

Two-thirds of the overall deficit 


stemmed from the $3. 3-billion imbal- 
ance in manufactured goods, with im- 
ports of $31.4 billion and exports of 
$28. 1 billion. Both exports and imports 
of factory products declined by about 
$300 million over the month. 

Export decreases came in capital 
goods, down $800 million, and con- 
sumer goods, $100 million. Gains were 
made in the exports of industrial sup- 
plies and materials, up $200 million; 
autos, parts and engines, $100 million; 
agricultural products, $100 million, and 
other merchandise, $100 million. 


The trade deficit with Japan narrowed 
to $2.4 billion from $3.3 billion in 
April. The deficit with Taiwan edged 
up to $800 million and was unchanged 
with China at $700 million. A surplus 
of $1 .3 billion was logged with Western 
Europe. 

In other economic reports: 

• Orders for durable goods slipped 
1.6 percent to $116.5 billion in June 
after posting moderate gains in April 
and May, the Commerce Department 
said. Over the year, the big-ticket fac- 
tory orders were down 7.7 percent from 


June 1990 as the sagging economy 
failed to signal the chances of a solid 
upturn. 

• But the Bush administration in- 
sisted that the recession was over and 
“a recovery has begun” as the Com- 
merce Department released data show- 
ing the gross national product edged up 
a meager 0.4 percent in the second 
quarter. Many analysts were skeptical 
about the economy’s weak showing 
after two quarters of decline. They ex- 
pressed concern the economy could be 
headed for a “second dip.” 


AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC 




Minnesota became the first state in 
the nation to ban the hiring of ‘ ‘perma- 
nent replacements” for strikers when 
Gov. Arne Carlson failed to deliver his 
vetoes of that legislation and 13 other 
bills to the legislature within three days 
of receiving them, as required by Min- 
nesota law. The Republican governor 
said he would not appeal a district court 
decision that he had acted too late on 
his vetoes. The “picket-line peace act,” 
drafted by the Minnesota AFL-CIO and 
introduced by the Democratic-Farmer- 
Labor legislative leaders, provides that 
employers could be found guilty of un- 
fair labor practices for hiring “perma- 
nent replacements.” 

Actors’ Equity has filed a formal 
grievance with the League of American 
Theatres and Producers charging that 
the producers of “The Will Rogers 
Follies” violated the parties’ collective 
bargaining agreement, which prohibits 
racial discrimination in casting. The 
show, which won the Tony Award for 
best musical, has been acclaimed by 
theater critics as a play that “celebrates 
democratic values.” However, it did 
not have any minority performers in the 
original cast. 

Jerry Jones has been appointed 
secretary-treasurer of the United Mine 
Workers, filling the unexpired term of 
John J. Banovic who retired effective 
July 31. Jones, who has been a union 
member since 1966, is president of 
UMW District 12 in Illinois. He also 
serves on the board of the Illinois State 
AFL-CIO and the Illinois Labor-Man- 
agement Commission. 

Tom Turner, secretary-treasurer of 
the Michigan AFL-CIO, was appointed 
to the Michigan Exposition and Fair- 
grounds Advisory Council by Gov. 
John Engler. The council is responsi- 
ble for sponsoring the state fair and pro- 
moting other year-round events at the 
fairgrounds. 


st 


PUBLICATIONS 

Joint Solutions To Substance 
Abuse: Public Sector Employee As- 
sistance Programs is a pamphlet 
published by the State and Local 
Government Labor-Management Com- 
mittee. The pamphlet contains informa- 
tion on how joint labor-management 
employee assistance programs can be 
designed to combat substance abuse 
problems. For copies contact the State 
and Local Government Labor-Manage- 
ment Committee, 815 16th St. NW, 
Washington, D.C. 20006. 

Trade Talks With Mexico: A Time 
For Realism, published by the National 
Planning Association, explores the risks 
of having a trade agreement with Mex- 
ico and the real issues of trade negotia- 
tions. For copies contact NPA, 1424 
16th St. NW, Suite 700, Washington, 
D.C. 20036. 

Cooperation is Better, published by 
the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Depart- 



Pennsylvania AFL-CIO 


Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.), right, is congratulated by Pennsylvania AFL-CIO 
President William M. George on receiving the state body's unanimous en- 
dorsement in his bid to return to the Senate. At left are Secretary-Treasurer 
John Vento and Executive Vice President Judith Heh. 


Susan Eaton, Service Employees 
western regional director, has been ap- 
pointed 1991-92 fellow at the Mary In- 
graham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe 
College, the nation’s first and largest 
multi-disciplinary center of advanced 
studies for women. She is studying 
women and conflict resolution, concen- 
trating on labor and civil rights 
leadership. 

Mary Martin, a janitor at the AFL- 
CIO headquarters, has been elected 
president of SEIU Local 82 in Wash- 
ington. Martin succeeds Arline Neal, 
who headed the local nearly 20 years. 

NBC Today Show host Willard Scott 
encouraged listeners tuning-in to his 
daily weather report to give donations 
to the volunteers of the Fifth Annual 
DAD’s Day, the Dollars Against 
Diabetes project of the AFL-CIO ’s 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department. 

A local Chamber of Commerce re- 
cently found good reasons to praise 
union members. The Muncie-Delaware 
County (Ind.) Chamber of Commerce 
devoted its July 1991 issue of its official 
publication to the community service ef- 
forts of union officials and members 
throughout Delaware County. 


AWARDS 

William R. Robertson, Los Angeles 
County AFL-CIO executive secretary- 
treasurer, received the Spirit of Life 
Award at a fund raiser for the City of 
Hope National Medical Center. City of 
Hope is known for its work in the ma- 
jor diseases such as leukemia and other 
forms of cancer. 

DEATHS 

Marguerite Feinstein, founder and 
director of the retiree division of 
Teamsters Local 237, died Aug. 5 of 
a cerebral hemorrhage in Pough- 
keepsie, N.Y. She was 57. 

Under the Local 237 retiree program, 
which Feinstein founded in 1980, more 
than 5,000 members participate in 
classes, community projects, and 
political activities. The program has 
become a model for Teamster locals 
across the country and for locals of 
other unions. Before joining Local 237, 
she was director of legislation and 
political education for AFSCME in 
New York state. 

She is survived by her husband, 
Barry Feinstein, president of IBT Local 
237. 


ment and the Japanese Federation of 
Employer’s Associations, shows how 
unions can critically and profitably ex- 
amine their own workplace traditions, 
and how Japanese managers come in 
prepared to work with U.S. unions. 
Single copies are available for $12.50 
per copy by writing to “Cooperation” 
c/o Abernathy and Mitchell, 1101 14th 
St. NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 
20005. For more information or nego- 
tiated rate on multiple copies, call Nina 
Shapiro-Perl at 202/842-3100. 

CONFERENCES 

The Coalition of Labor Union 
Women will hold its annual convention 
Oct. 4-7 at the Pittsburgh Hilton in Pitt- 
sburgh. For more information contact, 
CLUW, 15 Union Square, New York, 
N.Y. 10003 or call 212/242-0700. 

The Federal Election Commission 
will hold regional conferences in Boston 
and Chicago on campaign finance law 
for all federal campaigns, separate 
segregated funds, and party commit- 
tees. The conference in Boston will be 
held on Sept. 11-12 at the Sheraton 
Boston Hotel and Towers and the 
Chicago session at the Swiss Hotel Nov. 
14-15. For more information, contact 
the Commission’s Information Services 
Division at 800/424-9530 or 202/ 
376-3120. 


Union MasterCard 
drops rate again 

F or the third time since January, the 
AFL-CIO ’s Union Privilege lowered 
the interest rate on its Union Master- 
Card. The new rate is 13.5 percent ef- 
fective July 15, down from 13.88 
percent. 

“The reason our rate continues to go 
down is simple,” said Union Privilege 
President David Silberman. “When the 
cost of funds drops, banks pocket the 
savings. We pass the savings along to 
union members.” 

About 2 million union members and 
their families use the Union Master- 
Card, which carries no annual fee. The 
national average credit card interest rate 
is 19 percent, Union Privilege said in 
a statement. 

In a report to the AFL-CIO Executive 
Council, Silberman also noted that the 
Union Privilege home mortgage pro- 
gram “has taken off, far exceeding our 
expectations,” since it was introduced 
in February. Forty-five unions have 
signed on, Silberman said. 

A new program for mortgages with 
only 3 percent down payment, offered 
in conjunction with Freddie Mac, has 
generated 2,000 telephone calls since it 
was announced last month, he said. 


SEIU blasts 
Helms’ AIDS 
amendments 

By Arlee C. Green 

T he Service Employees condemned 
hasty Senate actions that would im- 
pose stiff criminal penalties on AIDS- 
infected workers and expose both pa- 
tients and workers to testing for blood- 
borne diseases. 

Both Senate measures were spon- 
sored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). 

“We don’t need the kind of man- 
datory disclosure by health care 
workers required by the first Helms 
amendment . . . and we don’t need the 
mandatory testing of patients as re- 
quired by the second Helms amend- 
ment,” said SEIU President John J. 
Sweeney. 

“What we need are the mandatory 
universal precautions our union has 
been demanding from the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration for 
the past five long years,” he said. 

“Universal precautions — because 
they treat all patients, all workers, all 
blood as potentially infected — are our 
best protection against the HTV virus,” 
Sweeney said, “and they have long 
been part of the CDC (Centers for 
Disease Control) guidelines, but the 
guidelines don’t have the force of law.” 
On July 18, the Senate adopted the 
first amendment, which was tagged 
onto a Treasury-Post Office appropria- 
tions bill, by an 81-18 vote. The 
measure would mandate prison terms of 
at least 10 years and fines up to $10,000 
for health care workers who knew they 
had AIDS, but had failed to inform pa- 
tients on whom they had performed in- 
vasive procedures. 

The second Helms amendment 12 
days later was tagged onto the State, 
Commerce and Justice Departments ap- 
propriations bill and allows health care 
workers to require patients to be tested 
for AIDS. 

Vote is ‘shameful* 

“There is shame on the United States 
Senate for passing these amendments,” 
Sweeney said. “But the real shame lies 
with OSHA for failing to issue a blood- 
borne disease standard to protect us 
from AIDS as well as from Jesse 
Helms.” 

The Senate later added to the Treas- 
ury-Post Office appropriations an alter- 
native amendment, sponsored by Sens. 
Robert Dole (R-Kan.) and Edward Ken- 
nedy (D-Mass.), that would require 
states to issue regulations implementing 
the CDC’s AIDS guidelines or face the 
loss of public health funds. The full ap- 
propriations bill was approved 91-8 and 
sent to a joint conference committee for 
reconciliation with the House measure 
that passed June 18. 

Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin re- 
sponded to the congressional action by 
making an AIDS standard a top prior- 
ity for OSHA, moving up the promis- 
ed date for issuing a standard to year’s 
end from March 1992. The SEIU, 
AFSCME, Teachers and Hospital and 
Health Care Employees petitioned the 
agency in 1986 for an emergency stan- 
dard, but OSHA refused to act. Three 
years later it produced a proposed rule. 

When the Senate reconvenes after 
Labor Day, an amendment to the Health 
and Human Services appropriation bill 
will likely be offered by Sens. Dole, 
Kennedy, George Mitchell (D-Maine) 
and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) requiring 
OSHA to issue a final rule on blood- 
borne diseases by Nov. 1. Otherwise, 
the proposed standard would take effect 
until a final standard is issued. 





OSH A to inspect Ravenswood ‘wall to wall’ 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he Steelworkers have applauded 
Labor Secretary Lynn Martin’s call 
for a “wall-to-wall” safety inspection 
at Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. in 
West Virginia. 

“We’re pleased that Labor Secretary 
Lynn Martin has ordered this inspection 
and we thank Sen. Robert Byrd (D- 
W.Va.) for help in bringing it about,” 
said Jim Bowen, director of USWA 
District 23. 

Labor Department officials said that 
the decision for the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration to conduct 
the inspection of RAC was based on ill- 
ness and injury records reviewed dur- 
ing a limited OSHA inspection of the 
facility in June. The limited inspection, 
which RAC officials at first resisted, 
revealed an unusually large number of 
workdays lost to injuries. 

The company’s safety record, which 
includes five deaths in the past 18 
months, was among the complaints by 


workers during contract negotiations. 
RAC management ignored those com- 
plaints and immediately locked out and 
“permanently replaced” the 1,700 
Steelworkers when the contract expired 
last November. 

“We’ve raised the safety issue time 
and time again with the company of- 
ficials, both before and after they broke 
off negotiations and locked out our 
members,” said Bowen. “And, we’ve 
raised it with elected and appointed 
public officials.” 

Byrd announced that “Secretary 
Martin has assured me that this will be 
a full-scope safety inspection that will 
be conducted by a six-member team of 
OSHA compliance officials. Safety in 
the workplace is an issue of paramount 
importance, and I am hopeftil that this 
comprehensive safety inspection will 
lead to better and safer working condi- 
tions at the Ravenswood plant.” 

Recently, two workers were injured 
at exactly the time that the company 


refused to allow OSHA officials to con- 
duct an unannounced inspection, even 
though inspectors had warrants legally 
entitling them to enter the plant. 

“We hope the inspection leads to real 
reforms in safety and health practices 
at the plant,” Bowen said. 

Meanwhile, the union is still trying 
to make inroads on contract negotia- 
tions. A two-day negotiating session 
between the USWA and RAC came to 
an abrupt halt after 75 minutes when the 
company refused to bargain. 

“This is another missed opportunity 
and the blame lies squarely at the feet 
of the company,” said Bowen. “The 
company acted as if the National Labor 
Relations Board had never issued a 
complaint charging it with bad-faith 
bargaining. And it ignored us when we 
explained very clearly our willingness 
to be flexible in reaching agreement on 
an honorable contract.” 

The NLRB has filed an unfair labor 
practice complaint against the company, 


charging it with refusing to bargain in 
good faith, unlawfully locking workers 
out and hiring “permanent replace- 
ments,” unlawfully imposing new wage 
and working conditions and refusing to 
give the union information to which it 
was legally entitled. 

The brief talks revealed that the com- 
pany refuses to budge from its position, 
the union said. 

“They had no intention of doing any- 
thing about the replacement workers,” 
Bowen said. “To the contrary, they 
restated their commitment to them 
while refusing to make any new pro- 
posals on any of the other outstanding 
issues. As we told the company today 
and have stated repeatedly, any agree- 
ment must return our members to their 
rightful jobs and eliminate the scabs 
from the plant.” 

The NLRB has called for all union 
members to be returned to their jobs 
with full back pay retroactive to 
Nov. 1, the lockout date. 


Settlement brings ergonomic relief to poultry workers 


U nions representing poultry workers 
employed by Cargill Inc. welcomed 
a federal safety settlement that ad- 
dresses the ergonomics concerns of the 
1,800 workers at plants in four states. 

The Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration cited Cargill in 1989 for 
hundreds of ergonomics violations and 
fined it nearly $1 million. Under the 
four-year settlement reached by OSHA, 
Cargill and the unions, the company 
agreed to pay $400,000 but denied any 
violation of OSHA standards. The com- 
pany will be required to take numerous 
actions to protect workers against car- 
pal tunnel syndrome. 


The inspections in the spring and 
summer of 1989 came in response to 
union complaints. OSHA cited Cargill 
for ergonomics violations at its plant in 
Buena Vista, Ga., represented by the 
Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union, and one in California, 
Mo., where workers are Food and 
Commercial Workers members. It later 
inspected a similar processing plant in 
Jacksonville, Fla., represented by the 
Teamsters. 

RWDSU President Lenore Miller 
said the agreement “is historic in its re- 
quirements and marks the beginning of 
needed health and safety reforms in the 


poultry processing business. But it is 
not a cure-all for an industry that has 
subjected working people to dangerous 
and degrading working conditions at 
low pay for decades.” 

OSHA found 90 percent of the 500 
workers at the Buena Vista plant at risk 
of cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) 
and two-thirds actually affected by it. 

The accord requires Cargill to hire an 
ergonomist to evaluate all jobs for CTD 
risk and institute engineering and ad- 
ministrative controls, health screening, 
a medical management program and 
employee training. Besides the plants 
cited by OSHA, the new ergonomics 


program also will cover workers at 
processing plants in Springdale and 
Ozark, Ark., Dawson, Ga., and Tam- 
pa, Fla. 

CTD results from repeated bio- 
mechanical stress from repetition of 
awkward or forceful hand and arm ac- 
tions. The injuries can become perma- 
nent. Two common types of CTDs are 
carpel tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. 

OSHA will monitor the firm’s com- 
pliance with the settlement, requiring it 
to report its actions quarterly and will 
permit the safety agency to inspect its 
compliance. Further, Cargill must audit 
its performance annually for OSHA. 





Counting down to 
Solidarity Day *91 

Union members and their allies across 
the country are preparing for the trip to 
Washington on Solidarity Day ’91, 
bringing the message “We are one.” 

United attendants 
gain tentative pact 

Flight Attendants at United Airlines win 
a tentative settlement after four years of 
frustrating negotiations and foot- 
dragging by the carrier. 



Civil rights legislation 
heads for showdown 

Action on the Civil Rights Act of 1991 
is set to resume after Congress’s August 
recess, despite the White House’s ef- 
forts to sabotage the process. 

Public workers fight 
state budget axes 

Public employees in Connecticut, 
California and other states are fighting 
back against efforts to balance state 
budgets on the backs of employees. 



tfOEJW/0, 





Workers big losers 
in insurance crisis 

The failure of government regulators to 
do their jobs in the Executive Life In- 
surance crisis now threatens pensions 
of members of 27 affiliated unions. 

Associate membership 
brings union gains 

Four AFL-CIO associate membership 
programs are using different means to 
bring labor’s message to workers not 
yet covered by a union contract. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


8 / 19/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 



SPECIAL 



As we march to the nation's 
capital for Solidarity Day '91 , 
the AFL-CIO News is interrup- 
ting its normal publication 
schedule to provide the best 
possible coverage of this im- 
portant event. Solidarity Day 
will be reported in full in the 
next issue, Sept. 9, followed 
by an issue on Sept. 16. 




O n Solidarity Day ’91 , we march 
to right the wrongs of our time 
and to insist on justice for working 
people and their families. 

We are the men and women of the 
unions of the AFL-CIO and we 
represent many faces, issues and 
concerns. But we speak with one 
voice for reform and change. 

As with the first Solidarity Day 10 
years ago, we march for fairness, 
equity and opportunity and against 
the forces of reaction and greed who 
assert “economic rights” over 
human rights. 

We are determined to live up to 
our responsibilities in a democratic 
society to stand up for our com- 
munities, to confront the critical 
issues of our day and to get the coun- 
try moving in the right direction. 

At a time when 37 million Amer- 
icans have no health insurance and 
when workers are being forced to 
shoulder an ever-increasing burden 
of health care costs, we march to de- 
mand a national health care reform 
program that guarantees everyone 
access to basic medical services. 

When thousands of American 
workers who try to protect their 
wages, their health care and their 
families are threatened with “per- 
manent replacement,” we march in 
support of the right to strike — a 
right that is recognized in all but the 
most backward and repressive 
countries. 

When the natural aspirations of 
working people to associate freely 
and to form independent trade 
unions is the lever that moves the 
world, we march in solidarity with 
them, insisting that these basic rights 
be afforded in full to all Americans, 
whether they work in the public or 
private sector. 

We march in objection to the 
federal government’s abandonment 
of our cities and states, and we pro- 
test its refusal to accept any respon- 
sibility for the resulting economic 
and social chaos that grips our large 
urban areas. 

We march to revive aspirations 
for a full-employment economy that 
includes public responsibility, in 
which the federal government serves 
to stimulate growth with necessary 
programs for education and housing, 



WHY WE 
MARCH 


AFL-CIO News file photo 

Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists answered the call on Solidarity Day 
1981. Labor is back in 1991, stronger and more committed than ever. 


and to rebuild our crumbling bridges 
and highways, while checking cor- 
porate excesses that lead to the gob- 
bling up of family businesses and 
farms. 

And we march to demonstrate the 
vacuousness of a so-called “free 
trade” policy that exports thousands 
of American jobs along with the 
U.S. multinational corporations that 
profiteer on low-wage economies 
abroad. We demand fair trade, man- 
aged through policies that would 
keep America’s economy competi- 
tive while working to boost the stan- 
dard of living in impoverished 
nations. 

We call on Congress and the Bush 
administration to strengthen the 
nation’s workplace safety laws — 
basically unchanged for the past 20 
years — by giving workers a voice 
in the process, including the right to 
refuse hazardous work, and extend- 
ing the act to cover public employ- 
ees, too long unprotected from 
workplace hazards. 

We speak for America’s hard- 
pressed working families who 
desperately need new laws for fam- 
ily and medical leave and for child 
and elder care. We march for the 
guarantee that our pensions will be 
protected, so that we can grow old 
with the rewards of a lifetime of 
hard work. 

We march for our children and 
our children’s children, demanding 
investment in education and in en- 
vironmental protection so that the in- 
heritance we pass on will be as rich 
as our heritage. 

And we march to ensure that the 
vision of our founding fathers be re- 
alized — that every American is en- 
titled to equal rights under the law. 
Now, more than ever, we need to 
end discrimination in the workplace 
by passing the Civil Rights Act of 
1991, to provide pay equity for 
women and the opportunity of fair 
housing for all. 

We march because we are bound 
by our convictions and our sense of 
justice to raise the alarm that the 
very fiber and strength of our nation 
may be in jeopardy. We demand that 
this government hear us. In solidar- 
ity, our single voice rings loud and 
clear. 










WHY WE MARCH 


Health care 
reform 

T he health care system in the United 
States is a disaster. 

As a nation, America spends 12 per- 
cent of its gross national product on 
health care — about $700 billion a 
year — yet winds up with more than 37 
million persons without access to health 
care and millions more seriously under- 
insured. 

The AFL-CIO has made health care 
reform one of the major reasons to 
march on Solidarity Day ’91. Unions 
seek a national health care system that 
will provide universal access, quality 
services and cost containment. 

Most industrialized nations, with the 
exception of the United States and South 
Africa, have developed a program of 
universal access to health care benefits 
with government-based reimbursement 
controls for their citizens. The U.S. 
patchwork of programs fails to meet the 
health care needs of workers and their 
families. 

Yet on a per capita basis, the United 
States spends 40 percent more than 
Canada, 90 percent more than Ger- 
many, and 125 percent more than 
Japan — far more, for less coverage 
than any other nation in the world. Ad- 
ministrative waste eats up one-third of 
total health care costs. 

Nearly three-quarters of the unin- 
sured are workers and their families and 
one-third are children. Workers earn- 
ing just above the poverty level are in- 
eligible for Medicaid, yet cannot afford 
insurance premiums of several hundred 
dollars a month. 

The labor movement is at the fore- 



MDo you think the 
■^the government should 
pay for good health care 
or should people pay for 
it themselves? 


GOVERNMENT 


FAVOR 


PEOPLE 


Note: 1% 
refused 
to answer 


Should the govern- 
r ment become more 
involved or less involved 
in health care, or is its 
involvement about right? 


82% 


MORE INVOLVED 
iss INVOLVED 


ABOUT RIGHT 


Note: 

1 % was 
unsure 


If it meant an 
increase in your 
taxes, would you favor 
or oppose a national 
comprehensive plan? 


|gjj 1 20% Somewhat 
OPPOSE 


; 8 % 

hi SURE 


Strongly 


Source: Los Angeles Times Poll, 1990; Marist Institute 


front of the public outcry for a decent 
level of health care benefits for all 
citizens, pressing for a national health 
care program that will include workers, 
the unemployed and others not in the 
labor force, and that will incorporate 
Medicare and Medicaid. The AFL-CIO 
has called for a plan that would reduce 
the eligibility age for Medicare to age 
60, protecting individuals who retire 
before age 65. 

Several legislative proposals have 
been introduced, some based on the 
employer-paid model, in which 
employers pay for workers’ benefits or 
pay into a hind that will cover the unin- 
sured, and others based on a single- 
payer plan like the Canadian system. 


which is funded through added taxes. 

Reform should include a national 
commission of consumer, union, 
employer, provider and government 
representatives to negotiate and ad- 
minister a cost containment program; 
a core package of benefits; and pro- 
gressive financing. Estimates show that 
such a system could save $165 billion 
between now and the end of the decade. 

The AFL-CIO has organized a grass- 
roots campaign, with local and state 
health care committees established to 
inform union members about how the 
system can be overhauled. It also would 
provide information on legislative pro- 
posals and coalition-building with con- 
sumer and community groups. 


Labor and management in several in- 
dustries — including telecommunica- 
tions, food service, steel, auto and 
paper — are working to reach a consen- 
sus and a specific proposal for health 
care reform. Also developing specific 
proposals for national reform are the 
Labor-Management Group, a coalition 
of international union presidents and 
corporate chief executive officers; the 
Dunlop group, which includes repre- 
sentatives from the American Medical 
Association, the American Hospital 
Association, Blue Cross, the Health In- 
surance Association of America, the 
Business Roundtable and the AFL-CIO; 
and the National Leadership Commis- 
sion. 


Work and family 


W hile American family life has 
changed dramatically over the past 
few decades, shaped by economic and 
demographic changes at home and in 
the workplace, government and em- 
ployers have been slow in adapting to 
the needs of working families. 

On Solidarity Day, the AFL-CIO 
renews the call for a national family 
leave policy and other programs to 
assist families with child and elder care. 
Marchers will point out that more and 
more working families are facing the 
unsettling choice between financial 
security or family welfare. 

Both parents work in most families 


today and more than two-thirds of all 
mothers with children work outside the 
home. One of every four families is 
headed by a single parent, and many 
women are facing the responsibility of 
caring for both their children and their 
elderly parents. 

Unlike most industrialized countries, 
the United States has no leave policy to 
help workers care for a newborn or sick 
child, or an elderly parent. Conse- 
quently, unions have been fighting to 
win family leave benefits through col- 
lective bargaining. 

But a national policy to help work- 
ing parents would be good for business 


as well the nation, recent studies 
conclude. 

A survey of nearly 6,000 companies 
in four states with family leave 
policies — Minnesota, Wisconsin, 
Rhode Island and Oregon — showed 
that 91 percent reported no problems in 
complying with those laws, the Families 
and Work Institute said. 

And several businesses that offer 
family leave policies consider them 
“simply good business” because they 
promote improved productivity, morale 
and employee loyalty, one employer 
said at the unveiling of the study. 

Legislation that would have provided 
needed time off from work to meet 
family responsibilities was passed by 
Congress last year, only to be vetoed 
by President Bush. Bills have been re- 


introduced in the House and Senate — 
H.R. 2 and S. 5 — that would allow 
workers to take up to 12 weeks of un- 
paid leave on the birth or adoption of 
a child, or the serious illness of a fam- 
ily members, without loss of job or 
health insurance coverage. 

For two decades, the AFL-CIO has 
been urging Congress to address the 
needs of working parents and their 
children by enacting a comprehensive 
child care program. Last year, Con- 
gress adopted a landmark child care 
bill, designed to provide financial 
assistance to moderate-income workers 
for child care while expanding the 
earned income tax credit program. 

The AFL-CIO has published a book- 
let explaining the new law and pro- 
viding guidance for implementation. 


Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Arlee C. Green, 

Candice Johnson, James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 

AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 



Vol. 36, No. 18 



MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1991 


vJgORCOjgjUj jcjp 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 







WHY WE MARCH 




Freedom of association at home 


T he Solidarity Day march will protest 
the mockery current U.S. labor law 
makes of equal justice. 

As long as workers have no timely 
remedy when they are fired for saying 
they want to form a union, freedom of 
association in America will be limited. 

And as long as more than 5 million 
public employees in 24 states do not 
have the right to form unions and to 
bargain collectively, freedom of 
association is not a right that all 
Americans can claim. 

In the United States today, employers 
continue to flout the nation’s labor laws, 
encouraged by lengthy delays in the 
delivery of justice and sheltered by such 
outrages as the so-called “right-to- 
work” laws, which say that the national 
ideals of self-government and majority 
rule do not apply to working people 
who form unions. 

The deficiencies in the law, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland said, 
“create a hostile environment that 
undermines collective bargaining and 
fosters a class of union-busters who ex- 
ploit the weaknesses in the law.” 

The startling contradiction that you 
can’t be fired for striking but you can 
be “permanently replaced,” is being 
addressed by the Workplace Fairness 


Bill, which is pending in the Senate 
after passing the House. 

But that’s only the most glaring ex- 
ample. The nation needs a labor law 
which assures the right of self-organ- 
ization in fact as well as in theory to all 
workers — public as well as private, 
professional as well as non-profes- 
sional, part-time as well as full-time, 
temporary as well as permanent. 

In the private sector, that means a 
system that at least offers prompt 
resolution of representation questions, 
remedies for employer interference 
with the free choice of employees and 
a clear and broad definition of collec- 
tive bargaining subjects. 

The law also should prohibit cor- 
porate manipulations such as “double 
breasting,” used to frustrate organizing 
or to evade contract terms, and should 
provide a fair and realistic definition of 
the legal primary activity that is outside 
the ban on secondary boycotts. 

In the public sector, the needs are also 
urgent. 

“Without reasonable collective bar- 
gaining laws, millions of American 


public workers are voiceless on the job 
and economically disenfranchised,” 
said A1 Bilik, president of the AFL-CIO 
Public Employee Department. “This 
isn’t the democratic dream that our 
forefathers had in mind.” 

Public employees are the largest 
single group of American workers 
without freedom of association. Besides 
the 5.4 million state and public workers 
without collective bargaining rights, 
another 2 million federal civilian 
employees are denied the right to 
bargain over their wages and fringe 
benefits. 

Altogether, 41 percent of all public 
workers are without the basic collective 
bargaining rights that were written in- 
to national law for private workers 50 
years ago. 

“It is outrageous that millions of 
American citizens living in the world’s 
leading democracy are today denied the 
basic right to free association,” said 
Bilik. “We need new national laws that 
will protect all employees — public and 
private — and give them a real voice in 
today’s complex work environment.” 


Given the opportunity to organize and 
bargain collectively, public employees 
will choose unions to represent their in- 
terests, according to a PED study. Even 
though nearly half of the public workers 
do not have bargaining rights, 36.5 per- 
cent — 6.5 million — of the total pub- 
lic work force were union members in 
1990, according to U.S. Census fig- 
ures. 

In 26 states and the District of Co- 
lumbia where public employees are 
allowed to organize and bargain collec- 
tively, 57 percent of the public employ- 
ees are represented by unions, accord- 
ing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
In the 24 states without legal protec- 
tions, only 11 percent of public 
employees are members of unions. 

States without comprehensive bar- 
gaining laws are Alabama, Arizona, 
Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, 
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mary- 
land, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mex- 
ico, Nevada, North Carolina, North 
Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, 
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, 
West Virginia and Wyoming. 





4 1 Justice 


Justice 


Justice 


Freedom of association 

was on display during a recent 
demonstration in San Fran- 
cisco. Labor leaders from 
around the world, attending a 
convention of the international 
trade secretariat FIET, marched 
in support of janitors who 
clean Apple Computer's Silicon 
Valley facilities. Employed by 
anti-union Shine Building 
Maintenance, the janitors have 
been denied the right to 
organize and bargain collec- 
tively as members of the Serv- 
ice Employees. Leading the 
march were FIET delegates, in- 
cluding AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland, ICFTU General 
Secretary John Vanderveken, 
SEIU President John Sweeney 
and Food and Commercial 
Workers President William 
Wynn, California AFL-CIO's 
Jack Henning, as well as San 
Francisco Mayor Art Agnos. 
Vanderveken will lead a larger 
international delegation on 
Solidarity Day. 

Robert Gumpert/Service Employees 


Freedom of association abroad 


T rade unionists from around the world 
will march with the AFL-CIO Aug. 
31, Solidarity Day ’91, to proclaim that 
the winds of freedom sweeping across 
the globe cannot be stopped. 

But the coup attempt in the Soviet 
Union 12 days before the march on 
Washington serves to remind workers 
that as long as the forces of repression 
are at work, there is still much to do. 

“The story of freedom — and what 
it takes to get it — does not take place 
in the ministries or counting houses of 
the elite,” said AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland. “Rather, it is the story 
of ordinary working people courage- 
ously rising to their feet and demanding 
their fundamental rights. Freedom and 
democracy do not come from the sky, 
but from the ground.” 

Marching on Solidarity Day ’91 will 
be delegations from Canada, Chile, the 
Chinese exile community, Czecho- 
slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, 
Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, 
Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, 


Norway, Philippines, Poland, 
Rumania, South Africa, Spain, 
Swaziland and Trinidad. 

Also planning to participate are the 
leaders of the Soviet miners and Lith- 
uanian trade unions, but the coup at- 
tempt may have cast a cloud over those 
plans. 

Kirkland had condemned the abortive 
coup as a “brutal power grab by Soviet 
hard-liners,” and said “we stand firmly 
on the side of the strike committees and 
other free and democratic trade union 
organizations, which serve as the gen- 
uine voices of working people.” 

Kirkland applauded Russian Presi- 
dent Boris Yeltsin’s call for a general 
strike and he urged all trade unionists 
to support their brothers and sisters by 
refusing to buy Soviet goods or handle 
shipments to or from the Soviet Union. 

Kirkland sounded the theme of Soli- 


darity Day ’91 and of the eventual out- 
come of the coup when he said “the 
natural aspirations of the Soviet work- 
ing people cannot be permanently ex- 
tinguished by the use of force. We 
know that, as in Poland, the dream of 
freedom and democracy lives on and the 
free trade union movement will be its 
instrument of certain realization.” 

In more than 70 countries, workers 
face the prospect of imprisonment, 
harassment or death for demanding fun- 
damental worker rights. 

According to a recent survey by the 
International Confederation of Free 
Trade Unions (ICFTU), between Jan- 
uary 1990 and this past March, 264 
labor activists were killed around the 
world for trying to promote workers’ 
rights. 

More than 2,400 trade unionists were 
detained or arrested for their activities 


over the same time period, the survey 
showed. 

For almost 30 years, the AFL-CIO 
has helped trade unions around the 
world through geographic institutes for 
Asia, Africa, Latin America and 
Europe. 

The need for help is still great. Ac- 
cording to the ICFTU survey, in Col- 
ombia alone, 138 trade unionists were 
killed during the 15-month period. 
About 350 were detained in El Salvador 
and 150 remain jailed there. 

In China, the government does not 
allow free trade unions and exploits 
prisoners in its vast gulag system to pro- 
duce cheap products for export. 

In addition, new Caribbean “export 
zones” allow companies in this coun- 
try to take advantage of cheap labor and 
tax breaks for duty-free access to the 
U.S. market. 





WHY WE MARCH 



Civil rights, 
equal rights 

D espite the gains of the past 25 years, 
the goals of equal employment op- 
portunity and racial harmony seem to 
be distant as ever. 

The unflinching desire for dignity for 
all Americans that bonds the civil rights 
and labor movements resulted in the 
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
which abolished racial discrimination in 
employment and public accommoda- 
tions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 
allowed Americans to participate in the 
electoral process regardless of race, 
creed or ethnicity. 

The AFL-CIO was instrumental in 
the passage of Title VII of the Civil 
Rights Act, and Solidarity Day ’91 reaf- 
firms that organized labor is as commit- 
ted today to achieving equal employ- 
ment opportunity as it was in 1964. 

But today, virtually every civil rights 
program adopted since 1964 is under at- 
tack by a conservative Supreme Court 
and an administration that uses racial 
politics as a campaign issue rather than 
providing the strong enforcement 
needed to make the intent of the civil 
rights laws a reality. 

Some of the most crushing blows 
have come from the Supreme Court, 


which for years after 1964 provided a 
consistent pattern of decisions that 
brought relief against discrimination 
against blacks, women, Hispanics and 
other minorities. The court in 1989 
issued a series of decisions that effec- 
tively denied justice to many victims of 
racial discrimination and sexual harass- 
ment by severely narrowing the reme- 
dies available to them. 

Those decisions have undermined the 
notion of affirmative action — a care- 
fully developed series of federal legisla- 
tion and court decisions designed to 
open doors for real equality in the 
workplace. 

The court decisions come at a time 
when studies, such as one prepared this 
year by the Urban Institute, show quali- 
fied blacks are more likely to face job 
bias than whites. Women also continue 
to face pervasive economic and social 
discrimination. 

The AFL-CIO supports a strong civil 
rights bill to overturn those Supreme 
Court decisions. The federation also ac- 
tively opposes Clarence Thomas’s nom- 
ination to the U.S. Supreme Court to 
succeed Thurgood Marshall, one of the 
greatest champions of civil rights and 
equal opportunity in this nation’s 
history. 

The White House seems determined 
to allow businesses wide latitude in hir- 
ing, including degree requirements that 
would shut out of the market 50-year- 
olds who lack a diploma. 


The federation also recognizes that 
justice for all will not be achieved 
unless all branches of government are 
vigilant in enforcing the laws that are 
on the books. 

One of the most significant areas in 
which enforcement is needed is pay 
equity for women. Almost 20 million 
women with children under 18 are 
employed. 

It is estimated that by the year 2000, 
women — the fastest growing segment 
of the labor movement — will make up 
47 percent of the work force. Two out 
of three new additions to the labor force 
at the end of this decade will be women 
and 80 percent of all women ages 25-54 
will be working. 

About 1 1 million families are headed 
by women and one out of three of these 
families live at or below the poverty 
rate — one out of two if the woman is 
a minority. 

Minority women carry the double 
burden of racism and sexism, which is 
reflected in their disproportionate share 
of poverty and their low median wage, 
as compared to white males. Black 
women made about 62 percent and 
Hispanic women about 56 percent of 
white male median wages in 1989. 

Overall, the weekly median wage for 
all women in June 1989 was 69.4 per- 
cent of the median for men. Women are 
not told in the grocery checkout line that 
their cost will be only 69.4 percent of 
the total to match their income. 


A major source of economic progress 
for women is union membership. Union 
women earn substantially more than 
non-union women. Over one-third of 
union members are women and the 
number of women represented by 
unions has steadily grown. Black 
women are more likely to be repre- 
sented by unions — about 23 percent in 
1989 — than white women with 13.7 
percent or Hispanic women at 14.5 
percent. 

In 1990, according to the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics and the Census, 
unionized women clerical workers 
made 34 percent more in median 
weekly wages than non-union workers. 

The AFL-CIO also has a strong com- 
mitment to fair housing laws and the 
guarantee of the opportunity to buy a 
home — one of the cornerstones of the 
American dream. 

High interest rates, bank loan prac- 
tices and a lack of public housing have 
made a home almost an impossible goal 
for the elderly, families headed by 
women, minimum wage earners and 
others. This lack of housing has left 
some working families homeless. 

The AFL-CIO joined with 174 other 
national organizations two years ago to 
protest the lack of affordable housing 
in a Housing Now! march that called the 
nation’s attention to the housing crisis. 

Many of those same organizations 
will be back to join labor in its call for 
justice for all during Solidarity Day ’91. 


Invest in education 


O n Solidarity Day ’91, workers will 
march to protect the cornerstone of 
America’s future — its public educa- 
tion system — and to protest national 
policies that have reduced school fund- 
ing and plummeted the country’s educa- 
tional standing among the industrialized 
nations. 

Labor has pressed its case for educa- 
tion since the 1800s, based on the belief 
that workers and their children have a 
right to as much education as they can 
absorb — and essentially to good public 
education, since workers should not be 
priced out of the market. 

In those days, and into the early 
1900s, unions fought successful battles 
to remove children from the dangers 
and drudgery of work while winning 


them the right to a public education. 

Today, that basic right, which 
brought unparalleled advancement in 
lives of all Americans, is being under- 
cut at nearly every angle by the ad- 
ministration of the self-proclaimed 
“Education President.” 

President Bush, and President Reagan 
before him, have shortchanged Amer- 
ica’s children by diverting immense 
amounts of taxpayer funds to such 
disasters as the savings and loans 
bailout, a crisis that resulted from the 
Reagan-Bush obsession with deregula- 
tion. 

As a result, the United States ranks 
in the bottom one-third in expenditures 
for education among industrialized na- 
tions, according to studies by the 


Teachers and the Economic Policy 
Institute. 

Two years ago, President Bush 
strongly promoted “America 2000,” a 
legislative program to enact school 
reforms. While the AFL-CIO welcom- 
ed this initiative, the program is falling 
far short of the presidential rhetoric. 

The centerpiece of Bush’s national 
strategy, to provide “school choice,” 
has created an unneeded conflict be- 
tween public and private schools. Under 
the Bush scheme, “vouchers” would be 
provided for children being served 
under Chapter I programs for the at-risk 
and disadvantaged children. 

In the quest for education reforms, 
the AFL-CIO supports the profes- 
sionalism of teaching, school-based 
management, shared decision-making 
and cooperative learning. 

Besides supporting primary and 
secondary schools, the AFL-CIO is 


calling for key changes in the Higher 
Education Act that would restore the 
percentage of funding earmarked for 
college grants, expand financial aid to 
include students attending college less 
than half-time and stronger oversight of 
student aid programs by the U.S. De- 
partment of Education. 

Labor’s involvement in education ex- 
tends from efforts to lobby for educa- 
tional funding and improvements at the 
federal, state and local levels, to advan- 
cing government commitment to voca- 
tional training, higher education and 
programs targeted to the children of 
poor and middle-income families. 

Union training programs, including 
literacy classes, are fast becoming the 
leaders in providing career-related 
training. A number of unions have ex- 
tensive system of training centers for 
apprentices and for the upgrading of 
skills. 






WHY WE MARCH 


Income change and tax rate c] 

# ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

income 

50% T 




Poorest 

20 % 


Second 


Middle 


Fourth 


- 10 % 

Richest Richest 


20 % 20 % 20 % 20 % 5 % 


Source: House Ways and Means Committee 

While the richest families had the fastest income growth during the 1980s, they also had the largest tax break; 



America 
works 
when 
we work 

A merica’s working families continue 
to lose ground under national 
economic policies that cater to the rich 
while ignoring the struggles of middle- 
and lower-income workers. 

The average worker’s paycheck was 
outstripped by rising prices throughout 
the 1980s, and the standard of living for 
millions of working families declined as 
their purchasing power slipped. 

The nation’s economic malaise pro- 
vides a strong impetus for workers to 
march on Washington Aug. 31, Soli- 
darity Day ’91 . Everyone but the richest 
Americans has felt the pinch of a decade 
of supply-side, voodoo economic poli- 
cies of the Reagan and Bush adminis- 
trations. 

Higher living costs have eroded what 
gains workers were able to make in 
their paychecks. Since 1979, real 
average weekly earnings — pay ad- 
justed for inflation — are down 12.1 
percent. Real weekly earnings are down 
2.3 percent in just the last 12 months. 
And data from the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics show that real earnings fell 
from the preceding year in seven of the 
last 10 years. 

Long-term jobless 

The economic squeeze is even worse 
for the acute casualties of the Bush 
recession — the long-term unemployed 
who have exhausted up their 26 weeks 
of jobless benefits without finding a job. 

Yet, the president insisted that even 
though nearly 9 million workers are of- 
ficially counted as unemployed, the 
jobless rate is not high enough to con- 
stitute an emergency. 

Bush signed the unemployment insur- 
ance legislation that Congress passed 
overwhelmingly, but cynically refused 
to release money from an $8-billion 
unemployment insurance fund surplus 
for extending benefits. 

“The president has chosen to ignore 
the suffering of millions of unemployed 
Americans by withholding extended 
jobless benefits they need to cope with 
the recession,’’ the AFL-CIO said. 
“The president obviously feels that 
granting extended unemployment in- 
surance benefits would be tantamount 
to admitting he’s wrong when he says 
the nation is on the road to economic 
recovery.” 

The federation noted that during the 
Iraq crisis, Bush declared the necessary 
emergency budget waiver to evacuate 
embassy employees, increase security 
at the White House and aid the Kurds. 
But his refusal to declare an emergency 
to fund extended unemployment in- 
surance benefits clearly indicates the 
low priority he assigns to the plight of 
the jobless, it said. 

Less than 40 percent, or 3.4 million 
of the 8.6 million jobless workers, were 
drawing unemployment insurance in 
July. A far higher percentage of the 
unemployed were protected in past 
recessions — about 75 percent in 1975 
recession and 43 percent in the 1981-82 
recession received benefits. 

Workers marching on Solidarity Day 
will point out that more than a decade 


of neglect has left the federal-state 
unemployment insurance system so 
frayed that it not longer functions as a 
safety net for the jobless. 

Since the onset of the recession in 
June 1990, payroll employment declin- 
ed by 1.6 million. Cutbacks and layoffs 
pushed some 800,000 factory workers 
out on the street and more than 450,000 
construction workers were idled. 

Just about every month, BLS reports 
that more than 5 million workers are in 
part-time jobs because they can’t find 
full-time work or because of slack work 
schedules. 

The shaky state of the manufacturing 
industries, many pounded by the on- 
slaught of imports, was felt before the 
recession. Between January 1989 and 
June 1991 manufacturing jobs dropped 
by 1.3 million, according to BLS. 

A combination of sluggish economic 
growth during the 1980s and the tax 
cuts for the wealthy during the Reagan 
years has cheated the government of 
resources needed to invest adequately 
in the nation’s future. 

The Reagan and Bush policies 
brought record deficits, and these 
deficits now are used as a club to hold 
down spending for many programs vital 
to quality of life and economic growth. 

Costlier basic needs 

In recent years, the squeeze on liv- 
ing standards stems from the increased 
costs of basic necessities that drain the 
average working family’s budget for 
shelter, transportation, education and 
medical care. 

New economic studies show that the 
proportion of family income required to 
pay for a median-priced house surged 
from 25 percent in the 1970s to 44 per- 
cent in the late 1980s. During the same 
period, the average price of a new car 
increased from 35 percent of median 
family income to 48 percent; a college 
tuition rose from 28 percent to 38 per- 
cent and out-of-pocket medical ex- 
penses shot up an extraordinary 248 
percent from 1973 to 1988. 

Statistics show that the gap in income 
distribution between the rich and poor 
has never been wider. In 1989, the 
richest fifth of U.S. families drew 44.6 
percent of all family income; the 
poorest fifth received only 4.6 percent 
of total family income. 


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Between 1979 and 1989, the share of 
income received by the richest fifth of 
families increased; the share received 
by the other 80 percent of families 
declined. At best, incomes stagnated for 
families in the middle tier. 

The administration fails to address the 
plight of the working poor, who have 
been trapped in poverty by dwindling 
job opportunities and substandard pay. 

Even before the current recession, the 
number of families in poverty was 
unconscionably high. In 1989, based on 
the government’s poverty standard, 
31.5 million people — 12.8 percent of 
the nation’s population — were 
indigent. 

And the government’s yardstick to 
measure poverty is less than generous. 
In 1989, the official poverty line on an- 
nual income was $12,675 for a family 
of four, which would amount to 
$13,861 if calculated for May 1991. 

Between 1979 and 1989, the number 
of poor people rose by 5.5 million, an 
increase of 21 percent. 

Scandalously low pay contributes 
greatly to poverty. The federal mini- 
mum wage of $4.25 an hour, which 
Bush grudgingly acceded to, would 
have to be raised to $5.20 for minimum 
wage worker with a familly of three to 
crawl above the poverty line. 

Meanwhile, federal taxes have 


become severely inequitable. The 
wealthy and corporations now pay a 
lower proportion of income taxes than 
they did in the 1970s. But the tax 
burden on working middle-income 
Americans has increased. 

Since the late 1970s, tax rates on the 
richest 1 percent of income declined by 
22 percent while the rates for the middle 
three-fifths of the taxpayers rose be- 
tween 13 and 20 percent. 

More for the rich 

Yet, the budgets that Bush submits to 
Congress repeatedly propose cuts in 
benefit programs for middle-income 
families while advocating more breaks 
for the rich through tax cuts on capital 
gains. 

The administration’s budget pro- 
posals offer little to fight the recession, 
help the unemployed, meet public in- 
vestment needs and aid to struggling 
family farmers. The budgets ignore 
urgently needed public investment in 
education, health care, child develop- 
ment, housing, as well as roads, bridges 
and other public facilities. 

America’s workers are marching for 
social and economic justice, and for job 
opportunities with decent wages and 
working conditions. These are goals 
that should be part and parcel of the 
economic policies of the nation. 


AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC * AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC 






WHY WE MARCH 



Fair trade 


D uring the 1980s, the United States 
free-traded itself into a quagmire of 
red ink. And the nation continues to 
sink deeper into the current balance ac- 
count deficit, even though the month- 
after-month pace of the merchandise 
trade gap has slowed with the onset of 
the recession. 

America entered the last decade as the 
world’s largest creditor nation. Because 
of misguided trade policies, it came out 
of the decade as the world’s largest deb- 
tor nation. 

This Solidarity Day, labor and its 
allies are calling on President Bush to 
set a policy of fair trade practices with 
America’s trading partners that 
strengthen the U.S. industrial base and 
do not encourage the flight of U.S. 
capital to low- wage economies abroad. 

Early in the 1980s, the Reagan ad- 
ministration abandoned the long-held 
doctrine that a strong industrial base is 
vital to economic growth. Instead, it 
adopted an open-door access for im- 
ports of every size, color and volume. 
While exports picked up, they continue 
to trail noticeably behind imports. 

President Bush continues to embrace 
Reagan’s misguided trade approach. He 
has disregarded labor’s repeated calls 
to set a policy of fair trade practices 
with America’s trading partners. 

The impact of the trade deficit on 
manufacturing employment has been 
severe. While total employment has 
grown during the last decade, more than 
2 million factory jobs were wiped out. 
What growth there was, came in the 
lower-paying services sector. 

That sacrifice of high-quality job op- 
portunities in the middle tier of the in- 
come structure is reflected by a sharp 
decline in real average earnings since 
the late 1970s. 

While the United States has nego- 
tiated and renegotiated bilateral as well 
as multilateral trade agreements during 
the last two decades, the volume of our 
exports failed to keep pace with flood 
of imports. 

Between 1982 and 1991, the United 
States ran up a merchandise trade deficit 
of more than $923 billion. In each of 
the last seven years, the trade imbalance 
has exceeded $100 billion. 

Although the deficits have narrowed 
in recent months, imports of manufac- 
tured goods continue to account for 
most of the shortfall. In June, for ex- 
ample, factory imports amounted to 


a North American Free Trade Agreement in Seattle. 


Trade unionists protest during talks on 

$3.5 billion of the overall $4 billion 
deficit. Last year, manufactured goods 
made up $90 billion of the $101 billion 
trade deficit. 

About 95 percent of America’s trade 
deficit stems from imports from just 10 
countries. The deficit with Japan 
amounted to $41 billion in 1990. 

The continuing deficits caused the 
United States to borrow heavily from 
abroad. This borrowing transformed the 
United States from being the world’s 
largest creditor nation — $137 billion 
in the black in 1982 — to the world’s 
largest debtor nation, owing $760 
billion at the end of 1990. 

With the lopsided free-trade agree- 
ment with Mexico that the White House 
has in mind, the United States would ef- 
fectively pave over the border at the Rio 
Grande with a tariff-less freeway that 
would accelerate the deterioration of 
America’s industrial base. 

Under current arrangements with 
Mexico, tens of thousands of American 
workers already have lost their jobs as 
U.S. manufacturing companies trans- 
ferred production across the border to 
take advantage of the poverty of Mex- 


ican workers and the absence of any ef- 
fective regulations on corporate 
behavior. 

A free-trade arrangement would en- 
courage greater U.S. capital outflow, 
accelerate imports from Mexico, fur- 
ther slash domestic factory jobs and 
speed up the industrial erosion of our 
country that marred U.S. trade perfor- 
mance in the 1980s. 

The heaviest U.S. job losses came in 
industries that have experienced the 
fastest growth in production and 
employment in the maquiladora, or twin 
plant program, on the Mexican border. 

Some 1,900 maquiladoras are now in 
operation, employing about 500,000 
workers. 

While the maquiladoras have grown, 
hundreds of thousands of U.S. 
workers — including employees of 
Zenith, Westinghouse, General Elec- 
tric, Electrolux, Trico, AT&T, General 
Motors, Ford and Chrysler — have 
seen their job opportunities vanish and 
suddenly appear in Mexico. 

In the electronics industry alone, the 
United States lost 440,000 jobs in the 
last two years. Fully 50 percent of the 


maquiladora jobs are in electronics. 

Since March 1989, about 140,000 
U.S. auto jobs were lost. Auto com- 
ponent plants in Mexico now account 
for 25 percent of the maquiladora jobs. 
Similarly, tens of thousands of U.S. 
workers in other industries have seen 
their jobs slip across the border into 
Mexico. 

As U.S. firms shut down operations 
and move across the Rio Grande to cash 
in on indecently low labor costs, work- 
ers on both sides of the border are be- 
ing exploited. 

The administration continues to pur- 
sue most favored nation (MFN) trade 
status for countries that fail to meet in- 
ternational standards on worker rights, 
including China, over the protests of 
America’s unions. 

The AFL-CIO has repeatedly called 
on the White House to impose sanctions 
on countries that seek to attract industry 
through the exploitation of their 
workers. 

Only on rare occasions does the ad- 
ministration respond by lifting the 
Generalized System of Preferences 
(GSP) for offending countries. 


Fund our cities and states 


W orkers from some of the most 
financially strapped cities and 
states will march on Solidarity Day to 
demand that the federal government 
assist local governments to provide the 
services their citizens need. 

The American people ultimately are 
the victims of the Reagan-Bush less- 
government “revolution,” in which 
vital programs are shifted to the states 
without adequate federal compensation, 
resulting in higher state and local taxes, 
public service cuts and joblessness for 
many public employees. 

The U.S. federalist system was 
turned on its ear during the 1980s, when 
federal grants to states and localities 
were cut dramatically — from 21 per- 
cent of state and local budgets in 
1978-79 to 16.8 percent in 1986-87. 


Unable to fill in the revenue gap, states 
and cities have responded with major 
cuts in education, the environment, 
community development, employment 
and training, social services and capital 
improvements. 

Governors and mayors have re- 
sponded to the need to balance budgets 
by frantically cutting spending and fir- 
ing public employees. A number of 
states have imposed regressive new 
taxes that are not based on ability to 
pay, such as a progressive income tax, 
but on sales in which everyone pays the 
same amount, regardless of income. 

Others have tried to “privatize their 
way out of a budget squeeze” by con- 
tracting out public services, said Rudy 
Oswald, the AFL-CIO ’s chief econ- 
omist. “Such privatizations result in the 


loss of work for public employees, as 
formerly public jobs are done by private 
contractors who often pay workers less 
and offer fewer benefits and less job 
security,” he said. 

Connecticut, the last state to pass a 
budget this year, has been locked in a 
legislative duel over whether to create 
its first state income tax. 

Income taxes account for almost 90 
percent of federal and 25 percent of 
state government revenue. Among 
cities, 43 percent have resorted to rais- 
ing property tax rates, 18 percent to 
raising other taxes (including sales and 
income taxes), and 11 percent to enac- 
ting new taxes, according to a survey 
by the National League of Cities. At the 
same time, 59 percent said their budgets 
were adversely affected by cuts in state 


aid, and 49 percent cited federal aid 
cuts. 

Citizens for Tax Justice found that, 
when all of the major state and local 
taxes are added together, virtually every 
state taxes its middle-income families 
at rates significantly higher than those 
faced by the richest families. Only four 
states — California, Delaware, Maine 
and Vermont — require the richest 
families to pay a higher share of their 
incomes in taxes than middle-income 
families. 

The loss of jobs and services from the 
current budgetary crises is a problem 
of national proportion. Poverty and 
homelessness are up, but the number of 
people served by nutrition, health, 
housing, education and other programs 
is down. 

On Solidarity Day, workers will re- 
mind government leaders that it is a na- 
tional problem that must be addressed 
by Congress and the Bush adminis- 
tration. 




H ^ 





Clean up 
the environment 


T he well-being and protection of the 
nation’s environment has been a 
long-time concern of organized labor, 
which has worked with its allies and in 
coalitions to gain legislation and policy 
changes to expand environmental safe- 
guards. 

Much remains to be done, a point that 
will be driven home by trade unionists 
and their allies on Solidarity Day 
’91 — as befits an issue on which the 
future of the planet is at stake. 

Marchers will be pressing, for exam- 
ple, for a greater effort to clean up the 
contamination created by the govern- 
ment’s nuclear weapons production 
facilities over the past 45 years. 


Pesticides continue to pose a hazard 
to all Americans and the testing of 
dangerous pesticides must be stepped 
up. Further, labor believes, the export 
of pesticides that are banned for sale in 
the United States must stop. 

Organized labor also is seeking a 
much larger commitment by the En- 
vironmental Protection Agency to clean 
up hazardous waste dumps, and to en- 
force environmental laws. Unions have 
urged that EPA fines be raised to en- 
sure that pollution of the environment 
does not pay. 

For states bordering on Mexico, a 
major concern has been the immense 
growth of maquiladoras, or “twin” 


plants on the U.S. -Mexico border. Lax 
environmental laws in Mexico have 
been a key selling point in the decision 
of many U.S. firms to lay off their 
American workers and move their 
plants south of the border. The 
possibility of a U.S. -Mexico trade 
agreement could worsen these prob- 
lems, the AFL-CIO has warned. 

Marchers will be seeking legislation 
to require American companies operat- 
ing outside the United States, whether 
in Mexico or elsewhere, to observe ade- 
quate worker health and safety and en- 
vironmental standards. 

Other AFL-CIO goals include: 

• Increased funding of wastewater 
treatment plants and legislation to ex- 
pand the asbestos detection and abate- 
ment programs for public and commer- 
cial buildings. 

• Participation of state and 
municipalities in development of solid 
waste recovery systems and the elimina- 
tion of litter. 


• Increased assistance from 
developed countries and international 
lending institutions to less developed 
nations, conditioned to incentives for 
ecologically sound development. 

Over the past two years, trade unions 
have supported legislation to set train- 
ing standards for workers involved in 
asbestos removal in schools, have back- 
ed various proposals addressing the 
serious concerns of workers at federal- 
ly owned nuclear facilities, and con- 
tinued to support legislation that would 
require the federal government to com- 
ply with its own and with states’ hazar- 
dous and toxic waste laws. 

In working for passage of amend- 
ments to the federal Clean Air Act, 
organized labor pushed to ensure that 
workers displaced from newly required 
reductions in sulfur dioxide levels 
would be protected under a $250 
million authorization for six additional 
months of unemployment compensa- 
tion, plus worker training programs. 


Workplace 
safety and health 


I n 1970, organized labor won a major 
victory with the passage of the Oc- 
cupational Health and Safety Act. But 
time, technological development and 
political expediency have whittled away 
at the promise of workplace safety. 

On Solidarity Day ’91, labor and its 
allies march to demonstrate that, more 
than 20 years after the original act, it 
is time to to upgrade and reform the na- 
tion ’s workplace safety laws. 

In its first decade, OSHA groped for 
its footing, eventually getting the well- 
trained staff it needed to meet its 
technical standard-setting and enforce- 
ment activities. But its second decade 
during the Reagan and Bush administra- 
tions was an ignominious retreat, as 
OSHA’s goals were undercut by severe 
staff reductions and redirectives aimed 
at paralyzing the agency. 

Only a handful of health standards 
have been adopted in 20 years, with 
OSHA relying mainly on exposure 
limits set in the 1960s for many 
substances. Safety standards have been 
more plentiful, but the deliberate reduc- 
tions in staffing undercut enforcement. 

The White House Office of Manage- 
ment and Budget thwarted effective ac- 
tion through wasteful, time-consuming 
reviews of OSHA standards under the 
aegis of the Paperwork Reduction Act 
and a presidential executive order. The 
net result was that businesses could get 
standards rewritten by OMB. 

OSHA continues to be hampered by 
White House resistance to effective en- 
forcement, by shortcomings in the law 
and by court rulings stunting its ability 
to act. 

Labor’s hope for safer jobsites for all 
working Americans now is embodied in 
the OSHA reform legislation, S. 3160 
and H.R. 1622, which was introduced 
in Congress Aug. 1. Those bills draw 
on two decades of workers’ experience 
with OSHA. 

The legislation, AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland said, “is based on the 
premise that workers — given proper 
training and the right to act in matters 
affecting their own safety — can play 
a major role in reducing the toll of 
workplace injury and illness.” 

The bills would expand the role of 
workers by requiring employers to 
develop a health and safety program 


that includes joint labor-management 
safety committees. Those committees 
would identify and correct workplace 
hazards, as well as investigate accidents 
and develop abatement programs. 

Employees would gain new rights to 
participate in the OSHA enforcement 
process and would be protected from 
retaliation when they seek to correct 
hazards they encounter on the job. 

The OSHA reform measures also 
would strengthen the penalties against 
employers who knowingly permit un- 
safe job conditions that lead to severe 
injury or illness or death of their 
employees. 

Further, the legislation would end a 
major injustice in the law by expanding 
OSHA’s coverage to all workers, in- 
cluding the millions of public employ- 
ees who perform jobs identical to those 
in the private sector but who heretofore 
have lacked adequate safety and health 
protections. 


Workers Memorial Day, instituted 
by the AFL-CIO as an annual 
event three years ago, 
mobilizes trade unionists to 
pay tribute to co-workers in- 
jured and killed on the job and 
to campaign for reform of the 
nation's workplace safety laws. 

AFL-CIO News file photos 






WHY WE MARCH 


Workplace 

I t is a glaring injustice. If you are a 
union employee and forced by 
management to strike over such impor- 
tant economic issues as health care 
benefits or your pension, your employer 
has the right to get rid of you — 
permanently. 

During the past decade, more and 
more employers have sought to rid 
themselves of unionized work forces by 
taking advantage of a loophole in U.S. 
labor law that says while it is illegal to 
fire a worker for striking, it is okay to 
“permanently replace” that employee. 

“The notion that somehow you can 
recognize a fundamental difference be- 
tween the decision by an employer to 
fire a striker and the decision by an 
employer to ‘permanently replace’ a 
striker just defies logic,” said AFL- 
CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue. 

The basic unfairness of losing your 
job for standing up to improve your 
family’s well-being is a major driving 
force for Solidarity Day ’91, which will 
feature many of the civil rights and 
religious coalitions that worked with 
labor for House passage of H.R. 5, the 
Workplace Fairness Bill. 

The marchers will be urging passage 
of S. 55, the Senate version of the bill 
that would outlaw the practice of hiring 
“permanent replacements” during a 
strike. S. 55 would restore a sense of 


fairness 

balance to labor-management negotia- 
tions, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirk- 
land said, pointing out that unscrupu- 
lous employers often have begun adver- 
tising, recruiting and transporting scabs 
to the job site well in advance of a 
strike. 

“When one party comes to the table 
with a desire not to agree but in hopes 
of destroying the other, the prospects 
for a peaceful, honorable and mutually 
beneficial settlement are close to zero,” 
Kirkland said, noting that workers are 
only interested in an agreement. 
“Believe me, a strike is not a trip to 
Disneyland. “A strike is a last resort, 
designed to bring the other side back to 
the bargaining table.” 

For thousands of unionists, the 
scourge of “permanent replacements” 
is an American tragedy. 

“You don’t know how depressed I 
was,” said Teamster Local 171 
member Leonard Angle, reflecting on 
being “permanently replaced” after 
working as a warehouseman for 20 
years. “I almost lost my house. I can’t 
get a job. It makes you wonder if any- 
body cares for you.” 

The U.S. labor movement and its 
allies have rallied behind Angle and 
similar workers. 

That widespread support for change 
will ring out loud and clear on Solidari- 
ty Day ’91. 


WE ARE NOT ALONE 

Besides the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions, the 181 
national organizations endorsing Solidarity Day a week 
before the march are: 



AFL-CIO News file photo 


A. Philip Randolph Institute • ACORN • African Methodist Episcopal Church • Alliance of Asian Pacific Labor • American Agriculture Movement • American Association of Community 
and Junior Colleges • American Association of Retired Persons • American Association of University Professors • American Baptist Churches, USA • American Gl Forum of the United 
States • American Jewish Congress • American Nurses Association • American Public Health Association • American Public Welfare Association • American Veterans Committee 

• Americans for Democratic Action • Americans for Workplace Fairness • Appalachian Office of Justice and Peace • Asian American Federation of Union Members • Asociacion Nacional 
Pro Personas Mayores • Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States • Bertha Capen Reynolds Society • Bethune-DuBois Fund • Bread for the World • Catholic Charities 
USA • Center for Budget and Policy Priorities • Center for Community Change • Center for Law and Social Policy • Center for Policy Alternatives • Center for Women’s Policy Studies • Child 
Welfare League of America • Children’s Defense Fund • Church of the Brethren • Church Women United • Citizen Action • Citizens for Tax Justice • Clean Water Action • Coalition for 
Democratic Values • Coalition of Black Trade Unionists • Coalition of Labor Union Women • Coalition on Human Needs • College Democrats of America • Commission on Religion in 
Appalachia • Community Labor Forum • Concerned Citizens of the Delaware Valley • Congress of National Black Churches • Consumer Federation of America • Croatian Fraternal Union 
of America • Cuban American National Council • Democratic Socialists of America • Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund • Division of Homeland Ministries • Drug, Hospital and 
Health Care Employees Union— 1199 • Economic Policy Institute • Environmental Action • Episcopal Church: Washington Office • Families USA • Farm Labor Organizing Committee 

• Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund • Food Research and Action Center • Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy in China • Friends of the 
Earth • Frontlash • Fund for a Feminist Majority • Fund for an OPEN Society • Fund for Community Progress • Greater Washington Network for Chinese Democracy • Health Security 
Action Council • Housing Assistance Council • interchurch Council of Greater Cleveland • Interfaith IMPACT for Justice and Peace • international Committee to Support the Non-Violent 
Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam • international Labor Rights Education and Research Fund • Jewish Labor Committee • Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies • Justice 
and Peace Action Forum • Labor Council for Latin American Advancement • Leadership Conference on Civil Rights • League for Industrial Democracy • League of Women Voters of the 
United States • The Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Social Change • Methodist Federation for Social Action • Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund • Mexican American 
Women’s National Association • Midwest/Northeast Voter Registration Education Project • Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense Fund • NAACP Legal Defense and Education 
Fund • National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • National Association of Commissions for Women • National 
Association of Community Health Centers • National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Inc. • National Association of Social Workers • National Association 
of Working Women: 9 to 5 • National Black Child Development Institute • National Black United Fund • National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice • National Committee on Pay 
Equity • National Concilio of America • National Consumers League • National Council of Catholic Women • National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A • National Council of Jewish 
Women • National Council of La Raza • National Council of Negro Women • National Council of Senior Citizens • National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependents • National Displaced 
Homemakers Network • National Education Association • National Family Farm Coalition • National Farmers Organization • National Farmers Union • National Gray Panthers • National 
Hispanic Council on Aging • National Hook Up of Black Women • National Institute for Women of Color • National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council • National Legal Aid and 
Defenders Association • National Low income Housing Coalition • National Neighborhood Coalition • National Organization For Women • National Organization of Legal Service 
Workers • National Rainbow Coalition • National Rural Housing Coalition • National Toxics Campaign • National Urban League • National Wildlife Federation • National Women’s Law 
Center • National Women’s Party * National Women’s Political Caucus • National Women’s Rights Organizing Coalition • Natural Resources Defense Council • New Jersey Citizen Action • 
New York Unemployment Committee • No Greater Love • NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund • Older Women’s League • Organization of Pan-Asian American Women • Partnership 
for Democracy • Pax Christi USA • People for the American Way • Philadelphia Unemployment Project • Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety & Health • Physicians for Social 
Responsibility • Project Equality • Project Vote! • Public Citizen • Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund • Religious Network for Equality for Women * SANE Freeze • Save 
Our City • Social Democrats, U.S.A. • Southern Christian Leadership Conference • Southern Regional Council • Southwest Voter Registration Education Project • Synagogue Council of 
America • The Children’s Foundation • The Feminist Majority • The Human Rights Campaign Fund • TransAfrica • U.S. Conference of Mayors • U.S. Peace Council • Unitarian Univer- 
salist Association of Congregations • United Church Board of Homeland Ministries • United Church of Christ Office for Church in Society • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers 
of America • United Hebrew Trades • United Labor Action • United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society • United States Catholic Conference • United States Student 
Association • Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom • Women’s Legal Defense Fund • Women’s Strike For Peace • Women’s Way • Workers Defense League • Workmen’s 
Circle • Young Democrats of America Labor Caucus • Young Social Democrats • YWCA of the U.S.A. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
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VOLUME 36, NUMBER 19 


SEPTEMBER 9, 1991 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


‘The heart and conscience of America’ 


M ostly it was people — wave after 
wave of people — who turned 
Solidarity Day ’91 into a lasting testa- 
ment to the conviction of the nation’s 
union members. 

More than 325,000 trade unionists 
and their allies rallied in Washington to 
protest the direction the Bush ad- 
ministration is leading the nation and 
the lack of guts in the opposition on 
Capitol Hill. 

“We’re here to remind our elected 
representatives that they were put there 
to serve, not the faceless marketplace, 
but the aspirations of real people,’’ 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said. 

The marchers called for national 
health care reform, for legislation to 
ban the “permanent replacement’’ of 
strikers and for full freedom of associa- 
tion for workers around the world, as 
well as for civil rights, fair trade, work- 
place safety and attention to this na- 


tion’s decaying cities and infrastructure. 

The column of marchers unfolded 
down Constitution Avenue in a sea of 
red, blue, green, yellow and white as 
T-shirted unionists and supporters 
waved bright hand-painted and profes- 
sionally painted banners and signs, 
chanting for change. 

One unionist who waited two and a 
half hours for a turn along the parade 
route said the wave after wave of 
marchers evoked an image of knights 
setting out on crusades, each fighting 
each other’s fight. It was many faces 
with one voice. 

The turnout was even better than 
Solidarity Day I in 1981, when hun- 
dreds of thousands marched to protest 
the economic and social policies of the 
new Reagan administration, which 
since have proven to be catastrophic for 
workers and their families. 

The camaraderie and solidarity were 
summed up in a banner carried near the 


entertainment stage at 17th and Con- 
stitution, which played off the words of 
the famous labor song: “I dreamed I 
saw Joe Hill last night, alive IN you and 
me.’’ 

Staging areas were set up by various 
unions in the entertainment area on the 
Washington Monument grounds and 
along the Ellipse in front of the White 
House. The entertainment, which began 
at 10 a.m. and lasted until 2 p.m., was 
headlined by Willie Nelson, who led the 
singing of “Solidarity Forever’’ and 
“America the Beautiful.” Entertain- 
ment union presidents Theodore Bikel 
and Ron Silver starred at both ends of 
the march. 

The march formed behind AFL-CIO 
union leaders, who were joined by in- 
ternational trade unionists and leaders 
of some of the 185 organizations that 
endorsed Solidarity Day. AFSCME, 
with the largest contingent, marched 
next, followed by the UAW, Steelwork- 


ers, Machinists, Electrical Workers, 
Service Employees, Communications 
Workers, Teamsters, Electronic 
Workers and other larger unions. 

From the South, they came in a 
caravan — 50 buses hooked up together 
on their way from Virginia, West 
Virginia, Tennessee and other points. 
From the North, they came by train — 
eight of them down the Amtrak lines 
from New York City. From the West, 
they came by sheer determination and 
solidarity — bus rides of 16 to 20 hours 
out of Michigan and elsewhere in the 
Great Lakes area. And from all over 
they took advantage of special air fares. 

“This is beautiful, just look at all 
these beautiful people,” said one 
marcher from Detroit. “You know 
you’re not alone.” 

Other unions and allied groups were 
still waiting to march when the front of 
the column fanned across the Mall to 
Continued on Page 16 



Unions gaining ground 
in hostile territories 



Ernesto Mora/ACTWU 


The close vote at Fieldcrest Cannon is reason to celebrate for ACTWU. 


By Candice Johnson 

U nions are making inroads in 
workplaces that traditionally have 
been difficult to organize — from col- 
lege campuses to southern textile mills 
to air cargo carriers. Recent elections 
have found these workers taking a 
closer look at what unions offer and 
saying “union yes” in growing num- 
bers. 

At the University of Illinois, clerical 
and administrative workers followed 
their counterparts at the University of 
Minnesota earlier this year, voting 
979-922 for representation by 
AFSCME. 

And recent campaigns among textile 
workers in North Carolina and airline 
pilots at a major Tennessee cargo com- 
pany, as well as a report by the AFL- 
CIO Industrial Union Department’s 
cooperative organizing program, in- 
dicate that workers in the South are de- 
fying employer intimidation tactics to 
vote for unions. 

The IUD program, operating in 
North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, 
Mississippi and Georgia, has scored 18 
election victories and two voluntary 
recognitions of unions by employers 
since January, bringing union cards and 
benefits to more than 3,500 workers. 

A close vote among nearly 7,000 
workers at seven Fieldcrest Cannon tex- 
tile plants near Kannapolis, N.C., left 
the outcome in doubt as the National 
Labor Relations Board investigates the 
538 challenged ballots that could shift 
victory to the union. 

Clothing and Textile Workers Presi- 


dent Jack Sheinkman called the vote 
“an overwhelming response” and 
noted that in a different climate, free of 
company intimidation, “the workers’ 
voices would have been heard.” 

“Until we deal with the unfair status 
of our nation’s labor laws, the voice of 
working people will be thwarted,” he 
added. ACTWU is planning to file ob- 
jections to the election and will seek a 
new election from the board. 

Balloting resulted in 3,034 “yes” 
votes for representation by ACTWU 
and 3,233 “no” votes. Of the 538 
challenges, 394 were made by the 
union, 130 by the NLRB and 20 by the 
company. 

In addition to the board investigation 
of challenged ballots, charges that 
workers were kept from voting will also 
be reviewed, ACTWU said. 

A November hearing before an 
NLRB administrative law judge will be 
held on a complaint issued on several 
unfair labor practice charges made by 
the union in August. 

The complaint upheld ACTWU ’s 
charges that Fieldcrest threatened to 
withhold benefits or close plants if the 
union won the election, intimidated 
workers by implying that their union 
activities were being monitored, 
threatened to fire union supporters, in- 
sinuated that workers should resign 
because of union activities and shifted 
additional work to union supporters. 

The union office is open in Kan- 
napolis, and “as far as we’re con- 
cerned, it’s not over yet,” organizers 
stressed. 


Air Line Pilots supporters at Federal 
Express Corp. fell just 23 votes short 
in a union representation election held 
by the National Mediation Board. 

Captain Eric Vartanian, a FedEx pilot 
who headed the organizing committee, 
said the 1,117 votes ALP A received 
were short of a majority for the 
2,279-pilot unit. The FedEx pilots ap- 
proached ALPA last year for help in 
organizing and the committee worked 
long and hard to educate pilots on the 
advantages of union membership, he 
said. 

Under NMB rules, the union must 
receive “yes” votes from half the eligi- 
ble voters, plus one, rather than just 
gaining support from a majority of 
those who vote. 

ALPA President Randolph Babbitt 
noted that organizing efforts often are 
“a long, difficult education process that 
doesn’t always work the first or even 
the second time around. . . .For some- 
one who has never seen union represen- 


tation in action, it’s a tough sell to show 
them they can have the best of both 
possible worlds by going with an 
organization like ALPA.” 

ALPA has filed a protest with the 
NMB, accusing management of im- 
proprieties during the election process, 
including giving “assistance and en- 
dorsement” to an anti-union pilot 
group. The union charged the company 
provided the addresses of pilots to that 
group while withholding the data from 
ALPA. 

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee 
said the union is ready to represent 
some 2,200 clerical and administrative 
workers at the bargaining table with the 
University of Illinois. “University 
workers deserve better pay, better 
working conditions, and a strong voice 
on the issues that affect their lives 
everyday, such as pay equity, career 
mobility and development on the job. 
Now their voice will be heard on the 
University of Illinois campus,” he said. 


Tide for 'permanent replacement’ ban sweeps across states 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he rising tide of sentiment for 
Workplace Fairness swept across the 
Mall in Washington on Solidarity Day 
’91, as many of the 325,000 marching 
trade unionists demonstrated their sup- 
port for S. 55, legislation to ban the 
“permanent replacement” of strikers. 

“The scabs have got to go,” said 
UAW Local 148 member Bette Murphy 
from Long Beach, Calif. “When you 
bring in scabs, you throw out the right 
to strike.” 

The S. 55 Workplace Fairness legis- 
lative companion, H.R. 5, recently 
passed the House of Representatives by 
a 247-182 vote. Much of the success of 
that effort has been credited to the enor- 
mous support of grass-roots organiza- 
tions and union members. 

“Congressional leaders have said that 
this overwhelming victory was due, in 
large part, to the grassroots lobbying ef- 


forts by unions members across the 
country,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treas- 
urer Thomas R. Donahue said in a let- 
ter to trade unionists. “But the battle 
is not over. The fight now moves to the 
Senate, where even more intensified 
grass-roots pressure is needed.” 

One of the grass-roots organizations, 
the Arkansas Committee for Workplace 
Fairness, demonstrated its displeasure 
with the negative vote of Rep. Beryl 
Anthony (D-Ark.) in a rally outside a 
hotel where Anthony appeared. Other 
protests are planned by local central 
bodies in Anthony’s district, which 
have threatened to work for his defeat 
during the next election. 

In California, the State Assembly 
passed a joint resolution urging Con- 
gress to pass the Workplace Bills. 

“Workers should not lose their jobs 
because they exercise their legal right 
to engage in union activity,” said Terry 


Freidman (D-Los Angeles). “More and 
more, employers are permanently re- 
placing workers who, as a last resort in 
a bona fide labor-management dispute, 
have made the painful decision to go on 
strike. I am proud to stand with Califor- 
nia’s workers in urging Congress to 
guarantee their rights under the Na- 
tional Labor Relations Act.” 

Residents in Illinois have been suc- 
cessful in persuading several city coun- 
cils to pass resolutions to ban “perma- 
nent replacements.” The Alton and 
Madison City Councils have passed 
resolutions affirming the right to strike 
without the fear of being “permanently 
replaced.” And recently Chicago’s city 
council passed a resolution to ban the 
practice. 

“Today, many employers who want 
to break unions deliberately force 
strikes through unreasonable negotia- 
tion tactics,” the Chicago resolution 


stated, continuing “and whereas, to 
workers the distinction is meaningless 
because whether fired or ‘permanently 
replaced,’ they have lost their jobs and 
that subverts the legal protection of their 
trade union rights.” 

The increasing support for a ban on 
“permanent replacements” was little 
consolation to members of Brewery 
Workers Local 1010 in Baltimore. The 
Bond Distributing Company has hired 
“permanent replacements” for 93 strik- 
ing beer drivers and warehouse 
workers. 

Local 1010 President Ray Machlin- 
ski said the initial news prompted the 
union to suspend talks. While the 
original sticking point in negotiations 
was over job descriptions and duties for 
the workers, union officials say they 
now are mainly concerned about the 
employees returning to work. Contract 
negotiations have resumed. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 19 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1991 


ups 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 


Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





LEGM10N 


Congress returns to full slate of labor bills 


Thomas hearings 
begin Sept. 10 

By Mike Hall 

C ongress reconvenes Sept. 10 for a fall 
session that is packed with legisla- 
tion of keen interest to labor, but with 
no firm schedules as yet mapped out by 
either the House or Senate leadership. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee be- 
gins its hearings Sept. 10 on Supreme 
Court nominee Clarence Thomas, who 
is strongly opposed by the AFL-CIO 
and the Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights, which includes the NAACP and 
other major civil rights groups. 

Senate action on civil rights legisla- 
tion supported by the AFL-CIO will not 
occur until after the Thomas hearings. 
President Bush remains adamantly op- 
posed to the House-passed legislation 
and has rebuffed attempts by moderate 
Republicans to find a compromise posi- 
tion on the bill. 

Bush’s refusal to declare an emer- 
gency to release funds for extended 
unemployment benefits has fueled talk 
that new legislation could be introduced 
to correct the mistake of making the ex- 
tension of unemployment benefits de- 
pendent on the president’s declaration 
of an emergency. 

S. 55, the Workplace Fairness bill, 
has been reported by the Senate Labor 
and Human Resources Committee, and 
the AFL-CIO and others are working 
to boost Senate support for the bill. The 
House passed its version, H.R. 5, by 
a runaway 247-182 margin on July 17. 

The House must act on a new high- 
way and mass transit reauthorization 
bill by Sept. 30, when federal funds ex- 
pire. The House had been set to vote 
on a five-year $153.5 billion reauthori- 
zation before the August recess, but it 
was pulled from the floor after many 
House Democrats objected to a five- 
cent-a-gallon gasoline tax as part of its 
funding mechanism. 

That legislation, which was strongly 
supported by the AFL-CIO, would have 
provided some 2 million jobs over the 
five years. The House now may con- 
sider legislation similar to the $123 
billion reauthorization passed in the 
Senate, but there has also been some 
talk of reviving the original bill with the 
gasoline tax intact. 

On the committee level, hearings are 
expected on health care reform and the 
new OSHA reform and construction 
safety bills. 

Following is the status of more than 
30 pieces of major labor legislation in- 
troduced so far in the 102nd Congress. 
The bills are supported by the AFL-CIO 
unless otherwise indicated. 

Signed into law 

• Davis-Bacon/Apprenticeship 
Regulations (H.R. 1281, P.L. 

102-27) — Amendments offered in 
both houses to the emergency sup- 
plemental appropriations for fiscal year 
1991 would have seriously damaged 
Davis-Bacon by allowing the Depart- 
ment of Labor to tinker with helper 
regulations in both the Davis-Bacon Act 
and apprenticeship regulations. The 
House defeated the amendment March 
7 and the Senate on March 20 before 
the appropriations bill was passed and 
signed into law. 


Floor action 

• Campaign Finance Reform (S. 
3) — Bill sets spending limits, partial 
public financing and bans political ac- 
tion committees (PACs). Opposed by 
AFL-CIO, S. 3 passed the Senate May 
23. A House bill is expected to be 
introduced. 

• Civil Rights (H.R. 1) - This 
legislation reverses several Supreme 
Court rulings that make it difficult for 
employees to pursue legal remedies for 
workplace discrimination. It passed the 
House June 5. There is not yet a com- 
panion Senate bill. 

• Federal Employee Layoff Notices 
(H.R. 1341) — This bill requires a 
60-day notice, similar to the Plant Clos- 
ing Notification Act for civilian work- 
ers, before the federal government can 
lay off workers in a reduction of force. 
It passed the House by voice vote June 
24 and has been reported by the Senate 
Governmental Affairs Committee. 

• Flight Attendants Duty Time 
(H.R. 14) — This legislation sets flight 
and duty time limits and minimum rest 
periods for flight attendants. It passed 
the House Aug. 2. No similar Senate 
legislation has yet been introduced. 

• Highways/Mass Transit (S. 1204 
and H.R. 2950) — The Senate bill is a 
five-year, $123 billion reauthorization 
of the nation’s highways and mass tran- 
sit programs. It passed the Senate June 
19. The AFL-CIO supports the House 
version, H.R. 2950, which was re- 
ported July 25 by the Public Works and 
Transportation Committee and July 31 
by the Ways and Means Committee. 

• Revenue Foregone Postal Ap- 
propriations (H.R. 2622) — Both 
Houses approved this legislation, but 
the Senate version, passed July 18, 
significantly cuts the revenue foregone 
program, which reimburses the postal 
service for the cut rates it provides for 
non-profit organizations. The House 
version contains full funding and was 
approved June 19. The legislation is 
now in conference. 

• Social Security (SCR 29) — An 
amendment to the budget resolution for 
fiscal year 1991 offered by Sen. Daniel 
Patrick Moynihan would have been the 
first step to a roll back in the Social 
Security tax rate for workers. It was 
backed by the AFL-CIO but was de- 
feated in the Senate April 24. 

• Trade, Fast Track for Mexico 
(H.Res. 101 and S. Res. 78) — Both 
resolutions would have denied President 
Bush “fast-track” authority for free 
trade negotiations with Mexico. Both 
resolutions were defeated, May 23 in 
the House and May 24 in the Senate. 

• Trade, Most Favored Nation 
(MFN) Status for China (S. 1367 and 
H.R. 2112) — Both bills set strict 
worker and human rights conditions 
China must meet to maintain its MFN 
trade status. The House passed its ver- 
sion July 1 1 and the Senate July 22. A 
conference is expected in September. 

• Unemployment Insurance Ex- 
tended Benefits (H.R. 3040 and S. 
1554) — If the president had declared 
a national emergency, both bills would 
have extended unemployment benefits 
up to 20 extra weeks for workers who 
have exhausted their benefits. The 
Senate passed its bill Aug. 1 and the 
House approved it Aug. 2. Bush signed 


the bill but refused to declare an emer- 
gency, in effect killing the legislation. 

• Workplace Fairness (H.R. 5 and 
S. 55) — Both bills ban the use of per- 
manent replacement workers during 
lawful economic strikes. H.R. 5 pass- 
ed the House July 17 and S. 55 was 
reported by the Senate Labor and 
Human Resources Committee June 19. 

Approved in committee 

• Fuel Efficiency (S. 279 and H.R. 
266) — Both bills require a large in- 
crease in automobile fuel efficiency, 
which the AFL-CIO believes is un- 
achievable and unreasonable. S. 279 
has been reported by the Commerce, 
Science and Transportation Committee. 

• Civil RICO Reform (H.R. 
1717) — Curbs rampant abuse of 
private civil RICO action, which has 
been used many times by parties in- 
volved in ordinary commercial or labor 
disputes. Has been reported by House 
Judiciary Committee. 

• Construction Safety (H.R. 1063 
and S. 673) — This legislation would 
establish an office of construction safety 
within the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration and establish 
stringent on-site safety regulations. 
H.R. 1063 was reported by the health 
and safety subcommittee. 

• Drug Lab Certification (H.R. 
33) — This bill sets strong standards 
for labs involved in drug testing of 
workers. It was reported by the health 
and environment subcommittee. 

• Family and Medical Leave (H.R. 
2 and S. 5) — Both bills establish a 
system of unpaid leave for workers for 
child birth, adoption or serious family 
illnesses. H.R. 2 has been reported by 
the Education and Labor and the Post 
Office and Civil Service committees 
and S. 5 by the Labor and Human Re- 
sources Committee. 

• Job Safety at Federal Nuclear 
Facilities (H.R. 2194 and S. 596) - 
Both bills require federal nuclear 
facilities to comply with federal and 
state hazardous waste laws which would 
protect the more than 80,000 workers 
in those plants. H.R. 2194 has been 
reported by the Energy and Commerce 
Committee and S. 596 has been re- 
ported by the Environmental and Public 
Works Committee. 

• Job Training Partnership Act 
(H.R. 3033) — This legislation amends 
the JTPA to improve delivery of serv- 
ices to hard-to-serve youths and adults. 
It has been reported by the employment 
opportunities subcommittee. 

• Legal Services (H.R. 2039) — 
Reauthorizes the program that provides 
legal aid to poor. H.R. 2039 was re- 
ported by the House Judiciary Commit- 
tee. 

• Pensions, Pass-Through In- 
surance (H.R. 6 and S. 543)Provisions 
to protect pension plan deposits in banks 
included during consideration of bank- 
ing reform. The bills have been 
reported by banking committees in both 
houses. 

• Timber Harvesting (H.R. 2463 
and S. 1156) — Both bills provide a 
balanced approach to problems of 
timber harvesting on old growth federal 
lands. H.R. 2463 was reported by the 
national parks and public lands subcom- 
mittee and hearings have been held on 
S. 1156 by the public lands, national 


parks and forests subcommittee. 

• Unemployment Insurance Reform 
(H.R. 1367) — This legislation is a ma- 
jor overhaul of the nation’s unemploy- 
ment insurance system. It has been 
reported by the human resources sub- 
committee. 

• Voter Registration (S.250) — 
This bill streamlines voter registration 

procedures, and establishes “motor 
voter” registration that allows register- 
ing to vote with the renewal of a 
driver’s license. It has been reported by 
the Rules Committee. 

Bills introduced 

• Black Lung Reform (H.R. 
1637) — Streamlines procedures for 
black lung claimants. Hearings have 
been held by labor standards 
subcommittee. 

• Child Labor (S. 600 and H.R. 
2076) — Links education and employ- 
ment and increases civil and criminal 
penalties under Fair Labor Standards 
Act. Hearings have been held on S. 600 
before children, family, drugs and 
alcoholism subcommittee. 

• Davis-Bacon Reform (H.R. 
1987) — Strengthens administration of 
the act, eases the paperwork burden and 
increases threshold for construction and 
rehab. Has been referred to Education 
and Labor Committee. 

• Fringe Benefits, Education Ex- 
penses (H.R. 127 and S. 24) —Provides 
employee tax exemption for up to 
$5,250 in employer-provided education 
benefits. H.R. 127 has been referred to 
Ways and Means Committee and S. 24 
to Finance Committee. 

• Fringe Benefits, Pre-Paid Legal 
Services (H.R. 187 and S. 451) — 
Provides tax exemption for employer- 
provided pre-paid legal services. H.R. 
187 has been referred to Ways and 
Means Committee and S. 451 to Fi- 
nance Committee. 

• Hatch Act Reform (H.R. 20 and 
S. 915) — Both bills ease restrictions 
on political activity for federal and 
postal employees. H.R. 20 has been 
referred to Post Office and Civil Ser- 
vice Committee and S. 965 to Govern- 
mental Affairs Committee. 

• Health Care Reform (H.R. 3205 
and S. 1669) — Both bills make pro- 
gress toward AFL-CIO goal of com- 
prehensive health care reform. H.R. 
3205 has been referred to the Ways and 
Means, Energy and Commerce and 
Education and Labor committees and S. 
1669 to the Labor and Human 
Resources Committee. 

• OSHA Reform (H R. 3160 and 
S. 1622) — Represents the first com- 
prehensive overhaul of the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Act in more 
than 20 years. H.R. 3160 was referred 
to the Education and Labor Committee 
and S. 1622 to the Labor and Human 
Resources Committee. 

• Section 936 Tax Code (H.R. 
2632) — This bill would repeal the 
massive tax breaks allowed for runaway 
plants in Puerto Rico. It has been refer- 
red to the Ways and Means Committee. 

• Workplace Monitoring (H.R. 
1218 and S. 516) — Both bills prevent 
abuses of electronic monitoring in the 
workplace. Hearings on H.R. 1218 
have been held before the labor-man- 
agement subcommittee. 




Workers united across international boundaries 


By James B. Parks 

I nternational worker solidarity was on 
display on Solidarity Day ’91 as trade 
union leaders from around the world 
marched in support of freedom of 
association. 

“The AFL-CIO is second to none in 
extending solidarity around the world,” 
said John Vanderveken, general sec- 
retary of the International Confedera- 
tion of Free Trade Unions. “Because 
we stand in solidarity together, we are 
winning” the struggles for workers’ 
rights, he said, and he pledged that in- 
ternational labor will not rest until the 
practice of “permanent replacements” 
is banned in the United States. 

“No trade union in the world can 
stand alone and they don’t need to. This 
crowd today proves it,” he said. 

The list of international visitors for 
Solidarity Day read like a who’s who 
of world trade unionists, with leaders 
from Europe, Africa, China, Canada, 
Asia, and Latin America. 

One highlight of the rally came when 
Li Lu, a 24-year-old Chinese student 
who demonstrated for democracy in 
1989 at Tiananmen Square, announced 
that he was ending his two-week-old 
hunger strike protesting the Chinese 
government’s crackdown on dissent. 

Standing near a replica of the “God- 
dess of Democracy” that stood in the 
square, Li said “seeing so many of you 
here lets me know the Chinese people 
are not alone. The China of tomorrow 
is the Soviet Union of today . . . together 
we can change the world.” 

Russian parliament member Sergey 
Kovalev told the marchers that 
America’s example was an inspiration 
for the Russian people as they rose up 
to defeat the Soviet coup attempt. Dur- 
ing the struggle for freedom, Russian 
President Boris Yeltsin and his sup- 
porters count on the solidarity of the 
AFL-CIO, Kovalev said. 

Startling changes 

One clear example of the startling 
changes in the Soviet Union was pro- 
vided by a Soviet trade unionist who did 
not make it to Solidarity Day. Anatoly 
Malykhin, a leader of the Soviet in- 
dependent miners’ movement, stayed in 
the Soviet Union to assume his new 
duties as governor of the Kuzbass, the 
eastern Soviet mining region where he 
led strikes earlier this year. Yeltsin ap- 
pointed him to the post the day he was 
scheduled to leave for the Solidarity 
Day march. 

Shirley G.E. Carr, president of the 
Canadian Labour Congress, warned 
against the fallacy of the so-called 
“free-trade” policy. “The politicians 
are errand boys for the money boys,” 
Carr said. “Enough is enough. We’re 
not going to stop” until there is a new 
brand of public policy in North 
America. 

In a forum on freedom of association 
earlier in the week, several international 
trade unionists described how the labor 
movements in their countries are at 
critical periods in which solidarity is 
essential. The forum, sponsored by the 
AFL-CIO and the George Meany 
Center for Labor Studies, was coor- 
dinated by the Free Trade Union 
Institute. 

Central and Eastern European trade 
unionists said their emerging 
democracies need help from the West 
to successfully make the transition from 
a communist political and economic 
structure. “There is no previous 
historical precedent, no models to 
follow” in making the transition, said 
Marian Krzaklewski, chairman of Po- 
land’s Solidarnosc. 

The political changes in Eastern 


Dream of Baltic freedom almost a reality 


T rade unions rejoiced at the 
likelihood of the Soviet Union re- 
nouncing its occupation of the Baltic 
states — leaving Lithuania, Estonia, 
and Latvia as the free and indepen- 
dent states the AFL-CIO has insisted 
they were all along. 

The expected decree from Soviet 
President Mikhail Gorbachev should 
come shortly after Aldona Balsiene, 
chairwoman of the Lithuanian 
Workers Union, with whom U.S. 
unions have worked closely in recent 
years, returns home after par- 
ticipating in Solidarity Day. Her 
predecessor, Kazimieras Uoka, 
received the 1991 George Meany 
Human Rights Award. 

Lithuania had declared its in- 
dependence on March 11, 1990, 
only to see it temporarily delayed by 
a Soviet economic embargo and the 
storming of its broadcast facili- 
ties. 

The Lithuanian free trade unions 
steadfastly opposed the failed Soviet 
coup, organizing meetings every 15 
minutes to rally support for Russian 
President Boris Yeltsin’s stand 
for freedom and to prepare for a 
general strike to topple the coup 
leaders. 

After the coup failed, Lithuania 
took control of its borders, started 
issuing visas, and outlawed the 
Communist party. “We have always 
felt free in our minds and now we 
feel secure for the future,” said 


Lithuanian President Vytautas 
Landsbergis, who called on the 
Soviet parliament to “correct the 
historical error it made” when it ac- 
cepted the forcible annexation of the 
Baltics in 1940. 

The French government also has 
pledged to return to Lithuania 2.1 
metric tons of gold deposited in 
French banks before the annexation. 
At today’s prices, the gold would be 
worth about $19.5 million. Lith- 
uania deposited 4.5 tons of gold in 
U.S., French, British and Swedish 
banks for safekeeping from the 
Soviets. 

Estonia’s parliament voted unani- 
mously to reaffirm its independence. 
The parliament said it did not have 
to declare independence since it had 
been free since 1918 and occupied 
by the Soviet Union since 1940. The 
country established its own customs 
department to control its borders. 
This includes its western coast, 
which for 50 years was considered 
the Soviet Union’s border. 

Latvia’s parliament nullified the 
transition period that followed its 
decision last year to seek inde- 
pendence. Soviet military officials 
agreed to set up joint Soviet-Latvian 
patrols along Latvia’s western 
border until Red Army troops can be 
transferred to the republic’s eastern 
frontier. 

Dozens of nations and interna- 
tional organizations rushed to 


recognize the Baltic states, including 
the 12-member European Economic 
Community, Sweden and Czecho- 
slovakia. The United States became 
the 37th nation to recognize the three 
nations, after a two- week wait. 

The events affirmed the AFL- 
CIO ’s long fight for Baltic in- 
dependence, which has included a 
consistent criticism of Soviet oc- 
cupation. In 1990, after the Soviet 
invasion, the federation pledged its 
full support to the independence 
movements in Lithuania, Estonia, 
and Latvia. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirk- 
land in a 1990 letter to Bush said the 
White House should “move swiftly 
and surely to confer U.S. govern- 
ment recognition on the legitimate 
elected government of the Republic 
of Lithuania. We are certain, as we 
were in our steadfast support for 
Solidarnosc in Poland, of the 
ultimate success of peaceful struggle 
for national self-determination wag- 
ed by the Lithuanians and other 
peoples forcibly absorbed into the 
USSR.” 

Uoka, the Lithuanian trade union- 
ist, in 1989 became the first Soviet- 
bloc union leader to address an AFL- 
CIO convention. He later joined an 
AFL-CIO delegation headed by 
Teachers President Albert Shanker 
that visited the Soviet Union, de- 
manding worker rights. 

—■James B. Parks 


Europe were relatively painless, com- 
pared to the economic changes that are 
to come, he said. The process of switch- 
ing to a market economy may be so 
painful that it might undercut the 
political changes as people react to 
unemployment and shortages that are 
sure to occur, he warned. “That is why 
it is very important that the developed 
countries participate in finding solutions 
to the problems,” he said. 

The biggest threats to reform in Cen- 
tral and Eastern Europe may be the pro- 
duction systems, Krzaklewski said. 
Because those systems were set up to 
serve the Soviet Union’s interests, the 
lack of a new trading partner now idles 
factories and leads to unemployment, 
which can cause political tensions if 
people blame the unions for problems 
created by the communist system. 

Another crucial test for reform is the 
establishment of ownership of busi- 
nesses, said Imre Palkovics, chairman 
of the Hungarian Workers Councils. 

Throughout Central and Eastern 
Europe, former communist managers 
and elite who have access to capital 
have cynically used the economic 
reforms to gain property illegally or 
through loopholes in the new laws. 
Palkovics warned that these communists 
use this secure economic power to 
thwart true reform, a sentiment echoed 
by Krzaklewski and Mihaly Csako, na- 
tional secretary of the Hungarian 
Democratic League of Independent 
Trade Unions. 

Roman Kovac, president of the Czech 
and Slovak Confederation of Trade 
Unions, said his country is learning the 
difficulties of putting freedom into 
place. 

For example, Czech and Slovak trade 
unions are trying to negotiate new labor 
laws. This is particularly difficult 
because the state is still the largest 
employer at a time when the relation- 
ship between government and labor is 


changing from one of dominance to 
cooperation. 

“Real freedom is not in documents 
or declarations of human rights, but in 
the implementation of those rights in in- 
stitutions and one of them is free trade 
unions,” Kovac said. 

‘Democracy can’t be stopped’ 

Aldona Balsiene, chairwoman of the 
Lithuanian Workers Union, said that 
country’s free trade unions are just 
beginning to concentrate on labor 
issues, having been consumed with the 
desire for independence from the Soviet 
Union. 

But despite all their problems, these 
leaders agreed that the unleashed demo- 
cratic forces will not be stopped and 
labor solidarity is a key. “Nationality 
does not hinder worker solidarity,” 
Balsiene said. “Everyone is united by 
one idea — independence, and the no- 
tion that freedom is in danger.” 

For South African trade unionists, the 
major struggle is to make sure that 
workers’ rights are included in any new 
constitution that comes out of the strug- 
gle for national liberation, said Cun- 
ningham Ngcukana, general secretary 
of the National Council of Trade 
Unions (NACTU). 

“The unions have not kept quiet,” 
said Papi Kganare, general secretary of 
the South African Commercial, Cater- 
ing and Allied Workers union. The 
unions are not apolitical, they have con- 
tact with the liberation movements and 
they are having an impact.” Kganare 
was a substitute for John Gomomo, 
president of the Congress of South 
African Trade Unions (COSATU), who 
was unable to attend Solidarity Day 
because of his wife’s illness. 

COSATU and NACTU are conven- 
ing a conference among South African 
unions to make sure that workers’ rights 
are included in the negotiations for 
liberation. Once liberation occurs, the 


trade unions will become independent 
of the political movements. “You can’t 
have one foot in the government and 
one in the trade unions,” Ngcukana 
said. 

For Cubans, the struggle is to gain 
freedom of association or freedoms in 
any form, said Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, 
a trade unionist who spent 23 years in 
Cuban jails. 

The Castro government does not al- 
low fundamental liberties, including 
freedom of association. All trade union 
leaders are appointed by the govern- 
ment and they respond to the political 
needs of government, not the needs of 
workers, Diaz said. 

Worker organizers and political 
prisoners are beaten and their families 
pressured, he said. The free trade union 
movement’s most effective vehicle for 
reaching workers is Radio Marti, Diaz 
said. 

Trade unionists are using the exam- 
ple of Poland to try to inspire Cuban 
workers and the moral support of the 
world’s trade unionists is crucial to that 
effort, he said. 

The situation is similar in China 
where, though freedom of association 
is allowed by the constitution, the 
government’s crackdown on the democ- 
racy movement has forced workers’ 
groups underground, said Lu Jinghua. 

Lu, a leading activist in the Beijing 
Workers Autonomous Federation, es- 
caped from China and now lives in New 
York, where she is on the staff of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers. She urged 
the American labor movement not to 
forget the struggling Chinese workers. 

Also among the international visitors 
was Quan Q. Nguyen, chairman of the 
International Committee to Support the 
Non-Violent Movement for Human 
Rights in Vietnam. His brother, Dr. 
Nguyen Dan Que, has been held in a 
Saigon jail since June 14, 1990, for urg- 
ing democratic reforms in Vietnam. 






Jim Furlong/LIPA 


America's trade union movement was on the march again down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., Aug. 31, 1991 














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H elen Spalding’s clothes and hat were adorned with 
buttons from marches past and her hand held a 
plywood cane to assist her as she marched in Solidar- 
ity. Spalding, a member of AFSCME Council 8 in 
Clinton, Ohio, said she had to come to tell President 
Bush and members of Congress about the struggles of 
working people. “I have a son and daughter-in-law 
who declared bankruptcy while holding three jobs. 
They had to reach a $2,000 deductible on their health 
policy before they were covered 100 percent,” she 
said. 

S teve Hernandez and Lawton Teston, members of 
Machinists Local 1128, drove 15 hours from St. 
Mary’s, Ga., to come to Washington to “show the 
political leaders that we are tired of the way the 
country is being run,” Hernandez said. They said 
their sisters and brothers in South Georgia and 
Florida are steadily losing their jobs to non-union 
workers as paper mills shut down and reopen with 
unorganized workers. Even unionized workers are 
losing money as their health care costs outstrip their 
wage increases, Hernandez said. But the 30-hour 
round trip drive was worth it, Teston said. “We’re 
talking about the rest of our lives. We can’t take 
another 10 years of these Reagan-Bush policies. 
They’re killing us. And I don’t mind taking a 
weekend out of my year to change the rest of my 
life.” 

O ne of the prizes for longest bus rides to Solidarity 
Day goes to Food and Commercial Workers 
Local 304 A of Sioux Falls, S.D. All the members of 
the local had been replaced four years ago by the 
John Morrell Co. after they joined a sympathy strike 
for a fellow local. Their contract expired in 1988. It 
took until this year for the union to get a new con- 
tract and for the replaced workers to return. “They 
knew what it was like to be replaced,” said Jim 
Lyons, the local president, and they wanted to share 
that experience with their union family. The bus bear- 
ing 45 members of the local left Thursday, Aug. 29 
at 9 p.m., and stopped for a five-hour rest Friday 
night. After the march they rode 31 hours straight to 
return home. “It was a once in a lifetime opportun- 
ity,” Lyons said. 

S ome workers were so determined to get to Solidar- 
ity Day that they bargained up until the last possi- 
ble minute on a new contract and literally jumped in- 
to their cars and drove all night to get to the rally, 
said Vickie Cook Bumbaugh, president of Service 
Employees Local 31-M, which represents Michigan 
state employees, and vice president of SEIU Council 
35. Some locals had been negotiating with the state 
for two months, with a state-imposed deadline of 
Sept. 1, which could have meant the workers would 
not make Solidarity Day, Bumbaugh said. “ A lot of 
them had never been to a rally and were really ex- 
cited. Some had been here ten years ago and they 
were going to be here come hell or high water.” 
Members of some other SEIU locals bargained until 
the day before the march and “just got in their cars 
and made their way in, driving all night long,” Bum- 
baugh said. 

F reddie Pilgrim marched in the first Solidarity Day 
in 1981 and it inspired her to come back this year. 
“We succeeded then and I think we’ll succeed now,” 
said the 22-year member of Service Employees Local 
79 in Detroit. Labor is just as angry about conditions 
now as they were in 1981, Pilgrim said. “Look how 
many people are out here. Bush is cutting old peo- 
ple’s pensions and we are here to tell him to ‘hold it 







mmmmmmmmmmmmm 







“We’re here to 
remind our elected 
representatives that 
they were put there 
to serve, not the 
faceless marketplace, 
but the aspirations of 
real people.” 

- AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 



baby’ and I believe it’s going to work.” The 
Solidarity Day march in 1981 was Pilgrim’s first 
march and she’ll never forget it. “They sent me a lit- 
tle picture of when we were marching with my name 
on there. I still have that picture in a frame on my 
wall and I’ll always keep it.” That picture and what 
it means to her will keep her coming back, she said. 
“I’m gonna keep on coming back. Even if I’m in 
wheelchair, I’m gonna keep on coming back.” 

J im Martin marched in the August 28, 1963, March 
on Washington for Jobs and Freedom organized by 
AFL-CIO Vice President A. Philip Randolph and 
Bayard Rustin. He came back to Washington to 
“show that I was in protest of so many 
things. . .charity begins at home and spreads abroad.” 
Martin joined the UAW in 1941 and is a member of 
UAW Region 1 in Taylor, Mich. During the 1960s, 
he was deeply involved in civil rights issues. “From 
1964 to about 1974, things changed for the better” in 
civil rights, he said. “Right now they seem to be 
regressing. . . .1 hope this march will show a lot of 
people that there are a lot of dissatisfied people.” 

L ouise Davis figures she owes the unions. A 
member of the Retail, Wholesale and Department 
Store Union Local 1974 in Fulton, N.Y., Davis said 
she was “always backed by the union if anything 
went wrong in the mill where I worked.” She joined 
the union more than 40 years ago. Unions are 
stronger today than they were when she went to work 
in 1945, she said. “They’ve come up some and they 
give you more. When I went to work I got 48 cents 
an hour, but the union kept fighting and getting us 
more vacations and things.” Davis said she was was 
finally making more than $5 an hour when she retired 
earlier this year. 

L ongshoreman Local 1475 member Donny Bell said 
he and the two busloads of members from Savan- 
nah, Ga., were in Washington because more and 
more they see the need for unions. “We went 
through the Reagan years and saw the trickle down 
effort they had and I’m tired of being trickled on,” 
he said. “We’re seeing more and more unscrupulous 
employers taking advantage of unions. People are 
waking up and turning around to see the need for 
unions.” The high-spirited ILA group, chanting 
“ILA all the way,” marched around the Mall. 

W hy do the Mine Workers wear camouflage shirts 
at rallies? UMWA District 29 President Everette 
Acorn from West Virginia says it’s because miners 
always have to fight. “We wore these colors before, 
but mainly it’s a symbol from the Pittston strike of 
1988,” said Acorn. “Overcome Evil With Good” 
was stitched into the camouflage suits at Pittston, in- 
dicating the deep beliefs that saw those strikers 
through to victory. Mine Workers understand the 
need for solidarity, he said. “We can’t get a fair 
share because the wrong people are in the White 
House. When you have people without health in- 
surance, something is wrong.” 

W hat better place to teach your child history than 
in the nation’s capital during an historic event? 
“If we don’t teach them what we’re about, nobody 
else will,” said UAW Local 302 Vice President Ann 
Flener. And the kids appeared to have learned their 
lessons well. When asked why he was there, 11-year- 
old Mike Carathers said to “learn about history.” 

His buddy, 13-year-old Mike Leighty said “it is 
important to be a union member because it can help 
you get a better job for your future.” 












Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Solidarity message: We will make a difference 


“You are the heart and conscience of America. 

We are here to insist that democratic govern- 
ment — the White House , the Congress and the 
courts — must assure fair play for all and not 
just for those with the most money , the most luck 
or the strongest bootstraps. " 

— Lane Kirkland, AFL-CIO president 

“We are hundreds of thousands of working men 
and women. We are scientists and laborers , truck 
drivers and sales people and auto workers , 
teachers and janitors. We are as diverse as 
America is. " 

— Thomas R. Donahue, AFL-CIO 
secretary-treasurer 

“We've been told George Bush can't be beat. I'll 
give you the formula: tell the Democratic Party 
not to nominate a candidate who quacks like a 
Republican. Nominate a Democrat who is against 
scabs, who is for health care and who is for sav- 
ing American jobs. " 

— Bill Bywater, president, Electronic Workers 

“We are here to bid farewell to the greed of the 
1980s. In that reckless political climate of greed 
and self-interest, corporate thieves like Frank 
Lorenzo were able to legally steal one of nation 's 
most respected airlines, Eastern, and send it 
crashing to earth with no survivors. " 

— George Kourpias, president, Machinists 

“We are here to say in one strong voice: I'm 
proud to be an American worker and I'm damn 
proud to be union. It ’s wrong that in the year 
1991, U.S. working people are still scared to 
death they'll lose their job if they try to join a 
union. " 

— Richard Trumka, president, Mine Workers 


“Union workers stand ready to rebuild this great 
nation. Do you hear us, Mr. Bush and members 
of Congress? If America is going to compete, it 
must be strong at its core. We stand ready to 
rebuild a place we love, America. " 

— Sig Lucassen, president, Carpenters 

“Women need unions and the labor movement 
needs women. We have to fight for pay equity. 

We challenge the nomination of Clarence 
Thomas, a man opposed to the right to privacy, 
to workers ' rights and women 's rights. ' ' 

— Joyce Miller, vice president, 
Clothing and Textile Workers 

* 7 s this the best America can do ? We say no. 
According to Bruce Springsteen, you can 't start a 
fire without a spark. Well, President Bush, on 
this lawn today are tens of thousands of points of 
light, ready to spark some fires. " 

— Morton Bahr, president, 
Communications Workers 

“We serve notice on Congress and the White 
House that access to health care must be univer- 
sal; that cost must be controlled; that quality 
must be assured. " 

— John Sweeney, president, 
Service Employees 

“There is no freedom when children go to bed 
hungry, can 't get an education or have no bed to 
lay down on. We have to give freedom to all. " 

— Vincent Sombrotto, president, 
Letter Carriers 

“It was the Reagan-Bush administration that in 
1981 destroyed PATCO, but air traffic controllers 
are back today with a union. We express solidari- 


ty with the Canadian Postal Workers who are out 
on strike; they have the right to strike, we 
don't." 

— Moe Biller, president, Postal Workers 

“We're here to protest the burning of the 
American flag. We say to George Bush: the 
American flag is burned every day at plant gates; 
a flag gets burned every time workers ' rights are 
taken from them on the job. " 

— Jack Sheinkman, president, 
Clothing and Textile Workers 

“We speak for the young families who are giving 
up on the American dream of owning their own 
home. We speak for the children who are losing 
a chance for a better life that all of us enjoyed. ' ' 

— Jay Mazur, president, 
Ladies’ Garment Workers 

“We have a president who is acutely aware of 
the situation for people in Kuwait and Kiev, but 
is oblivious to an unemployed family in Kentucky 
or a farm foreclosure in Kansas. ' ' 

— Owen Bieber, president, UAW 

“We are here to send a message to both ends of 
Pennsylvania Avenue that we are sick and tired. 
We are tired of politicians who make promises in 
private when they 're running and want our sup- 
port and don ' t even want to know us in public 
after they win. We are sick and tired of working 
men and women being treated as second-class 
citizens when bankers and the savings and loan 
crooks are embraced by our so-called political 
leaders. " 

— Gerald McEntee, president, AFSCME 

“We stand with people of goodwill and decency 
everywhere in our determination that workers 
must be free — free to organize , free to exercise 
their democratic rights, free to withdraw their 
labor and to strike without the threat of perma- 
nent replacements. ' ' 

— Lynn Williams, president, Steelworkers 

“No battle is remembered after a time unless 
there is a play, a film, a song, a television 
program, a sculpture or a picture that tells of the 
event. We are the actors, but know what ails 
working people because we share in what ails 

t ^ iem ' — Theodore Bikel, president, 

Actors and Artistes 

“Have you had enough of the 1980s? Ten years 
ago, people got fired. Now we don ' t get fired, we 
get \ permanently replaced. ' Twenty-five-year-old 
stockbrokers earn a million bucks and 55-year- 
old workers get thrown out of jobs. Have you 
had enough?" 

— Ron Silver, president, Actors’ Equity 


Other Solidarity Day speakers 


Rev. Tom Harvey, Catholic Charities USA 
Juan Andrade Jr., Midwest/Northeast Voter Registration 
Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner 
Sergey Kovalev, Russian Parliament 
Susan Lederman, League of Women Voters 
Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Delegate 
Li Lu, Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy in 
China 

Arthur S. Flemming, Coalition to Protect Social Security 
William Lucy, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists 
Norman Hill, A. Philip Randolph Institute 
Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, Cuban political prisoner 
Marian Krzaklewski, NSZZ Solidarnosc 
John O'Connor, National Toxics Campaign 
Raymond Flynn, U.S. Conference of Mayors 
Leland H. Swenson, National Farmers Union 
Rev. Ben Hooks, NAACP 

John Vanderveken, international Confederation of Free 
Trade Unions 


Paul Marchand, Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities 
Shirley G.E. Carr, Canadian Labour Congress 
Rev. Jesse Jackson, National Rainbow Coalition 
Cunningham Ngcukana, National Council of Trade Unions 
South Africa 

Patricia Ireland, National Organization for Women 
Pdpi Kganare, South African Commercial, Catering & 
Allied Workers COSATU 

Dewey Taylor, locked-out Steelworker, Ravenswood, W. 
Va. 

Arnie Aronson, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 
Lu Jing-hua, Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation 
Frank Hackett, Teamsters 
Linda F. Golodner, National Consumers League 
Katie Quan, Alliance of Asian Pacific Labor 
Dr. Nguyen Quan Quoc, International Committee to Sup- 
port the Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights 
in Vietnam 







Union blasts 

explosion 

settlement 



AFL-CIO file photo 


OCAW President Robert Wages said settlement of the 1989 Phillips explo- 
sion doesn't go far enough to protect workers. 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

P hillips 66 Co. is to pay a record $4 
million to settle a federal case stem- 
ming from a 1989 explosion at a Texas 
chemical plant, but the settlement falls 
far short of the penalty needed to 
safeguard petrochemical workers, the 
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers 
said. 

The Oct. 23, 1989, fatal blast killed 
23 workers, including 14 OCAW mem- 
bers, and injured nearly 300 other 
workers. 

The settlement, which the Labor 
Department said is the largest in 
OSHA’s 20-year history, does nothing 
to address the continuing dangers for 
petrochemical workers, OCAW Presi- 
dent Robert Wages said. 

“This agreement is proof positive 
that OSHA has no serious intent to stem 
the tide of fires and explosions in the 
petrochemical industry,” he said, point- 
ing out the lack of worker input into the 
agreement. 

“What we need are Worker Right to 
Act statutes in all the states,” Wages 
said. “Without a meaningful federal 
law, we have to go to the various states. 
We also need criminal prosecution for 
CEOs and plant managers; that might 
have some clout.” 

Earlier this year, C.T. Roberts of 
OCAW Local 4-227, which represents 
workers at the Phillips plant in 


Pasadena, told an OSHA panel, “We 
want a voice in determining how safe 
our jobs are. Our lives hang in the 
balance.” 

The petroleum company also agreed 
to implement a series of safety manage- 
ment procedures, including training for 
contract and non-contract employees, at 
facilities in Sweeny and Borger, Texas, 
and Woods Cross, Utah, as well as at 
Pasadena. 

OCAW said the safety management 
procedures required in the settlement 
are less stringent than the requirements 
of OSHA’s proposed chemical plant 
safety standard, due to be promulgated 
next month. That standard was delayed 
by the Reagan administration, which 
quashed OSHA’s initial efforts in 1985. 

In April 1990, OSHA had charged 
Phillips with 575 willful and serious 


safety violations at its chemical complex 
in Pasadena, a Houston suburb, and 
originally proposed a $5.66 million 
fine. The “willful” violation charges 
included failure to prevent the uncon- 
trolled release of flammable vapors and 
provide adequate fire protection. 
Employees also were not familiar with 
the plant alarm system or respiratory 
protection, OSHA said. 

As part of the settlement, OSHA 
agreed to delete the “willful” 
characterization of its citation. 

The settlement does not affect the 
$729,600 fine proposed by OSHA 
against Phillips’ contractor, Houston- 
based Fish Engineering and Construc- 
tion, Inc. Alleged violations include 
failure to instruct employees in job 
hazards and not using accident preven- 
tion tags. 


Wages selected as new OCAW president 


Denver 

R obert E. Wages won the presidency 
of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic 
Workers at the union’s 20th convention, 
succeeding the retiring Joseph M. Mis- 
brener. 

Wages, who had served as union vice 
president since 1983, defeated interna- 
tional representative Michael Ricigliano 
by 68,918 to 18,108 votes. Wages’ run- 
ning mate, OCAW auditor Ernest J. 
Rousselle, was declared the new secre- 
tary-treasurer by acclamation after 
former union general counsel John R. 
Tadlock dropped out. Incumbent 
Anthony Mazzochi did not run for re- 
election as secretary-treasurer. 

L. Calvin Moore was re-elected to 
the vice president’s post he has held 


since 1979, with International Repre- 
sentative Paul T. Lindgren claiming the 
second vice president’s slot. 

Convention delegates also agreed to 
a per capita increase and heard speeches 
by consumer advocate Ralph Nader and 
former Texas Agriculture Commis- 
sioner Jim Hightower. 

In other elections, eight rank-and-file 
members of the OCAW executive board 
won re-election: Richard D. Latham, 
Steven H. Gentry, James K. Phillips 
Jr., Harold A. Salles, Ronald L. 
Rygelski, Don N. Buck, Bob Sell and 
Arthur R. Wilson. 

After lengthy debate, the more than 
500 delegates to the convention, held 
Aug. 12-16, approved a 25-cent per 
capita increase. However, the increase 


does not apply to bargaining units 
whose per capita payments exceed the 
average straight time hourly rate of the 
unit. The change is expected to raise an 
estimated $200,000 in annual revenues. 

Other constitutional changes ap- 
proved at the convention will allow the 
international executive board to conduct 
mergers with small national or interna- 
tional unions and reduce administrative 
offices nationwide from eight to four. 

Resolutions adopted include those 
supporting the establishment of a labor 
party with a social, political and 
economic agenda for working America, 
national health care reform, pay equity 
and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and 
those opposing a 12-hour work day and 
U.S. -Mexico free trade. 


Labor rallies 
to aid victims 
of N.C. fire 

T he AFL-CIO is coordinating labor 
relief efforts for victims of the fire 
at the Imperial Food Products chicken 
processing plant in Hamlet, N.C. 

The federation also is calling for a 
congressional investigation to find out 
how widespread are safety violations 
such as those that resulted in 25 deaths 
and 55 injuries in the Imperial fire. 

Two AFL-CIO representatives, 
Chuck Johnson and Judy Fitzgibbon, 
liaisons with the Red Cross and United 
Way, respectively, arrived in Hamlet 
immediately after the Sept. 2 blaze. 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
urged labor groups to coordinate their 
relief efforts through James Andrews of 
the North Carolina State AFL-CIO. 

“The House Education and Labor 
Committee, as well as the Senate Labor 
and Human Resources Committee, 
should take a look at this tragedy,” 
Kirkland said, “to discover why no in- 
spection had been made at Imperial and 
what may be happening in other states 
like North Carolina, which have been 
suffering from the effects of cutbacks 
in safety and health budgets at the state 
and federal levels.” 

In a letter to House and Senate com- 
mittee chairs on Sept. 5, Kirkland called 
for Congress to determine how many 
inspectors are employed by federal and 
state OSHA programs; how often in- 
spections are conducted in high hazard 
workplaces by federal OSHA and the 
states; and the number of inspectors 
needed to conduct inspections of high 
hazard workplaces on an annual basis. 
He also urged lawmakers to move 
quickly on the legislation to avert 
another tragedy. 

Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.), chair- 
man of the House Education and Labor 
Committee, announced that he would 
hold hearings Thursday, Sept. 12, on 
the OSHA reform bill, H.R. 3160, 
which would include testimony on the 
Hamlet fire. 

The fire erupted when a hydraulic 
line ruptured near a 26-foot-long deep- 
fat fryer and the spilled fluid caught 
fire, said state investigators. 

Local authorities would not confirm 
witnesses’ reports that all but one of 
nine exits were locked or blocked, but 
workers told reporters the managers 
locked the doors “so people couldn’t 
steal their chickens.” 


McLaughlin outpolls McFather in bid for BLE presidency 


Cleveland 

T he Locomotive Engineers elected 
new leaders and rejected a proposed 
per capita increase during the union’s 
convention Aug. 19-23. 

Ronald P. McLaughlin was elected 
president in a 349-266 run-off vote over 
incumbent Larry D. McFather. 
McLaughlin had been the BLE’s first 
vice president and alternate president 
since 1987. 

Clarence V. Monin, recently an in- 
ternational vice president, was elected 
first vice president to fill the vacancy 
left by McLaughlin. 

Another BLE vice president, Edward 


Dubroski, was elected secretary- 
treasurer, defeating incumbent James 
L. Voyk in a 369-246 vote. 

Others with new leadership roles in- 
clude Leroy D. Jones, formerly a BLE 
legislative aide, who was elected in a 
runoff ballot as the new U.S. national 
legislative representative. Jones 
defeated incumbent Donald L. Lindsey. 

C. George Hainsworth, Canadian di- 
rector, vice president and national 
legislative representative, won re- 
election, as did Canadian Vice President 
Jack D. Pickle. 

Other vice presidents elected to new 
five-year terms were Edward E. Wat- 


son, Ronald E. Dean, Paul T. Sorrow, 
Joseph A. Cassidy, Edgar L. Hayden, 
George R. DeBolt, William C. Keppen 
Jr. and Jim D. Shell. 

The BLE’s 1989 affiliation with the 
AFL-CIO was hailed by federation 
President Lane Kirkland. 

“Your decision to affiliate with the 
AFL-CIO, and thereby join the 
mainstream of the trade union move- 
ment, was a critical step toward the 
unification of labor and the enhance- 
ment of our internal solidarity,” 
Kirkland told the 357 delegates during 
his keynote address. 

Delegates rejected a proposed $3 per 


month dues increase, leaving monthly 
dues at $17. Delegates did approve the 
transfer of the $1 per month strike fund 
assessment to the convention fund. That 
action left the strike fund balance 
frozen, while the convention fund will 
grow at $2 per month per member. 

Finally, delegates froze salaries for 
international officers until 1993, voted 
down the moving of international head- 
quarters from Cleveland and rejected 
additional authority for the international 
president to initiate a membership 
referendum. The convention also ap- 
proved the creation of a department of 
education and training. 




* : w 



Unions warn of fallout 
from free trade proposal 



Marianne Keffer-Zweig/Page One Photography 


This message to the White House was delivered by workers on Solidarity Day. 


By John R. Oravec 

A bad trade agreement with Mexico 
would further undercut the U.S. in- 
dustrial base, wipe out more American 
jobs and worsen social conditions on 
both sides of the border, the AFL-CIO 
warned. 

Testifying at hearings on the North 
American Free Trade Agreement 
(NAFTA), union witnesses told the 
Bush administration’s Trade Policy 
Staff Committee that economic distress 
would result unless an agreement is 
carefully structured. 

In Washington, AFL-CIO economist 
Mark A. Anderson voiced labor’s per- 
sisting concerns that a faulty accord 
would prompt a greater outflow of U.S. 
capital, increase imports from Mexico 
and drain American employment. 

At the same time, Anderson said, an 
ill-conceived agreement would do little 
to spur Mexico’s economic develop- 
ment or improve the standard of living 
for the majority of its people. 

“A bad trade agreement for the 
United States would result in less job 
creation, less productivity increases and 
regression in environmental and other 
social standards,” he cautioned. 

Similar concerns were raised by 
union witnesses at hearings in San 
Diego, Houston and Atlanta. And while 
U.S., Canadian and Mexican govern- 
ment officials opened NAFTA talks in 
Seattle, concerned groups underlined 
the point that labor and environmental 
safeguards must be part of the actual 
trade agreement, not separate items. 


“The United States will stand to lose 
in the competition for world markets if 
the economic relationship emerging 
with Mexico contributes to the further 
deindustrialization of the American 
economy and the erosion of the skill 
base of this country,” Anderson said. 

“For Mexico,” he said, “it could 
well reduce that country’s comparative 
advantage to simply cheap labor, turn- 
ing its economy into one large export 
platform, sacrificing balanced and 
equitable economic development.” 
Anderson, an assistant director of the 
federation’s Department of Economic 
Research, said the maquiladora pro- 
gram that emerged during the 1980s, 
which failed to bring economic develop- 
ment on both sides of the border, is a 
vivid illustration of what can go wrong. 

“The exodus of manufacturing facili- 
ties from the United States to Mexico 
has left hundreds of thousands of 
American workers jobless and their 
communities in disarray,” he observed. 
“Meanwhile, some 500,000 Mexicans 
work for substandard wages and under 
substandard working conditions, pro- 
ducing products destined almost entirely 
for the U.S. market.” 

Further, he said, the dumping of toxic 
wastes by the maquiladoras poses seri- 
ous health hazards to people living on 
both sides of the border. 

Anderson said any new trade accord 
with Mexico must provide for labor 
rights and workplace standards, en- 
vironmental safeguards, rules to assure 
the origin of products are North 


American, government procurement 
checks, coverage of agricultural prod- 
ucts, as well as specified conditions on 
services, investment, tariff rules and 
nontariff barriers. 

It’s also essential that the Bush ad- 
ministration establish an effective and 
well-finance trade adjustment assistance 
program with income maintenance and 
retraining for workers displaced di- 
rectly and indirectly by the trade ar- 
rangement, Anderson said. 

“Workers have been promised such 


a program many times in the past, only 
to find that the reality of assistance has 
fallen short of the rhetoric,” he said. 

The agreement should provide for ad- 
ditional debt relief for Mexico so it can 
begin investing at home to improve the 
standard of living, Anderson added. 

Also testifying at the trade hearings 
were representatives of the UAW, Cloth- 
ing and Textile Workers, Electrical 
Workers, Food and Commercial Work- 
ers, Ladies’ Garment Workers, Commu- 
nications Workers and Paperworkers. 


More jobless workers exhaust benefits; recession drags on 


By John R. Oravec 

U nemployment benefits ran out for 
318,000 jobless workers in July, 
more than in any month since the Labor 
Department began tracking the data 40 
years ago. 

At the current pace, a study by the 
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 
said, the number of Americans whose 
benefits are to terminate this year will 
exceed any year since the UI program 
was established during the Great De- 
pression of the 1930s. 

But they — and hundreds of thou- 
sands of other jobless workers who ex- 
hausted their 26 weeks of regular 
unemployment insurance compensation 
earlier in the Bush recession — would 
be drawing extended benefits right now 
if the president had not blocked their ac- 
cess to the additional compensation. 

Although Bush signed legislation 
Congress passed in early August pro- 
viding for up to 20 more weeks of 
benefits, he refused to declare an 
emergency needed to release $5.2 
billion from a nearly $8-billion surplus 
in the federal UI trust fund. 

Bush expressed compassion for the 
plight of jobless who face poverty, but 
insisted that the UI extension would bust 
the federal budget. 

Isaac Shapiro, who wrote the study, 
warned that the problem of jobless 
benefit terminations will remain acute 
for months to come even if the economy 
picks up. 

“This problem will be even worse if 


a double-dip recession occurs or if the 
recovery is so weak that it takes longer 
for the labor market to improve than in 
past recessions,” Shapiro said. 

Overall, 334,000 workers exhausted 
their jobless state benefits of 26 weeks 
in July. But only 16,000 lived in 
jurisdictions where they could qualify 
for an additional 13 weeks of coverage. 

Shapiro cited past research showing 
jobless workers usually remain out of 
work more than 10 weeks after their 
benefits run out and that the extent of 
poverty for them and their families rises 
sharply. 

Historical trends suggest the number 
of jobless workers exhausting benefits 
is likely to remain at or above 300,000 
for months even if economy recovery 
occurs, the study said. 

Yet, in both the 1981-82 Reagan 
recession and the downturns of the 
1970s, workers in at least half of the 
states were eligible for extended bene- 
fits, Shapiro noted. In 1982, a tem- 
porary federal program provided addi- 
tional benefits to the jobless in every 
state. 

Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics 
data, Shapiro said that about 1.8 million 
jobless workers exhausted benefits in 
the first seven months of 1991 without 
being eligible for extended coverage. 

This is a 35-percent jump over the 
comparable 1990 period when workers 
exhausted benefits, he said. 

The study noted that four of the six 
states that qualified for extended 


benefits at the beginning of July have 
since become ineligible for the federal- 
state program despite high unemploy- 
ment rates. They are West Virginia, 
Vermont, Oregon and Maine. Only 
Alaska, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico 
remain eligible. 

Extending benefits helps not only the 
jobless workers and their families, the 
study pointed out, but also bolsters the 
economy by keeping the families out of 
poverty and sustains their buying 
power. 

Assailing Bush’s refusal to extend 
benefits under the emergency clause, 
House Majority Leader Richard Gep- 
hardt (D-Mo.) said Congress will adopt 
new legislation when it returns from its 
summer recess Sept. 10. The new ver- 
sion will not give Bush a loophole in the 
budget law to skirt around implemen- 
ting the extension of benefits, Gephardt 
declared. 

In other economic developments: 

• The nation’s economy continued 
to slide in the during the second quarter 
of 1991 at an annual rate of 0. 1 percent, 
the Commerce Department reported, 
marking the third straight quarter of the 
Bush recession. Earlier, the govern- 
ment had estimated that gross national 
product had grown by 0.4 percent. 

Despite the downward revision, Bush 
said, “I feel all right about things.” 

But many analysts expressed concern 
that the economy will remain flat in the 
third quarter. 

A troubling sign in the GNP report 


was that consumer spending rose only 
at an annual rate of 2.8 percent, not the 
3.6-percent rise that the government 
estimated earlier. Consumer spending 
accounts for about two-thirds of the 
GNP and a slowdown could mean a 
weak recovery, particularly since the 
purchasing power of the average 
worker plunged 1 .4 percent in July and 
was down 2.3 percent over the year. 

• The government’s index of 
leading economic indicators rose 1.2 
percent in July, the sixth consecutive 
monthly increase. While the indicators 
are a signal of future economic activ- 
ity, the index was on the upside in the 
months prior to the onset of the reces- 
sion in July 1990. 

• Gas pump prices rose for the fifth 
straight week in early September, the 
American Automobile Association re- 
ported. The average price for self-serve 
unleaded regular averaged $1,165 a 
gallon on Sept. 3, up 3.3 cents over the 
five- week span. 

• A record 880,00 personal and 
business bankruptcies were filed during 
the 12 months ended in June, the 
American Bankruptcy Institute re- 
ported. During that period, 70,000 
companies and 810,000 individuals 
went bankrupt. In 1990, the institute 
said a total of 725,484 personal and 
business bankruptcies were filed. On a 
per capita basis, bankruptcy filings dur- 
ing the Reagan and Bush era of the 1980s 
were double the level of the 1970s and 
nearly 10 times higher than in the 1940s. 






Paul F. Cole, secretary-treasurer of 
the New York AFL-CIO, was ap- 
pointed to the National Park System 
Advisory Board by Secretary of the In- 
terior Manuel Lujan Jr. The board, 
which also advises on the administra- 
tion of the Historic Sites Act of 1935 
and makes recommendations regarding 
historic trails, will soon begin a special 
study of American labor history. 

Janies J. Kennedy, who most 
recently served as executive secretary- 
treasurer of the Railway Labor Ex- 
ecutives Association and executive 
director of the AFL-CIO Transportation 
Trades Department, has joined Amal- 
gamated Trust and Savings Bank in 
Chicago as senior vice president. Ken- 
nedy is also a former executive assis- 
tant to the secretary-treasurer of the 
AFL-CIO and counsel for what was 
then the Brotherhood of Railway and 
Airline Clerks. 

Trouble is brewing at “The Simp- 
sons.” The owner of the animation 
company that draws the television show 
has said he would never accept a union, 
even if the employees of Klasky Csupo 
voted for one. Gabor Csupo said he 
would lay off employees and take the 
work overseas, despite legal provisions 
prohibiting the firing of employees who 
want to unionize. Meanwhile, the firm 
is facing a federal lawsuit charging 
violations of wage and hour standards. 
Cartoonists Union business agent Steve 
Hulett pointed out the irony of a show 
that seeks to portray working class 
values “illegally depriving its own 
workers of wages and ... the right to 
organize.” 

Arlee Green has been named com- 
munications director of the AFL-CIO ’s 
Committee on Political Education. 
Green succeeds Ben Albert, who retired 
July 31. Green was an assistant editor 
of the AFL-CIO News for eight years 
after beginning his labor publications 
career with the Graphic Communica- 
tions Union in 1976. 



SERVICES 

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees’ hotline, 800/HERE WAY, 
has been programmed to provide union 
hotels, restaurants and bars by zip code 
or telephone area code. The computer 
program, known as Alex, will let you 
know if the place is inexpensive, 
moderate or expensive. The system also 
advises of discounts offered by some 
union houses taking part in the service. 

CARE, the world’s largest private 
relief and development organization, is 
providing a new CARE Package 
Catalog of products made around the 
world. Prices range from $10 to $130, 
with all profits going to CARE’s efforts 
to improve lives of impoverished Afri- 
cans, Asians and Latin Americans. 
Write CARE, 660 First Avenue, New 
York, N.Y. 10016. 

The Sidney Hillman Foundation will 
award $1 ,000 for each of its 1991 Jour- 



New Jersey AFL-CIO photo 


Labor Day founder Peter J. McGuire, also a founding member of the 
Carpenters, is remembered in a wreath-laying in Pennsauken, N.J. From 
left: State Rep. Rob Andrews, Gov. James Florio, Camden AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent George Norcross, McGuire's granddaughter Iris Rossel, and 
Carpenters President Sigurd Lucassen. 


New public relations directors have 
been named by two AFL-CIO affiliates: 
Ellen Shearer at the Teachers and 
David Melancon at the Flight 
Attendants. 

AWARDS 

A 50-year member of the Hotel 
Employees and Restaurant Employees 
and current leader of Local 878, 
Lorena Showers, is to be honored at 
the Alaska AFL-CIO “Spirit of Life” 
dinner to be held Sept. 28. The pro- 
ceeds will be used to establish the 
Lorena Showers Research Fellowship 
at the City of Hope National Medical 
Center and Beckman Research Institute. 

The Buffalo AFL-CIO Council and 
the United Way of Buffalo and Erie 
County recently honored Frank H. 
Ervolina, president of the Laundry and 
Dry Cleaning Union, for outstanding 
service to organized labor and the 
community. 

DEATHS 

Colleen Dewhurst, who served as 
president of Actors’ Equity from June 


nalism Awards for daily or periodical 
journalism, non-fiction, radio and 
television. The contributions may deal 
with such themes as a strengthened 
labor movement, civil liberties, im- 
proved race relations, and greater world 
understanding. The deadline of submis- 
sion of applications is Jan. 15, 1992. 
Contact the Sidney Hillman Founda- 
tion, 15 Union Square, New York, 
N.Y. 10003. 

CONFERENCES 

The Federal Mediation and Concilia- 
tion Service is seeking presentations 
concerning labor-management cooper- 
ative efforts for the Sixth National 
Labor-Management Conference 
scheduled May 27-29, 1992, in Wash- 
ington. Conference planners are look- 
ing for presentations that deal with case 
histories or research of innovative 
cooperative projects conducted jointly 
by unions and business. Presentations 
should be outlined in two to three pages, 
with suggested speakers identified. Sub- 
missions should be mailed no later than 
Sept. 30 to Peter Regner, FMCS, 2100 
K St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20427. 

The Central Labor Rehabilitation 
Council of New York is sponsoring the 
Fourth Annual Labor Alcohol and 
Substance Abuse Training Institute, 


1985 to May 1991, died of cancer Aug. 
22 at her home in Lewisboro, N.Y. She 
was 67. 

During her career, she won Tony 
awards for performances in “A Moon 
for the Misbegotten” and “All the Way 
Home;” Emmys for appearances in 
“Murphy Brown,” “Those She Left 
Behind” and “Between Two Women;” 
and Obies for “The Taming of the 
Shrew” and “Desire Under the Elms.” 

Arthur M. Goldberg, former 
general counsel for the Clothing and 
Textile Workers, died in New York 
Aug. 27. He was 67. 

He joined the union’s staff in 1945 as 
an economist in the research depart- 
ment. He subsequently served as 
counsel for the Southern organizing 
department and as associate general 
counsel. Goldberg also worked for the 
National Labor Relations Board and 
served as an NLRB trial examiner and 
as associate chief judge in the office of 
administrative law judges. He also 
guided the Clothing Workers during the 
union’s cases against J.P. Stevens and 
Farah. 


Oct. 20-25, at Bayberry Land in South- 
ampton, N.Y. Contact the Central 
Labor Rehabilitation Council at 386 
Park Ave. South, New York, N.Y. 
10016. 

The National Education Conference 
of the A. Philip Randolph Institute will 
be held Sept. 19-22 at the Los Angeles 
Hilton and Towers Hotel. Contact 
APRI at 202/289-2774. 

The International Conference of the 
Council for Adult and Experiential 
Learning will be held Nov. 7-9 in San 
Diego, Calif. Communications Work- 
ers President Morton Bahr will be 
among the speakers. Contact Amy 
Carter at CAEL National Headquarters, 
223 West Jackson, Suite 510, Chicago, 
60606, 312/922-5909. 

VIDEOS 

A Victory for Workplace Fairness 
describes the passage of H.R. 5 and 
boosts the prospects for S. 55, legisla- 
tion that would ban the “permanent 
replacement” of strikers. The video is 
available for $4. Contact Linda Miller 
in the Department of Legislation, 
202/637-5246. 

The Dos and Don’ts of Grievance 
Handling, a 17-minute video produced 
by the Bakery, Confectionery and 
Tobacco Workers, shows examples of 


Labor Studies 
workshops set 

T he George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies will offer six workshops dur- 
ing September and October. The 

srhpfhilp* 

AnvANCED ARBITRATION 

(Sept. 8-13) — An advanced program 
that focuses on examination and cross- 
examination of witnesses, preparation 
of briefs and research. 

DESKTOP PUBLISHING (Sept. 
10-13) — This institute teaches the 
basics of PageMaker desktop publishing 
software and is designed for labor 
editors and educators with some com- 
puter experience. 

NEGOTIATING CONTRACTS 
WITH STATE AND LOCAL AGEN- 
CIES (Sept. 15-20) — An institute for 
preparing initial proposals, developing 
committee work, record keeping pro- 
cedures, opening statements, ap- 
propriate contract language and 
ratification. 

ORGANIZING THE CON- 
STRUCTION INDUSTRY (Oct. 
6-11) — A workshop that trains 
building trades organizers in oral and 
written communications, regional 
survey and targeting techniques, on-site 
recruitment and labor law. 

LABOR LAW FOR ORGANIZ- 
ERS (Oct. 20-25) — A review of laws 
governing private sector organizing, 
election procedure and corporate 
campaigns. 

TV: THE COOL MEDIUM (Oct. 
22-25) — A workshop to coach union 
leaders on how to face television 
cameras and work with reporters. 

AFL-CIO affiliates and departments 
using the campus in September are the 
Amalgamated Transit Union, Sept. 
7-12; Air Line Pilots, Sept. 8-11; 
Painters, Sept. 15-20; AFL-CIO 
Organizing Institute, Sept. 20-22; 
Government Employees, Sept. 22-27; 
Flight Attendants, Sept. 22-27; African 
American Labor Center, Sept. 22-Oct. 
11; ATU, Sept. 28-Oct. 3; and 
Teachers, Sept. 29-Oct. 4. 

For more information about labor 
studies programs, write or telephone the 
registrar’s office, George Meany 
Center, 10000 New Hampshire Ave., 
Silver Spring, Md. 20903. Telephone 
301/431-6400. Fax 301/434-0371. 


“good” and “bad” steward behavior 
in interviewing grievants and handling 
the first-step meeting. Copies of the 
tape can be rented from the AFL-CIO 
Library or can be purchased from the 
BCTW Education Department, 10404 
Connecticut Ave., Kensington, Md. 
20895. 

PUBLICATIONS 

Controlling Public Employee 
Health Care Costs Through Labor- 
Management Committees outlines 
cost-containment programs in state and 
local government and presents case 
studies and models for labor-manage- 
ment health care committees. Each 
copy is $1 . Contact the State and Local 
Government Labor-Management Com- 
mittee, 815 16th Street, N.W., Suite 
308, Washington, D.C. 20006. 

“Education and Training for the 
American Labor Market: A Labor 
Perspective,” by Steelworkers Presi- 
dent Lynn R. Williams, and “Educa- 
tion and Training for a Competitive 
Workforce: Overview,” by National 
Planning Association Vice President 
James Auerbach, are two articles in this 
month’s double issue of Looking 
Ahead, a publication available from 
NPA, 1424 16th Street, N.W., Suite 
700, Washington, D.C. 20036. 







Workers gather to send 
message loud and clear 


Continued from Page 1 

take positions in front of the stage on 
Third Street. Many headed for water 
coolers and soft drink stands to quench 
their thirsts in the sweltering 96-degree 
heat, but not their ardor. 

As speaker after speaker lambasted 
the short-sighted and mean-spirited 
policies of the administration and called 
for worker solidarity, the crowd 
responded with loud applause, cheers 
of “Solidarity!” and “Hey, hey, ho, 
ho. George Bush has got to go.” 

As the heat continued to bear down, 
some marchers sought cover and others 
enjoyed welcome relief from the sprays 
from fire hoses set up by the local fire 
department. The heat put to a special 
test the first aid and other preparations 
meticulously prepared for Solidarity 
Day under the direction of COPE 
Director John Perkins, the overall coor- 
dinator of Solidarity Day. 

But there was tragedy. Walter A. 
Kennedy, executive vice president and 
former president of Letter Carriers 
Branch 469 in Mobile, Ala. , died of an 
apparent heart attack after complaining 
that he felt poorly. The 35-year 
employee of the postal service collapsed 
en route to his hotel to rest. 

Earlier in the day, AFL-CIO Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue had 


sounded the theme of the march when 
he told a Labor Day mass that “We are 
members of a church that — in the 
words of Pope John Paul II — has 
‘dignity of the person at the center 
her social messages, insisting that 
material goods were meant for all, and 
that social order ought to be free of op- 
pression and based on a spirit of 
cooperation and solidarity.’” 

That theme of sharing the wealth and 
taking responsibility for one’s fellows 
often was repeated. 

The workers’ concerns stood in stark 
contrast to the policies of the Bush ad- 
ministration, which has subjugated 
human concerns to economic theories. 

Bush had cited concerns about the 
budget deficit, for example, in refusing 
an extension of unemployment benefits, 
even though millions of workers have 
exhausted their benefits since the reces- 
sion began last year. 

The marchers protested that the ad- 
ministration appears to have an 
economic plan for every nation except 
the United States. 

“It’s time to leave the White House 
and visit our house,” UAW President 
Owen Bieber said. Indeed, the serious 
concerns of working families welled up 
and flowed over into the streets of 
Washington on Solidarity Day ’91. 


Tom Henn/Page One Photography 

The Solidarity Day rally filled Washington's Mall from the steps of the Capitol 
to the Washington Monument. 


INSIDE 


Organizing drives boost 
hopes of unorganized 

Unions are making headway in 
workplaces considered difficult to 
organize, with more workers saying 
“union yes.” 

Congress to consider 
slate of labor issues 

Congress returns on Sept. 10 with ac- 
tion on the nomination of Clarence 
Thomas to the Supreme Court the first 
order of business in Senate committee. 






0 


International ranks 
swell Solidarity Day 

On Solidarity Day, international free 
trade union leaders joined with 
American unionists in marching for full 
freedom of association. 

Solidarity Day ’91: 
message to remember 

A special Solidarity Day ’91 souvenir 
section highlights the sights, the sounds 
and the sheer volume of the people who 
turned out in awesome solidarity. 




OSHA fails workers 
in Phillips disaster 

The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers 
say the OSHA penalties imposed for a 
Texas explosion will not deter such 
disasters in the future. 

'Free trade’ will cost 
workers, say unions 

Union witnesses tell the Trade Policy 
Staff Committee that the Bush ad- 
ministration’s plan for trade with Mex- 
ico will slash more American jobs. 




The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10p«r 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


9 / 9/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






VOLUME 36, NUMBER 20 SEPTEMBER 16, 1991 


North Carolina fire sparks national outcry 



Imperial Food Products 


Indicates where and how 
many dead were found 




NORTH 




fry** 

(vytffwlic Roi# 


AFL-CIO asks OSHA 
to take over plan 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

I don’t care, just get it fixed — we’re 
losing money.” 

With those words, the plant manager 
at Imperial Food Products rushed the 
crew fixing the hydraulic line to the 
26-foot-long deep-fat fryer, said plant 
worker Bobby Quick. Shortly there- 
after, the line ruptured and the spilled 
fluid caught fire at the Hamlet, N.C., 
plant. 

The Sept. 3 tragedy left 25 people 
dead, another 55 injured, and the town 
of 6,200 with many questions along with 
sorrow. The blaze also focused atten- 
tion on the pressing need for improved 
workplace health and safety and the 
shortcomings of the Occupational 
Safety and Health program in North 
Carolina, which has the fewest OSHA 
inspectors in the country. 

The first AFL-CIO action was to help 
with relief. AFL-CIO representatives 
Chuck Johnson and Judy Fitzgibbon, 
liaisons with the Red Cross and United 
Way, respectively, arrived in Hamlet 
immediately after the blaze. 

The United Transportation Union of- 
fered use of its Main Street Hall as an 
assistance center, and Johnson and Fitz- 
gibbon began gathering aid for the vic- 
tims and were able to set up a “one 
stop” center of services from various 
relief agencies. 

The AFL-CIO also announced it has 
petitioned the U.S. Department of 
Labor to withdraw approval of the 
North Carolina state OSHA plan and to 
return the plan to federal jurisdiction. 
The federation also urged federal 
OSHA to move inspectors into North 
Carolina immediately to provide a 
greater level of protection to the state’s 
workers. 

The victims died from smoke inhala- 
tion as they made a futile search for 
unencumbered exits to escape from the 
darkened plant. The circumstances of 

Continued on Page 12 


Anne Martens/Page One Photography 

Imperial workers Bobby Quick and Loretta Goodwin show where the fatal fire started. 


Feds checked chickens, ignored humans 


T here was a USD A inspector at the 
Imperial Food Products plant in 
Hamlet, N.C., nearly every day, 
workers say — making sure the chicken 
was safe for human consumption. 

But there was no one to look out for 
the humans in the plant. 

There were never any fire drills, said 
plant workers Loretta Goodwin and 
Bobby Quick. “The only drill would be 
them drilling you out the door” for rais- 
ing a question about locked doors or 
other illegal situations. 

Goodwin, who worked at the plant 
for two years, and Quick, who had been 
there for five months, also said the only 
general employees’ meeting ever held 
concerned workers’ smocks — that is, 
telling the employees they were respon- 
sible for their own. There was never 
any fire or safety training for employ- 
ees, they said. 


In an interview in Washington Sept. 
11, the workers described the scene 
inside the plant on the day of the fatal 
fire. 

“I was coughing big old soot balls up 
my throat,” Goodwin said, “and I was 
struggling to breathe when I got out- 
side. I hadn’t heard an alarm yet. 

“When the fire first broke out, all 
these people ran past me screaming,” 
she said. “I didn’t think about it — I 
just ran, too. When my lungs filled up 
with smoke, I panicked. Then I remem- 
bered my training. 

“I used to be a nurse’s aide, and I had 
some fire training for that job. I was try- 
ing to pull my smock over my face to 
keep breathing, and I was trying to find 
the door. People were running over me, 
knocking me into the wall. I just tried 
to keep going. 

“The Lord must have some work for 


me to do, because that’s the only reason 
I survived,” she said. “That and the 
nurse’s aide training.” 

Bobby Quick went to the canteen area 
when the fire started, but discovered the 
door leading out of the plant was 
locked. 

“There wasn’t anywhere else to go, 
so I tried to kick it down,” he said. “I 
must have gotten superhuman strength 
for a minute, because eventually it came 
off the hinges.” 

Several other employees followed 
Quick out the door to safety. Quick said 
the plant had a fire alarm that was sup- 
posedly automatic, but that it “didn’t 
go off until everyone was dead.” 

He also said the plant was equipped 
with emergency lights that would have 
helped to guide employees out of the 
dense, rolling black smoke — but they 
were not working. 


UFCW: Food Lion profits at the expense of its workers 


By James B. Parks 

T he giant food retailer Food Lion 
makes more than 37 percent of its 
after-tax profits from illegal off-the- 
clock work of employees, according to 
a complaint by the Food and Commer- 
cial Workers. 

The complaint, filed with the U.S. 
Labor Department’s Wage and Hour 
Division on behalf of 183 current and 
former Food Lion employees, is seek- 
ing $194 million in back wages. The 
wage and hour division enforces the 
basic federal statute — the Fair Labor 


Standards Act — on minimum wage, 
hours of work, overtime pay and other 
provisions. 

With the help of the UFCW, Food 
Lion employees have an ongoing cam- 
paign against Food Lion and its Belgian 
parent, Delhaize Freres & Cie. UFCW 
filed a class-action suit in 1990, charg- 
ing that top company executives con- 
spired to cheat thousands of non-union 
employees out of profit-sharing and 
health benefits in violation of federal 
law. That suit is still pending. 

UFCW also has gained the support of 


the International Federation of Com- 
mercial, Clerical, Professional and 
Technical Employees (FIET) in its ef- 
fort to force Delhaize to live up to fair 
labor practices. 

Documents filed with the latest com- 
plaint show $3 million in back pay and 
damages due to 150 employees and list 
another 223 employees “whom the 
complainants know from personal 
knowledge” worked off the clock. 
Federal law allows employees to 
recover three years back pay in such 
cases. 


Matthew Kenneth Haensler, head 
stocker at a Food Lion store in Ocean 
City, Md., said at least 75 percent of 
the employees working with him 
worked off the clock when he was a 
grocery manager. “I would work off 
the clock after I punched out on a daily 
basis, and I would also come in on my 
days off and work,” he said. 

‘ ‘The store managers would . . . force 
off-the-clock work by putting pressure 
on me and the stock crew about produc- 
tion rates,” Haensler said. “They 
Continued on Page 10 




IAM gains first contract 
with American Racing 



John Orovec/AFL-CIO News 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, in a Las Vegas press con- 
ference, explains why members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant 
Employees are preparing a strike vote against the Frontier Casino-Hotel. 
Some 700 members of HERE Locals 226 and 165 have been working without 
a contract since June 1989. And now, management wants to slash wages, 
pensions and health care benefits. From left, HERE chief negotiator John 
Wilhelm, Donahue, Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Jim Arnold and Presi- 
dent Hattie Canty. 



New UFCW pacts cover 
25,000 in three states 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

N ine months after an organizing vic- 
tory for the Machinists at American 
Racing Equipment Inc. in Rancho 
Dominguez, Calif., Local 1910 has 
gained a three-year first contract that 
raises wages 12 percent over the life of 
the contract. 

The 1,200 production and main- 
tenance workers, most of whom are 
Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, 
voted for the agreement by a margin of 
6 to 1. 

“This agreement will bring about 
long-needed improvements in working 
conditions for the mostly immigrant 
work force,” said Local 1910 represen- 
tative Thomas Hurd. “The organizing 
victory and the agreement just goes to 
show what organized people can do 
when they know their rights.” 

Hurd credited a “very strong, mili- 
tant negotiating committee and a 
dedicated in-plant committee that was 
always there when we needed help” in 
forging the new agreement. 

The workers began negotiating in 
January following an aggressive anti- 
union campaign by the company. And 
while nine months is a long time to win 
a contract, AFL-CIO Regional Direc- 
tor David Sickler said, an impressive 
display of solidarity by the new unit 


T he Amalgamated Transit Union and 
the National Labor Relations Board 
will continue to fight to remove the cap 
on back pay for union drivers in the 
bankruptcy reorganization plan for 
Greyhound Lines Inc. 

“We intend to pursue the rights of 
our Greyhound members to and through 
a successful conclusion at the National 
Labor Relations Board and any other 
avenue until they are back to work with 
a contract,” said ATU President James 
LaSala. 

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard 
Schmidt Aug. 30 confirmed a Grey- 
hound reorganization plan that was 
opposed by the union and the NLRB 
because it includes a $3 1 .25 million cap 
on the company’s back pay liability. 

The union and the NLRB already 
have filed appeals of Schmidt’s classi- 
fication of the union’s claim as a general 
unsecured claim, rather than as a high 
priority administrative claim. They are 
considering an appeal of the reorganiza- 
tion plan as well, said Benetta Mans- 
field, an ATU attorney. 


forced the company to negotiate in good 
faith. 

ARE hired an Hispanic union-busting 
consultant and held weekly captive- 
audience meetings from November until 
the election in December. When the 
company balked at granting dues- 
checkoff, an overwhelming number of 
the members joined the California Im- 
migrant Workers Association, an AFL- 
CIO associate membership program in 
the Los Angeles area, to show their 
trade union determination. A solid 
shop-steward system will be available 
to enforce the new contract’s grievance 
provisions. 

The agreement includes a 5 -percent 
general wage increase, effective Sept. 
9, a 4-percent wage increase in 1992 
and a 3-percent wage increase in 1993. 
The wage progressions are automatic 
and not dependent upon attendance or 
disciplinary procedures, as they were 
before the union. 

The Machinists also successfully 
negotiated a new improved medical plan 
that includes dental and vision care and 
does away with the previous require- 
ment that workers’ contribution in- 
crease $1 per week every year. 

Recall rights in case of layoff were 
extended to two years, rather than the 
previous 30 days. 


Because of Schmidt’s decision, “the 
drivers are at risk of not getting the 
distribution on the full amount of their 
claim and of being treated worse than 
the other creditors,” said Peter 
Shinevar, an attorney with the Wash- 
ington, D.C. firm of Bredhoff and 
Kaiser who represented the ATU in the 
hearing. 

But the back pay issue is far from 
settled, Shinevar said. Schmidt on May 
14 set the $31.25 million figure, which 
is 75 percent less than the $125 million 
settlement the union is seeking in an un- 
fair labor practice case before the 
NLRB. 

The bankruptcy judge’s ruling does 
not limit what the drivers might receive 
if the union wins its case before the 
NLRB, the union said. 

If the union prevails in the NLRB 
hearings, Greyhound will be liable for 
payments on the full amount, not the 
figure set by Schmidt, Shinevar and 
Mansfield said. 

The NLRB hearings are ongoing and 
could take another year, Shinevar said. 


T he Food and Commercial Workers 
gained contracts for seven local units 
representing 25,000 workers, including 
a Massachusetts local recently affiliated 
with the UFCW. 

The agreements will benefit more 
than 20,000 workers in 500 stores in the 
state of Washington and 5,000 workers 
in 21 stores in southeastern Massachu- 
setts and Rhode Island. 

The settlement in the state of Wash- 
ington came nine months before the 
previous contract expired — a sharp 
contrast with negotiations in 1989 when 
grocery workers struck for 81 days 
before they could get a contract. 

The three-year agreement goes into 
effect in May 1992 and includes wage 
increases and provides the same level 
of health coverage regardless of medical 
cost increases during the life of the 
contract. 

The Washington chains covered by 
the new contract include Albertsons, 
Fred Meyer, Safeway and Associated 
Grocers, a cooperative of 200 indepen- 
dent grocers. 

In contrast to the Washington nego- 
tiations, workers in Local 7691 in 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island were 
confronted with advertisements for 
‘ ‘ permanent replacement ’ ’ workers 
during their contract negotiations with 
Shaw Supermarkets. 

The supermarket chain, owned by J. 


Sainsbury Co. of England, advertised 
for “permanent replacements” for part- 
time and full-time workers, including 
general duty clerks, meatcutters, ship- 
pers, forklift operators and maintenance 
workers for its stores and warehouse. 

Workers credited their victory to the 
recent affiliation with UFCW. Besides 
having the backing of the million- 
member UFCW, the Shaw workers re- 
ceived support from Massachusetts Sen. 
John Kerry and Reps. Joseph Kennedy 
II and Gerry Studds. 

The major obstacles were company 
demands for concessions in wages and 
overall benefits, including a demand 
that employees give up their fully paid 
Blue Cross/Blue Shield Master Health 
Plus in favor of a less expensive plan 
that requires workers to pay larger 
deductibles. 

The demands were unreasonable be- 
cause “the company is very prof- 
itable,” said Local 7691 spokesman 
Mark Govoni. “There is no need for 
this company to ask its employees to 
take it on the chin so it can continue to 
expand.” 

The three-year contract calls for a 6 
to 8 percent overall salary increase and 
a change in the health insurance carrier 
beginning next year. A joint labor- 
management committee will oversee the 
implementation and maintenance of the 
new health insurance plan. 


ATU, NLRB plan to fight 
Greyhound back pay ruling 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers : Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 20 @<^^^>3 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


vkjORCOjUjW^ 

Si 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





LEGISLATION 


Strikebreaker 
legislation 
support sought 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

W ith public opinion squarely in its 
corner, labor is pressing forward 
with the campaign for passage of S.55, 
the Workplace Fairness bill. 

The legislation, which would outlaw 
the practice by employers of “per- 
manently replacing” striking workers, 
was passed in the House by a 65-vote 
margin on July 17. But it faces a tough 
battle in the Senate, where 60 votes are 
necessary to force cloture on an ex- 
pected filibuster by employer-domi- 
nated senators. 

A Roper poll in April found that far 
more Americans think “permanent 
replacements” are a “bad thing” than 
a “good thing” —46 percent to 19 
percent. Another 35 percent had not 
formed strong opinions one way or the 
other. 

To reinforce labor’s message, the 
AFL-CIO is sending out kits of infor- 
mation for unionists to spread the word. 
The kits include a videotape high- 
lighting the results of the House cam- 
paign, 250 Senate postcards and a lob- 
bying packet — a legislative fact sheet, 
a question and answer sheet, talking 
points for speeches, sample S.55 letters 
for legislators, a flier for a telephone 
campaign and other information. 

Kit helps spread word 

The kit was distributed to interna- 
tional unions and state and local AFL- 
CIOs. The video and postcards already 
have been used at 18 union conventions, 
reaching more than 18,000 delegates. 
Unionists may purchase the kits or its 
individual contents by contacting the 
Department of Legislation. 

The outrage that workers feel over 
the “permanent replacement” of strik- 
ing workers was among the motivation 
for the outpouring of more than 
325,000 marchers in Washington on 
Solidarity Day, Aug. 31. 

And that outrage has translated to 
political action across the country. For 
example, the South Georgia Labor 


Americans 
feel ‘permanent 
replacements’ 
are bad 


Are ‘permanent 
replacement’ 
workers a 
‘good thing’ 
or ‘bad thing?’ 


19% 




Thirty-five percent of the 


respondents had ‘mixed feelings’ 


or answered ‘don’t know.’ 


o 


o 

o 

_ll 

LL 

< 


Source: 1991 Roper Poll 


Council, upset by the refusal of Rep. 
Charles Hatcher (D-Ga.) to vote for 
H.R. 5, has formed a Legislative Ac- 
tion Committee to meet with Hatcher 
and press him on the issue. Labor 
leaders also are trying to form a LAC 
in Georgia’s 8th Congressional District, 
where Rep. J. Roy Rowland (D-Ga.) 
voted wrong on the bill. 

Labor’s campaign for workers’ rights 
also is showing up in public opinion 
polls. Besides the Roper poll showing 
support for a ban on striker replace- 
ments, other indicators reveal an up- 
surge in public approval of unions and 
union leaders. 

Roper also found a 10-percent swing 
between 1980 and 1991 — up to 57 
percent — of respondents who felt 
“some” or “most” union leaders are 
“being reasonable and responsible.” 
Only 30 percent had negative 
responses. 

A survey conducted by the National 
Opinion Research Center in the first and 
second quarters of this year show a 150 
percent improvement in the favorable 
ratings for union leaders — up in 1991 
to 28 percent, the highest figure re- 
corded for labor since the center began 
conducting the poll in 1973. 


Worker issues on stage 
at Thomas confirmation 


By James B. Parks 

L abor and its civil rights allies will 
confront Clarence Thomas on 
workplace issues during the week of 
Sept. 16, as the Senate confirmation 
hearings continue on the nomination of 
Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Wil- 
liam Lucy is one of the labor leaders ex- 
pected to testify against the nomination. 
The AFL-CIO joined with the NAACP 
and other traditional civil rights groups 
to actively oppose the nomination 
because of Thomas’s disappointing 
record as chairman of the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission 
and his views on the regulation of free 
markets. 

Thomas, in testimony last week, had 
what Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) 
called a “confirmation conversion” in 
which he repudiated many of the pre- 
vious statements and writings he had 
made throughout his public career. 

Ralph G. Neas, executive director of 
the Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights, said that rather than “running 
from his record, he seemed to be sprint- 
ing from his record . . . That was the 
earliest confirmation conversion we’ve 
witnessed.” The LCCR, which is lead- 
ing the opposition to Thomas, is a group 
of 185 organizations including the AFL- 
CIO, labor unions, civil rights and con- 
sumer groups. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council on 
July 31 said it opposed the nomination 
because “nothing in Judge Thomas’ 
short judicial career, in his time as a 
government official, in his writings or 
in his statements, provides any basis for 
believing that he can rise above his 
ideological biases and render the impar- 
tial justice we expect of the nation’s 
highest court.” 

The council said Thomas had at- 
tacked affirmative action programs as 
“social engineering” and embraced an 
ideology that “views unfettered markets 
and private property as sacrosanct. 
Judge Thomas would have it that basic 
premises of modern economic and 


social legislation are ‘antithetical to 
freedom,’ ” the council said. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said a federation study of Thomas’ 
record showed “a predilection to 
elevate property rights over human 
rights.” 

The AFL-CIO pointed out that 
Thomas, while leading the EEOC, de- 
emphasized class-action suits and re- 
fused to seek broad remedies for pat- 
terns of discrimination. While he 
emphasized the agency’s obligation to 
protect individuals against discrimina- 
tion, he let the claims of thousands of 
older workers languish until the statute 
of limitations ran out. 

Blind faith in free markets 

Thomas has aligned himself with 
those who not only accept the harshness 
and inequality of the free market, the 
AFL-CIO said, but who also believe 
that such markets provide the answer to 
every social problem and that accep- 
tance of that harshness is the essence of 
liberty. 

“He rails against Franklin Roosevelt 
and ‘his latter-day political heirs’ for 
criticizing the ‘malefactors of great 
wealth,’ asserting that such attacks on 
property rights are ‘an attack on all 
rights,’ ” the AFL-CIO said. 

“The trade union movement, in con- 
trast, holds firm to the conviction that 
government is not the enemy, and that 
the ultimate measure of a government’s 
worth is its efforts to create a humane 
and just society for all its citizens,” the 
federation said. 

“Our society’s progress on a broad 
range of fronts — including such fun- 
damental matters as workplace fairness, 
civil rights, care for the aged, health 
care, consumer protection and the en- 
vironment — has come in large mea- 
sure from government restrictions on 
the unfettered operation of market 
forces,” the AFL-CIO added. 

Besides the AFL-CIO, a number of 
affiliated unions and other labor groups 
are joining in the effort against Thomas. 


Congress renews drive for extended UI benefits 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith the nation’s jobless rate stalled 
at the recession level of 6.8 per- 
cent in August, House leaders prepared 
to move legislation to the floor that 
would provide extended unemployment 
benefits for long-term jobless workers. 

The bill would waive the pay-as-you- 
go budget requirements — but this time 
it would bypass the need for declaring 
an emergency, which President Bush 
refused to do after a previous 
unemployment benefit bill had passed 
both chambers on Aug 2. 

Officially, the Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics said 8.5 million workers were 
unemployed last month and 14 percent, 
or about 1 .3 million, were out of work 
27 weeks or longer. Their jobless 
benefits ran out after 26 weeks, while 
more than 2 million Americans have ex- 
hausted their benefits during the Bush 
recession. 

BLS reported that only 3.1 million 


jobless workers — just 37 percent of 
the officially unemployed — were 
drawing compensation. 

House leaders planned to revive H.R. . 
3040, co-sponsored by Rep. Thomas 
Downey (D-N.Y.) and Ways and 
Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski 
(D-Ill.), which would permanently 
revise and expand the extended benefit 
program from the current maximum of 
13 weeks to up to 20 weeks of extra 
benefits. 

The Downey bill also would make an 
extra five weeks of benefits available in 
all states so long as the national 
unemployment rate remains at 6 percent 
or higher. 

Senate Majority Leader George 
Mitchell (D-Maine) and Finance Com- 
mittee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D- 
Texas) also promised to move quickly 
on legislation to extend those benefits. 

AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy 
Oswald pointed out that 310,000 


workers dropped out of the labor force 
in August and the number of people 
holding jobs slipped by 296,000. In 
July, with jobs harder to find, 415,000 
workers dropped out of the labor force. 

Dropping out of labor force 

“If the labor force participation had 
remained constant over the past year,” 
Oswald said, “unemployment would be 
up an additional 850,000 and the 
unemployment rate would be 7.5 per- 
cent. So it’s clear that workers are drop- 
ping out of the labor force and fewei 
are holding jobs.” Since August 1990, 
total employment is down 1.5 million 
jobs, Oswald pointed out. 

After months of declines, manufac- 
turing payrolls rose by 42,000 in 
August. But 12,000 construction jobs 
and 30,000 government jobs were lost. 

On top of that, nearly 6 million 
workers were in part-time jobs because 
they couldn’t find full-time work and 


those part-time workers aren’t counted 
as jobless by the BLS. 

Oswald noted that with the 8.5 
million officially jobless, 981,000 
discouraged workers not in the labor 
force and 5.9 million working part-time 
for economic reasons, the number of 
unemployed and under-employed work- 
ers was 15.4 million in August. 

Five major states had jobless rates 
above the national average in August, 
with Massachusetts and Michigan top- 
ping 9 percent. Other states included 
Florida, 8.1 percent; California and 
Pennsylvania at 7.3 percent; New 
York, 7.5 percent and Illinois at 7.2 
percent. 

Among major groups, the rate for 
adult men held at 6.5 percent, edged up 
for adult women to 5.7 percent, eased 
for teenagers to 19 percent, edged down 
for whites to 6.1 percent, rose for 
blacks to 12.3 percent and for Hispanics 
to 9.9 percent. 







Hispanics joining Frontlash campus union crusade 


sister and her husband have been union 
members since they began working on farms in 
California. Without tbeir union they would be 
treated unfairly. I plan to study medicine, but I 
want to be associated with the labor movement 
the rest of my life. )) 

— Alicia Jimenez, 
senior at Smith College 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

H ispanic college students are step- 
ping forward in the annual campus 
battle to let law students know which 
law firms recruiting on campus 
specialize in union busting. Frontlash, 
the youth arm of the AFL-CIO, con- 
ducts the information campaigns about 
the law firms. 

Hispanic students in about 100 cam- 
pus clubs also are getting involved in 
the fights for the 1991 Civil Rights Act 
and Workplace Fairness legislation, and 
against most-favored-nation trade status 
for China and a free-trade agreement 
with Mexico. 

“I plan to give law firms that spe- 
cialize in breaking unions a very hard 
time when they come to recruit at the 
University of Notre Dame Law 
School,” said first-year law student 
Oscar Rivera. 

Florida International University, 
Smith College, University of Ten- 
nessee, Skidmore College and Trinity 
College are some of the schools where 
Hispanic students have joined forces 
with organized labor. Students who join 
the campus clubs work closely with area 
unionists, national Frontlash and like- 
minded pro-labor students across the 
country. 


Approximately 150 law students at 
the University of Wisconsin Law 
School recently confronted 17 union- 
busting law firms that were recruiting 
on campus. Those firms were surpris- 
ed to see 230 signed pledges against 
their visit. 

“Union-busting law firms are getting 
the message that their tactics are 
unwelcome at every school they visit,” 
said Joel Klaverkamp, executive direc- 
tor of Frontlash. 

Law student organizers at 30 of the 
nations top law schools — including 
Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Stanford, 
Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, Cornell 
and New York University — joined 


Frontlash ’s campaign against the anti- 
union law firms. More than 20,000 
students have received information, at- 
tended debates or were button-holed by 
fellow law students who sought their 
pledges not to work for union-busting 
law firms. 

In a letter encouraging students to 
take a stand for workers’ right to 
organize, Derrick Bell, Weld Professor 
of Law at Harvard, stated that “because 
the fastest-growing sector of union 
membership is women and people of 
color, these law firms represent a 
serious threat to the type of reforms that 
both I, and workers via collective ac- 
tion, are attempting to address.” 


The campaign also received a boost 
from Ted Kelleher, articles editor for 
the Northwestern University Law Re- 
view, who noted that “I would never 
have been able to go to college or law 
school had it been for the economic 
stability that the unions could provide 
for my family.” Both “my father and 
my grandfather were Steelworkers,” he 
said. 

The receptive Hispanic student au- 
dience also has been a big plus for 
Frontlash, said Viviana Lopez, national 
college organizer for the group. “Gain- 
ing a voice in the workplace is some- 
thing everyone can identify with,” she 
noted. 

“Working with Frontlash and the 
South Florida AFL-CIO has been a fan- 
tastic experience,” said William Aviles, 
a junior at FIU. “It is more satisfying 
than any work I’ve done for the Demo- 
cratic Party.” 

Alicia Jimenez, a senior at Smith Col- 
lege, agreed. “My sister and her hus- 
band have been union members since 
they began working on farms in Califor- 
nia,” she said. “Without their union 
they would be treated unfairly. I plan 
to study medicine, but I want to be 
associated with the labor movement the 
rest of my life.” 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


Women have to support one another, Joyce Miller, president of the Coalition 
of Labor Union Women, tells the DPE's Women's Conference. From left 
are: DPE President Jack Golodner, Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Joslyn Williams, Miller and Gloria Johnson, chair of the DPE commit- 
tee on salaried and professional women. 


Women aim 
to overcome 
work barriers 

‘Long hard work ’ 
wins workplace gains 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

T he increase in the number of women 
and in the number of professional 
employees has forged great changes in 
the labor movement, AFL-CIO Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue 
told the Department of Professional 
Employees Women’s Conference in 
Washington. 

“These advances didn’t happen by 
accident,” Donahue said. “They cer- 
tainly were not handed to working 
women on a silver platter. Rather, they 
happened because of the long, hard 
work of the women’s movement and its 
allies. . .and, above all, because of the 
tenacity and courage of women in this 
room and millions of other women 
whose names we will never know.” 
The conference, “Breaking the Bar- 
riers: White Collar Women on the 
Move,” dramatized the evolution of 
women as a dominant presence in the 
labor force — ranging from 40 percent 
of all women in the labor force in 1967 
to 67 percent in 1990. 

“Women are a strong and vital part 
of the work force and without them 
society would be deprived of many 
talents and resources,” said DPE Presi- 
dent Jack Golodner. 

White collar workers now are the ma- 
jority — 55 percent — of the work 
force, and the number of women in 
these jobs will increase at a faster rate 
than males in the 1990s, the conference 
was told. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Joyce 
Miller, president of the Coalition of 
Labor Union Women, urged the con- 
ferees to continue working with labor’s 
allies to enhance women’s rights. Union 
women need to support one another to 
“shatter the glass ceiling,” she said. 

Heidi Hartmann, executive director 
of the Washington-based Institute for 
Women’s Policy Research, said that 


while the “glass ceiling” is a popular 
topic, its name is misleading. A glass 
ceiling implies that women and minori- 
ties are close enough to the executive 
suite to see how they are being kept out 
of top managment when, in fact, they 
are “not even close” to the top, she 
said. 

Hartmann’s research showed that 
women’s median earnings peak at about 
$20,000 when they are between the 
ages of 40 and 44, while the peak earn- 
ings of men are set at about $35,000 
when they are between 45 and 49. The 
figures show that most women are held 
back at a fairly low level, she said, and 
are not even getting into the pool from 
which managers are chosen. 

While an increase of women in vari- 
ous fields and higher-level positions 
should lead to a better working environ- 
ment, it actually could have the opposite 
effect, at least for the short run, accord- 
ing to Pamela Tolbert, an associate pro- 
fessor at the New York State School of 
Industrial and Labor Relations. 

The emergence of women into tradi- 
tionally male-dominated occupations 
could be perceived as a threat, she said, 
resulting in antagonism from male co- 
workers and managers. Incidents of 
covert discrimination may increase, 
“adding another level of the ceiling to 
the famous glass ceiling.” 


Betty Vetter, executive director of the 
Commission on Professionals in 
Science and Technology pointed out 
that, while women made substantial in- 
roads into traditionally male occupa- 
tions throughout the 1970s, their pro- 
gress has slacked off since then. 

“Cultural, attitudinal, and structural 
impediments” pose a “triple threat” to 
women in science and technological 
fields, Vetter said. “Girls are socialized 
against science and math” because 
society want girls to “stay sweet and 
clean,” systematically depriving 
women of opportunities and breeding 
low self-confidence. 

Vetter pointed out that, in 1991, 
women with four years of college 
earned $4,000 less on average than men 
whose education ended after four years 
of high school. 

The wage disparity persists even in 
traditionally female-dominated fields, 
Vetter said, pointing out that the salaries 
of female elementary school teachers 
are only 89 percent of those earned by 
male teachers in elementary schools. 

The two-day conference also included 
workshops on such topics as Career/ 
Caretaking Conflict, Problems of the 
Work Environment, Career Prepara- 
tion, and Union Careers: The Union as 
an Employer — Problems and Experi- 
ences. 


Company union 
ban attacked 
in hearings 

AFL-CIO urges NLRB 
not to change law 

T he AFL-CIO told the National Labor 
Relations Board that no changes are 
needed in current labor law to protect 
companies setting up workplace 
cooperation committees from charges 
of creating company unions. 

The NLRB conducted oral arguments 
on the question after a Teamsters local 
charged Electromation, Inc., of 
Elkhart, Ind., with creating “action 
committees’ ’ made up of managers and 
employees to thwart self-organization 
by the firm’s employees. 

AFL-CIO General Counsel Laurence 
Gold told the Board that the 1935 Na- 
tional Labor Relations Act saw the 
problem clearly in making it illegal for 
a company to create and have a voice 
in running labor organizations. Con- 
gress clearly opted for employee 
self-organization and for assuring that 
labor organizations are independent of 
management, Gold said. 

Only that approach, Gold told the 
hearing, “protects true employee free 
choice and assures that the employee 
representatives single-mindedly ad- 
vocate the employee position.” 

An Indianapolis NLRB official, Rik 
Linebeck, argued that the committees 
created by Electromation clearly 
violated Section 8(a)(2) of the Act, 
which says that “it shall be an unfair 
labor practice for an employer to 
dominate or interfere with the forma- 
tion for administration of any labor 
organization or contribute financial or 
other support to it.” 

A number of non-union employers 
and employer associations had asked the 
board to rule that labor-management 
cooperative councils — now best 
known as “quality circles” — do not 
violate the federal ban on company 
unions. Some 30 Republicans have pro- 
posed legislation in Congress to that 
effect. 





If we go from this place 
and work together and 
fight together to 
advance our common 
goals, today and 
tomorrow, we 
cannot fail.’ 


iwii 


wwww & 








W ith the dome of the Capitol looming in the 
background and flanked by a replica of the 
Goddess of Democracy, which inspired Chinese 
students and workers to rise up and demand their 
freedom, trade unionists from the United States 
and around the world gathered to give full voice 
to the aspirations of workers everywhere. The 
historical Solidarity Day ’91 was captured on 
video by the AFL-CIO’s Labor Institute of Public 
Affairs. The 12-minute celebration is available for 
$10 from LIPA. Phone 202/637-5334. 


gg^g| gtiMgfr g| i ' 


-JL_L 











Signs of the times 

T he messages of labor and its allies on Solidarity 
Day ’91, carried on banners and signs in the 
march and rally, were a litany of the failures of the 
Bush administration and the 101st Congress. While 
Machinists, UAW members and others marched for 
workplace fairness, the Steelworkers protested the 
lockout at Ravens wood Aluminum Co. Lithuanians 
proclaimed their nation ‘free at last’ and Chinese 
continued to march for freedom. On the 
entertainment stage, meanwhile, there was pride in 
being union, celebrated by actress Jean Stapleton 
and singer Willie Nelson, who met with AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland and members of the press. 









UNION NEWS 





AFGE photo 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland calls for national collective bargaining law. 
At right is AFGE President John Sturdivant. 


AFGE boosts 
per capita 
for organizing 

By Sharolyn Rosier 
Anaheim , Calif ‘ 

D elegates to the Government Employ- 
ees convention approved a per 
capita increase to expand organizing 
and renewed its commitment to national 
collective bargaining legislation. 

Delegates from the AFGE’s 1,300 
locals also overwhelmingly re-elected 
John Sturdivant as president and elected 
Bobby Harnage as secretary-treasurer. 
Harnage defeated incumbent Allen H. 
Kaplan by 385 votes. Delegates also re- 
elected Joan C. Welsh as director of the 
Women’s Department. 

Calling for dedication to the conven- 
tion theme, “Tomorrow’s Union To- 
day,” Sturdivant said the union will 
“continue to fight as a pro-active union 
leading the campaign to reform national 
health care, the Hatch Act and freedom 
of association.” 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the delegates that this nation, while 
rallying for freedoms around the world, 
denies freedom of association here at 
home. 

“We don’t like the direction our 
country is heading and we certainly 
don’t like the fact that millions of our 
brothers and sisters in the government 
work force are denied their full trade 
union rights,” Kirkland said. 



Machinists ratify 
Bath Iron Works pact 

Bath, Maine 

A three-year contract that raises wages 
9 percent for some 7,000 shipyard 
workers at Bath Iron Works was ap- 
proved by Machinists Local 6 on a 
3,422-656 vote. 

Chief IAM negotiator Dale Hartford 
said the new accord, which went into 
effect Aug. 18, provides hourly pay in- 
creases of 3 percent in each year. Over 
the term, the pay rate for first-class 
mechanics steps up from $12.35 an 
hour to $13.50. 

The agreement calls for a new health 
maintenance option and a choice of two 
indemnity plans that increase deduc- 
tibles and out-of-pocket maximum 
payments. The payments are smaller for 
the plan with the managed care option. 

A similar contract for 520 clerical 
workers represented by IAM Local 7 
was ratified by a 97-percent vote. 
Average hourly pay in the old contract 
was $10.20. 

Company pension contributions were 
raised from $11 a month per year of 
service for clerical workers to $16. For 
production workers, the pension benefit 
was raised from $15.50 a month per 
year of service to $16.50. 


The challenge is to pass a “national 
collective bargaining law for public 
employees, one that gives them the 
rights afforded all other workers — and 
that is the right to organize and to 
bargain on all issues of concern to 
them.” 

AFGE has 225,000 members but bar- 
gains for more than three times that 
number, the union noted. The union 
believes a national bargaining law, 
allowing federal employees to bargain 
wages and benefits as well as working 
conditions, is critical to larger member- 
ship and better representation of federal 
workers. 

The delegates voted to increase per 
capita from $7.50 to $10.50 per mem- 
ber per month by January 1994, with 
a 50-cent increase taking effect October 
1991. 

The resolution to raise the per capita 
also called for a study of the union’s 


Nevada raises ante 
in political arena 

Las Vegas 

D elegates to the Nevada State AFL- 
CIO convention approved a per 
capita increase from 40 cents to 50 
cents, effective October 1991, for the 
purpose of hiring a full-time legislative- 
political director. 

The convention also honored retired 
Vice President Dick Thomas, a former 
secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 
881 . Thomas, a member of the state In- 
dustrial Insurance System board of 
directors since 1981, was elected a vice 
president of the state federation in 1988. 

Speakers included Nevada Gov. Bob 
Miller; State Sens. Len Nevin, Hal 
Smith, Joe Neal and Nick Horn; Robert 
Georgine, president of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department; Steve Protulis, support 
group coordinator for the national 
COPE; and Vincent Sirabella, director 
of organizing for the Hotel Employees 
and Restaurant Employees. 

Wyoming vows fight 
against ‘right to work’ 

Casper, Wyo. 

D elegates to the 28th Wyoming AFL- 
CIO convention pledged to educate 
workers in the state about what “right 
to work” really means. 

“In 1963 we were $3,000 above the 
national average in per capita income,” 
said state federation President Neil 
Tyree. “Today, we are $3,000 below 
the national level. We certainly attribute 
that to the ‘right to work’ law.” 

The delegates also voted on 20 


structure by a committee of two people 
elected from each district and an out- 
side expert. The recommendations of 
the committee will be voted on by each 
local. 

Also addressing the convention was 
AFL-CIO Vice-President Lenore 
Miller, who called for renewed commit- 
ment to labor during a time of anti- 
union activities. 

“In spite of our problems and 
challenges, unions must be stronger to 
turn obstacles into opportunities,” she 
said. 

The delegates also participated in 
workshops on constitutional and inter- 
nal policy, representation and service, 
union building, and political and legis- 
lative goals. 

Other speakers were Rep. Esteban 
Torres (D-Calif.) and Ron Brown, 
chairman of the Democratic National 
Committee. 


resolutions, including a renewed com- 
mitment to enactment of a national 
health care policy and passage of S.55, 
the Workplace Fairness bill. 

All officers were re-elected to their 
posts. Nelba Green of the Food and 
Commercial Workers will join the ex- 
ecutive board. 

Texas to look closer 
at future candidates 

Austin, Texas 

D elegates to the 31st Texas AFL-CIO 
convention re-elected President Joe 
Gunn and Secretary-Treasurer Jackie 
St. Clair and voted to raise the per 
capita from 50 to 55 cents. 

In two constitutional changes, the 
delegates increased the terms of office 
for the president and secretary-treasurer 
from two to four years and increased 
the members of the executive board 
from 50 to 59. 

The delegates also passed a resolution 
stating the state federation’s displeasure 
with Democrats’ votes on important 
issues. 

The delegates said they will be more 
selective in their support and, if there 
is no viable candidate, will consider 
backing candidates not from the two 
major parties. 

Several educational workshops were 
conducted including the affect of the 
maquiladora industry on Texas work- 
ers, the status and focus of workers’ 
compensation and workplace safety. 

The delegates received good news 
after the convention, when Gov. Ann 
Richards signed a bill to allow state 
employees to pay their union dues 
through payroll deductions. 


COLAs enhance 
Westinghouse 
3 -year pact 

By James B. Parks 

M embers of two unions have ratified 
a tentative contract agreement with 
Westinghouse Electric Corp. that pro- 
vides a 13 percent increase in wages and 
cost-of-living adjustments. 

“This is a good settlement,” said 
Electronic Workers President William 
H. By water, who chairs the Coor- 
dinated Bargaining Committee of GE- 
Westinghouse Unions, which repre- 
sented the unions in the negotiations. 
Bywater said factoring in the COLAs 
makes the contracts “one of the better” 
deals of recent bargaining. 

The IUE and unaffiliated UE ap- 
proved the contract in votes earlier this 
month. The Electrical Workers will 
complete voting on the agreement Sept. 
16. Other affected unions — Machin- 
ists, Steelworkers and Carpenters — 
are still considering the agreement. The 
national contract will form the basis for 
local agreements. 

The settlement on Aug. 26 came after 
CBC and the company stopped the 
clock and negotiated through the mid- 
night expiration deadline. The talks 
began July 24. 

The contract calls for a package 
similar to the one recently approved by 
unions at General Electric. It includes 
a wage increase of 2.5 percent each of 
the first two years and 3 percent the 
third year, as well as five COLAs for 
a total of 13 percent over the term of 
the contract, By water said. 

“Frontloading” in the GE con- 
tract — 3.5 percent the first year and 
2.25 percent each of the last two 
years — made the wage increases 
slightly higher in that pact. 

“We accomplished a number of our 
objectives. We are coming off a con- 
tract that had lump sums instead of 
wage increases and this has none. That 
was a major goal,” said Richard Mills, 
international representative for the 
IBEW and a member of the negotiating 
team. 

“I recommended it as the best settle- 
ment we could achieve under the cir- 
cumstances,” said George Poulin, vice 
president of the IAM. Poulin said the 
CBC coordination played a major role 
in securing the benefits in the new con- 
tract. “The unions working individually 
could not have gotten it,” he said. 

Pensions and health care were two 
top issues in the negotiations, By water 
and Mills said. 

The Westinghouse agreement pro- 
vides for averaging of the last three 
years of pay for pension purposes, in- 
stead of the five years under the GE 
plan. 

The agreement also consolidates the 
various plans into one and retains some 
job security issues that would have ex- 
pired with the last contract, Mills said. 

On health care, the unions proposed 
successfully that 0.5 percent of the 
general increase be applied to lower the 
cost of health coverage. The health plan 
includes the same basic coverage with 
slightly higher premiums plus new op- 
tional managed care programs for drug 
and substance abuse, vision, dental, and 
prescription services. 









Partial ban on pesticide leaves workers at risk 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Farm Workers have charged that 
the Environmental Protection Agen- 
cy’s action to limit the use of the 
pesticide parathion is a “cheap ploy” 
that will still allow the deadly nerve gas 
to be used on nine crops — or about 60 
percent of its normal use. 

The EPA had reached a settlement 
with the maker of the pesticide banning 
its use on some crops in the United 
States. 

But the UFW pointed out that the nine 
crops on which parathion can still be 
used — alfalfa, barley, canola, corn, 
cotton, sorghum, soybeans, sunflower 
and wheat — account for 60 percent of 
the pesticide’s total use. 

FIET marshals 
international 
union forces 

San Francisco 

T he world congress of the Interna- 
tional Federation of Commercial, 
Clerical, Professional and Technical 
Employees (FIET) reaffirmed its deter- 
mination to establish worldwide policies 
on white-collar workplace hazards, 
family leave and the impact of regional 
trade agreements. 

Delegates to the world congress also 
marched on behalf of Bay-area work- 
ers — a strong affirmation of the inter- 
national trade secretariat’s commitment 
to solidarity across national boundaries. 

The delegates selected Jochen 
Reichert of Germany as president to 
succeed Bengt Lloyd of Sweden. Other 
officers elected include Phillip Jennings 
of Wales, the acting general secretary, 
to a full term; Gary R. Nebeker, vice 
president of the U.S. Food and Com- 
mercial Workers as first vice president; 
and Maj-len Remahl of Finland as sec- 
ond vice president. 

The convention noted that the pro- 
liferation of computer technology in 
poorly-ventilated buildings creates a 
health hazard for workers, causing 
muscle and eye strain, headaches, stress 
and fatigue. 

Other resolutions called for the 
federation to actively promote equal 
employment opportunity and pay equity 
for women, family-leave programs, 
state-funded health, pension and 
unemployment benefits, better child 
care and vocational training. 

Speaking to the delegates, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland emphasized 
the congress’ theme, “Shaping the 
Future Through International Union 
Solidarity.” 

“More American unions are learning 
that international work is not an abstract 
activity that is distant from the daily af- 


The agency said it would consider 
banning the remaining uses of parathion 
“in the near future,” but UFW Presi- 
dent Cesar Chavez called the continued 
risk of parathion poisoning to both farm 
workers and communities “unaccep- 
table.” 

“By permitting aerial spraying of this 
deadly pesticide,” the EPA is permit- 
ting “our environment and water sup- 
ply to be poisoned,” he said. 

Chavez pointed out that as little as 5 
percent of pesticides applied by air 
actually hit their targets, while the re- 
mainder “drifts and poisons the air, 
soil, water and people in the surround- 
ing area.” 

A decade ago, EPA said it would ad- 


fairs of trade union life in our own 
country,” Kirkland said, “but rather an 
essential element in responding to the 
challenges brought on by the growing 
power of multinational corporations. 

“The global marketplace, the rapid 
mobility of capital, the inscrutable 
nature of flags over workplaces, and the 
indifference of corporate managements 
to national values and aspirations that 
do not translate into profit are facts of 
life that trade unionists cannot wish 
away,” he said. 

He reminded the delegates that recent 
events in the world ratify “our long- 
held belief that the real story of 
freedom — and what it takes to get 
it — does not take place in the courts, 
the ministries or the counting houses of 
the elite. It is authored in the 
workplaces and in the streets — 
wherever ordinary working people 
courageously rise to their feet and de- 
mand their fundamental rights.” 

The AFL-CIO is committed to en- 
couraging its affiliates to becoming in- 
volved in the international trade 
secretariats, Kirkland said, and the 
federation has joined in FIET’s cam- 
paign against the anti-union Food Lion 
supermarket chain, he said. 

FIET is one of 14 trade secretariats 


dress a ban on parathion, Chavez noted. 
“Now, 10 years later, more than 650 
field worker poisonings and 100 deaths 
later, they ban 40 percent of the 
usage,” he said. EPA simply is giving 
“manufacturers of this deadly pesticide 
time to get rid of the surplus,” he 
added. 

The chemical, a form of nerve gas, 
has been blamed for deaths and injuries 
as workers breathe it or absorb it 
through their skin while mixing, 
loading and applying the pesticide. 
Deaths also have resulted from workers 
re-entering treated fields or being ex- 
posed to contaminated clothing. 

Symptoms of parathion poisoning in- 
clude headache, dizziness, loss of coor- 


that promote workers’ causes in a 
specific trade or industry like metal, 
mining or postal work. FIET has almost 
1 1 million members belonging to 365 
trade unions in 107 countries. Five 
AFL-CIO affiliates - UFCW, Service 
Employees, Office and Professional 
Employees, Professional and Technical 
Engineers, and the Retail, Wholesale 
and Department Store Union — are 
part of FIET. 

Congress delegates demonstrated that 
spirit by marching in solidarity with 
janitors who clean Apple Computer’s 
Silicon Valley facilities. The workers 
have been denied the right to organize 
and bargain collectively as members of 
SEIU. 

The FIET Women’s Conference pre- 
ceded the congress and featured ad- 
dresses by AFL-CIO Vice Presidents 
Lenore Miller of RWDSU and Joyce 
Miller of the Clothing and Textile 
Workers; Shirley Carr, president of the 
Canadian Labour Congress; UFCW 
Vice President Pat Scarcelli; Rep. 
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif); Irene Sundelin 
of Sweden, president of FIET’s Work- 
ing Women’s Group; Ursula Engelen- 
Kefer, vice president of the DGB, Ger- 
many’s labor federation; and former 
San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. 


dination, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea 
and general weakness. In severe cases 
it causes blurred vision, labored 
breathing, drooling, muscle spasms, 
coma or death. 

California Environmental Protection 
Agency official Veda Federighi said the 
state recorded about 70 deaths each year 
from parathion in the early 1970s. 
About 22 per year were recorded be- 
tween 1978 and 1980, she said. 

The UFW also is seeking a total ban 
on phosdrin and guthion. 

In 1988, Chavez fasted for 36 days 
to focus attention on the price “in lives 
and health” that farm workers and their 
families pay because of exposure to 
dangerous pesticides used in the fields. 

Unions seek 
extension of 
asbestos rules 

T he Service Employees and 
AFSCME called for extension of a 
federal asbestos control program, which 
now only covers schools, to include all 
public and commercial buildings. 

The unions said they were encour- 
aged by the results of a recent study 
evaluating the implementation of the 
Environmental Protection Agency’s 
asbestos in schools program. That 
report, released by EPA July 30, 
showed EPA’s abatement program 
rules are working and could be im- 
plemented in other buildings. 

“This report proves that asbestos-in- 
schools rules work,” said SEIU Presi- 
dent John J. Sweeney. “The right to 
know about asbestos hazards must now 
be extended to protect the rest of us that 
live and work in the 730,000 other 
buildings that the EPA claims contain 
potentially dangerous asbestos materi- 
als.” 

AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee said the EPA report is “fur- 
ther proof that we can and must protect 
our citizens from deadly asbestos in our 
schools and in all public and commer- 
cial buildings.” 

The report, he said, “debunks the 
myth spread by critics that the regula- 
tion would cause hysteria and result in 
squandering of billions of dollars to rip 
out all the asbestos in our schools.” 
SEIU petitioned EPA in 1983 for 
asbestos regulations for all buildings, 
but the agency refused. Then the 
asbestos in schools program was man- 
dated by the Asbestos Hazard Emer- 
gency Response Act (AHERA) and the 
agency reluctantly issued regulations. 

Several unions, including SEIU and 
AFSCME, have sued EPA in an at- 
tempt to force the agency to issue an in- 
spection rule for non-school buildings. 



SEIU photo 


FIET Congress delegates join in a march to protest the refusal by Apple Com- 
puter to recognize the rights of janitors to join the Service Employees. 


UFCW files wage chiseling charges against Food Lion 


Continued from Page 1 

would threaten me with . . .demotions, 
firings, and they would actually write 
me up for lack of production.” 

Belinda Faye Lyle, a Food Lion meat 
wrapper in Fayetteville, N.C., said she 
worked off the clock every week. “I’ve 
gone in there on Saturdays and never 
had an hour (of compensatory time) and 
worked all day long. All day long (off 
the clock).” 

UFCW’s investigation uncovered 
violations of the Fair Labor Standards 
Act in 141 stores in 88 cities in seven 
states. Based on that information, the 
union claims $64.6 million is a “con- 


servative estimate” of the profit Food 
Lion makes on off-the-clock work. The 
company’s 1990 net after-tax profit was 
$172 million on sales of $5.6 billion. 

The complaint asks the Labor Depart- 
ment to file a class-action suit for back 
wages and damages for all present and 
former Food Lion employees for three 
years, as well as civil penalties. The 
union also is seeking an injunction 
preventing management from operating 
the company’s “effective scheduling” 
system in a way that causes illegal off- 
the-clock work. 

Finally, the workers are seeking a 
preliminary injunction to prevent the 


company from threatening to sue 
managers for indemnification of 
damages paid by Food Lion of FLSA 
violations and from disciplining 
workers for working or reporting off- 
the-clock work and for failing to meet 
“effective scheduling” requirements. 

Food Lion, headquartered in Salis- 
bury, N.C., is the nation’s fastest- 
growing food chain with more than 800 
stores and warehouses in 11 states. 
Most of its stores are in the Southeast. 
It has 23,000 full-time and 24,000 part- 
time employees. 

Food Lion’s profit, which exceeds 
the industry average, is not derived 


from efficient operation, the union said, 
but from wage chiseling and other un- 
fair labor practices. 

“If not removed, this unfair advan- 
tage will force Food Lion’s competitors 
to choose between obeying the law and 
thereby losing business to Food Lion, 
or emulating Food Lion’s illegal prac- 
tices to remain competitive,” the com- 
plaint said. 

UFCW’s complaint also charges 
Food Lion management with deliber- 
ately falsifying and altering employee 
time records to remove hours that ex- 
ceed those allowed by the “effective 
scheduling system.” 





The Air Traffic Controllers have 
selected new leaders. Barry Krasner 
was elected president and Joseph 
Bellino was elected executive vice 
president, defeating R. Steve Bell and 
Ray Spickler, respectively. They began 
their three-year terms Sept. 1. 

The president of the Brotherhood of 
the Maintenance of Way Employees has 
received a vote of confidence from 
union members. An effort to recall Mac 
A. Fleming was endorsed by only 47 
of 824 eligible lodges. Had the motion 
been seconded by 50 lodges in one-third 
of the states and provinces in which the 
union has members, the recall question 
would have been put to a membership 
referendum vote. 

Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers Secretary-Treasurer Gray don 
E. Tetrick is retiring Sept. 30 for health 
reasons. The union’s General Executive 
Board elected Frank Hurt, who has 
been serving as executive vice presi- 
dent, to replace Tetrick; International 
Representative Gene McDonald was 
elected to fill Hurt’s office. 

Edward P. McEntee and Ronald P. 
McLaughlin were elected to three-year 
terms as new officers of the Rail Labor 
Executives’ Association. McEntee, a 
vice president of the Electrical 
Workers, was elected president, suc- 
ceeding Richard I. Kilroy, who had 
headed the Transportation Communica- 
tions Union. McLaughlin, president of 
the Locomotive Engineers, was elected 
secretary-treasurer, succeeding James 
Kennedy. RLEA also elected V.M. 



PUBLICATIONS 


Curing U.S. Health Care Ills, by 
the National Planning Association, 
describes the U.S. health care system 
as flawed and in crisis. Contact NPA, 
1424 16th Street, N.W., Suite 700, 
Washington, D.C. 20036. 


CONFERENCES 

The AFL-CIO’s 1991 Advanced 
Southern Labor School for union 
leaders is scheduled Dec. 1-5 in Hot 
Springs, Ark. Contact Ed Czarnecki, 
AFL-CIO Education Department at 
202/637-5146. 

Negotiation Workshops offered by 
the Indiana University of Pennsylvania 
will be held at IUP Oct. 27-Nov. 1 , Jan. 
12-17, May 17-22, and June 21-26 and 
in Harrisburg, Pa., March 8-13. Con- 
tact the Department of Labor Studies, 
Keith Hall, IUP, Indiana, Pa. 15705. 

The Sixth Annual Rhode Island Con- 
ference on Labor-Management Rela- 
tions, featuring workshops on workers’ 
compensation, public sector bargaining, 
interest-based bargaining and “the 
feminine model of labor-management 
relations,” will be held on Oct. 9 in 
North Kingstown, R.I. Contact the In- 
stitute for Labor Studies and Research, 
99 Bald Hill Road, Cranston, R.I. 
02920. 


“Butch” Speakman of the Railroad 
Signalmen as vice chairman. 

John J. Bavis, a National Mediation 
Board field mediator and former head 
of the Air Line Pilots at Eastern 
Airlines, has been appointed assistant 
executive director of the NMB. 

The balloting is in for 1991 potential 
inductees into the Labor Hall of Fame. 
The results are: Philip Murray, 84 
points; Mary Anderson, 82 points; 
George Taylor, 74 points; William B. 
Wilson, 69 points; and Sidney 
Hillman, 61 points. Murray and 
Anderson are expected to be inducted 
before the end of the year. 

Lynn Rhinehart has joined the AFL- 
CIO staff as an occupational safety and 
health specialist with primary respon- 
sibility for legislative and regulatory 
issues, including OSH A reform. She 
previously handled health and safety 
issues for the Service Employees and 
worked on Capitol Hill. 

AWARDS 

The Marine Engineers District 1 and 
the Seafarers, along with the Energy 
Transportation Corp., honored the of- 
ficers and crew of the S/S LNG 
Gemini, who received Mariner Medals 
from Secretary of Transportation 
Samuel K. Skinner Sept. 10. The 
vessel responded to a distress call Nov. 
20, 1989, and retrieved survivors of a 
sinking bulk carrier in rough weather. 

DEATHS 

Joseph W. Joyce, secretary- 
treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor 
Council, AFL-CIO, died of cancer 
Aug. 31 at New England Deaconess 
Hospital. He was 71. 

Joyce worked in the labor movement 
for more than 40 years, serving as 
recording secretary of Local 17 of the 
Sheet Metal Workers and vice president 
of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. 

In a letter to his widow, Geraldine, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 


said, “For more than four decades, Joe 
dedicated his life to the pursuit of justice 
and dignity for every working man and 
woman. His five years of leadership at 
the Greater Boston Labor Council were 
years of accomplishment and progress 
for the trade union movement he loved 
so much.” 

In addition to his widow, Joyce is sur- 
vived by three daughters, Maureen 
Planchak, Deirdra Creager and Regina 
Rack; four sons, Kevin, Brian, Stephen 
and Gerard; and 12 grandchildren. 

George H. O’Bea Jr., vice 
president-at-large of the Paperworkers, 
died of a heart attack Sept. 7. He was 
64. 

O’Bea became a member of Paper- 
makers Local 534 in 1949. He went on 
to serve as chief shop steward and presi- 
dent of the local, as well as international 
representative. O’Bea was elected vice 
president-at-large in 1959. At the time 
of his death, he was posted in Wash- 
ington as legislative director and 
political action director for the union. 

He is survived by one daughter and 
three grandchildren. 

A memorial service for O’Bea will be 
held in the lobby at AFL-CIO head- 
quarters on Sept. 20 at 11 a.m. 

CORRECTIONS 

There is no federal law requiring a 
bipartisan makeup of the five-member 
National Labor Relations Board, as the 
AFL-CIO News incorrectly reported in 
the Aug. 5 issue. However, since the 
1940s, presidents have followed the 
practice of appointing three members 
from their political party and two from 
the opposition. 

The newly created position by the 
Plumbers and Pipefitters was misstated 
in an Aug. 19 article. The UA conven- 
tion delegates voted to create the posi- 
tion of administrative assistant to the 
general president and eliminate the 
position of assistant general secre- 
tary-treasurer. 


SEIU members in, scabs out 
after settlement at hospital 


M embers of Service Employees 
Local 1199P unanimously ap- 
proved a new contract with Canonsburg 
(Pa.) Hospital, ending a five-month 
strike that included the use of “perma- 
nent replacement” workers. 

“The success of the agreement is due 
to the tremendous mobilization on the 
part of the labor movement in Wash- 
ington County, said John Engelhardt, 
Local 1 199P vice president. “We held 
daily rallies, where many of the sup- 
porters came from other unions.” 
Canonsburg Hospital, described by 
the union as the lowest-paying hospital 
in the area, hired 90 replacement 
workers during the strike. However, all 
166 of Local 1 199P’s members are back 
to work. 

The community and the labor move- 
ment “forced the employer to remove 
all scabs,” Engelhardt said. At one of 
the rallies, more than 700 working peo- 
ple sat with their arms locked in human 
chains in support of the strikers. 

Two Pennsylvania state legislators, 
Reps. Michael Veon and Clarence Bell 
have introduced legislation similar to 
the labor-backed H.R. 5 and S. 55 ban- 
ning the use of “permanent replace- 
ments.” 

The Veon/Bell legislation prohibits 
the hiring of temporary and permanent 
replacement workers during a strike. 
Other measures in the eight-bill package 
will help to ensure that Pennsylvania’s 
laws do not support or encourage the 
hiring of replacements. 


“This package doesn’t give labor or 
management an advantage. It’s meant 
to put labor back on an equal footing 
in the collective bargaining process and 
give workers everywhere the rights they 
had before the government stripped 
them away,” Veon said. 

The workers were also assisted by the 
Federal Mediation and Conciliation 
Service, which brought the two sides 
together. “It is gratifying to me that the 
process of collective bargaining and 
mediation were effectively utilized by 
labor and management in reaching an 
agreement in this dispute,” said FMCS 
Director Bernard DeLury. 

The new contract includes provisions 
for seniority, a health and safety com- 
mittee, political action checkoffs and 
pension benefit improvements. Prior to 
the agreement, workers experienced 
low staffing levels, low wages, and in- 
creasing co-pays for health insurance, 
the union said. 

The seniority provision includes an 
improved job-bidding process and 
clarification of part-time versus full- 
time employment. In addition, retirees 
will receive from $75 to $100 more in 
their pensions as a result of the new 
agreement. 

The economic provisions of the con- 
tract, health care and wage benefits will 
be settled in binding arbitration, 
Engelhardt added. The company is at- 
tempting to increase co-pays or 
decrease wages. However, they have a 
‘ ‘poor case and we expect to do well. ’ ’ 


‘Labor cares, 
labor gives’ 
to United Way 

W hile workers may be hard-pressed 
by the lingering recession, they 
have continued to step up to assist 
others in need through the United Way, 
which last year raised more than $3 
billion for the first time ever. 

While the $3.1 billion figure was a 
record, however, it failed to keep up 
with inflation. The contributions were 
4.4 percent more than was raised in 
1989, while inflation was at 6.1 per- 
cent. Approximately two-thirds of the 
$3 billion was contributed by labor, 
representing an increase of $200 
million. 

“As the American worker endures 
the hardships of a sluggish economy, 
I’m sure they will continue to realize the 
importance of the United Way,” said 
Communications Workers President 
Morton Bahr, chair of the National 
United Way Labor Campaign. 

“Labor cares and labor shares,” said 
AFL-CIO Vice President Moe Biller, 
president of the Postal Workers and 
chairman of the 1991 United Way 
Labor Campaign in the Washington 
area. 

United Way officials said they were 
pleased about passing the $3 billion 
milestone under precarious economic 
conditions. 

“Considering the economic and 
business climate in 1990, this giving 
record is absolutely astounding,” 
declared United Way President William 
Aramony. 

The same abysmal economic condi- 
tions are putting pressure on the health 
and social welfare organizations that the 
United Way serves, said Richard 
Fusco, senior vice president for 
marketing and resource development at 
the United Way. Many persons will go 
lacking if United Way falters, he said. 

United Way officials estimate that ap- 
proximately 80 million Americans con- 
tributed to the 1990 campaign, about the 
same as in 1989. But layoffs and other 
reductions at many corporations forc- 
ed many United Way fundraisers to 
spend more time and effort soliciting 
small businesses. 

ACTWU ratifies 
cotton agreement 

C lothing and Textile Workers ratified 
a nationwide contract with cotton 
garment manufacturers that raises 
hourly wages by 70 cents over the 
three-year term and maintains health 
benefits. 

The agreement, which covers 14,000 
workers in Southern, Mid-Atlantic and 
Midwestern states, also affects an ad- 
ditional 24,000 workers covered under 
separate agreements. ACTWU mem- 
bers covered by the national contract 
make shirts, trousers and other cotton 
garments and work in distribution and 
retail centers. 

ACTWU President Jack Sheinkman 
said the agreement would help ACTWU 
members keep their economic footing 
“as our nation continues to suffer 
through a recession.” Sheinkman also 
called for a national health care pro- 
gram to remove the “unfair burden” 
placed on employers who provide a de- 
cent level of health care benefits for 
workers. 

The contract increases pension bene- 
fits and adds a vision care and prescrip- 
tion drug program to the health care 
plan. 






Matt Bates/Machinists 


A former worker at Imperial, who did not wish to be identified for fear of 
retaliation, points out to his three sons where workers tried to get out 
of the burned-out plant. The man, who worked on the cooker for three 
years, said 'That thing caught on fire two or three times, but they never 
fixed it. . .The company and all ain't going to worry about it. It's the families 
that's got all the worries." 


Unions help 
victims cope 
in aftermath 

Continued from Page 1 

the fatal blaze — an uninspected plant 
with locked doors, no emergency lights 
and unmarked exits — eerily resemble 
the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory 
fire in which 146 women and girls died 
when left without means to escape. 

“Like you, I find it unfathomable that 
the conditions which killed 146 workers 
in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. . .still 
exist today,” wrote AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland to Rep. William D. Ford 
(D-Mich.) and Sen. Edward M. Ken- 
nedy (D-Mass.). Kirkland called on the 
legislators to investigate the tragedy. 

Ford’s Committee on Education and 
Labor on Sept. 12 held a hearing on 
reform of the Occupational Safety and 
Health Act that focused on the Hamlet 
fire. 

At that hearing, Rep. Pat Williams 
(D-Mont.) noted that the AFL-CIO for 
years has been warning that current 
deficiencies in the OSHA law means 
“tragedies are waiting to happen.” 

“Workers need to know that not a 
week has gone by, in the decade of the 
’80s or thus far in the 1990s, when 
representatives of workers — usually 
members of organized labor — have 
not been on this Hill, in this committee 
room, down at the Department of Labor 
and in the White House warning that 
this was going to happen,” he said. 

“Organized labor is right on this 
issue,” Williams said. “If there’s one 
group you can’t blame, it’s the workers 
and their representatives.” 

Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) also ad- 
dressed the issue of blame. He said he 
was appalled by the circumstances that 
permitted the loss of life in the Hamlet 
fire, and “to place the blame for this 
tragedy on too few inspectors is not a 
reason. It’s an alibi. It’s a cop-out.” 

“This government has been able to 


find money for many projects less wor- 
thy than the hiring of sufficient person- 
nel to protect the safety of our work- 
ers,” Clay said. “This Congress has 
recklessly refused to impose strict safe- 
ty rules on businesses, and in an effort 
to accommodate the interests of those 
businesses, it has recklessly refused to 
enforce those . . . safety rules that it did 
put on the books.” 

A key question in the aftermath of the 
fire was the adequacy of enforcement 
of OSHA regulations. North Carolina 
Commissioner of Labor John Brooks 
told reporters that the state never had 
come close to complying with federal 
staffing standards for its OSHA divi- 
sion, and blamed budget cuts. 

Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO ’s oc- 
cupational safety and health director, 


urged a federal takeover of the North 
Carolina OSHA program in a letter to 
OSHA director Gerard F. Scanned, in 
which she detailed the deficiencies of 
the North Carolina plan. 

In the petition, Seminario noted that 
North Carolina has 22 qualified inspec- 
tors — 16 safety inspectors and six 
health inspectors — and another 13 ap- 
prentices, for a total of 35. In 1980, the 
“benchmark” number of needed in- 
spectors was 202. In 1985, those 
“benchmark” figures were reduced to 
77, still more than twice what the state 
had in 1990. 

In its 1985 benchmark calculations, 
OSHA estimated the state would con- 
duct safety inspections of the state’s 
3,213 high hazard manufacturing busi- 
nesses — including the Imperial Foods 


plant in Hamlet, N.C. — once every 
two years. But in 1990, North Carolina 
inspected 100 manufacturing sites under 
its schedule for safety inspections, a rate 
of one inspection every 30 years. 

Seminario pointed out that workers 
who charge they were discriminated 
against for calling attention to hazards 
must wait nearly a year (317 days) for 
a final determination of their com- 
plaints, despite a state law that requires 
determination within 90 days. The 
federal OSHA Act allegedly protects 
workers from such retaliation. 

The AFL-CIO petitioned for the 
withdrawal of approval of state OSHA 
plans several times in the late 1970s, 
with Virginia and Indiana among them. 
In each case, the Carter administration 
began steps to withdraw approval, but 
those proceedings were halted by the 
Reagan administration before final steps 
were taken, Seminario said. 

When the AFL-CIO Community 
Services Department dispatched 
Johnson and Fitzgibbon to help with 
relief after the tragedy, the Clothing and 
Textile Workers filled the first re- 
quest — as burial clothes for some of 
the victims, as suitable clothes to wear 
to the funeral for others. 

ACTWU’s New York Joint Board 
gathered donations of 30 men’s suits, 
10 women’s jackets, 23 men’s shirts, 
5 women’s dresses and several other 
pieces of clothing from 10 manufac- 
turers and sent them to North Carolina. 

The acting president of the North 
Carolina AFL-CIO, James Andrews, 
and Roger Gathings, president of the 
Richmond County Labor Council, pre- 
sented a check for $2,500 from the 
AFL-CIO to assist family members and 
victims of the fire. 

Fitzgibbon and Johnson also organ- 
ized legal assistance for plant workers 
and help in filling out forms for 
worker’s compensation, unemployment 
and other government and health forms. 

Meanwhile, the state AFL-CIO 
helped organize a vigil in front of the 
state legislature building in Raleigh, to 
remember the victims and renew the 
fight for greater workplace safety. 


INSIDE 

UFCW says Food Lion 
exploiting workers 

The Food and Commercial Workers are 
pressing the Labor Department to help 
workers at the giant Food Lion chain 
recoup the $194 million in back wages 
owed them for working off the clock. 

IAM first contract 
is sweet win at ARE 

Machinists Local 1910 in the driver’s 
seat at American Racing Equipment, 
with a first contract that boosts wages 
12 percent for the predominantly His- 
panic work force. 






Labor to testify 
at Thomas hearing 

The Senate will hear from union 
witnesses concerned about Supreme 
Court nominee Clarence Thomas’s 
stand on workplace issues as confirma- 
tion hearings continue. 

Frontlash efforts 
get Hispanic support 

Frontlash has enlisted the help of a 
growing number of Hispanics in its an- 
nual campaign to inform law students 
about union-busting law firms 
recruiting on campus. 




COLAs are the key 
in Westinghouse pact 

Members of six unions are voting on a 
tentative settlement with Westinghouse 
Electric Corp. that provides a 13 per- 
cent increase in wages and cost-of- 
living adjustments. 

UFW seeks total ban 
on deadly parathion 

The Farm Workers criticized the En- 
vironmental Protection Agency’s par- 
tial ban on the deadly pesticide 
parathion as a “cheap ploy” that fails 
to protect workers and communities. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


9 / 16/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 







VOLUME 36, NUMBER 21 


SEPTEMBER 30, 1991 


Unions forge pact of future at NYNEX 


By Candice Johnson 

I n a remarkable turnaround two years 
after a bitter 100-day strike, unions 
representing 57,000 workers at 
NYNEX Corp. agreed to a tentative 
contract nearly a year before the cur- 
rent contract expires. 

The unprecedented agreement with 
the second-largest of the seven regional 
Bell operating companies is a “united 
union-management commitment to cus- 
tomer satisfaction and cost com- 


petitiveness,” the parties said in a joint 
statement. 

The agreement is the first NYNEX 
pact to be negotiated simultaneously 
with both the Communications Workers 
and the Electrical Workers and repre- 
sents a startling departure from the con- 
tentious bargaining and ensuing strike 
in 1989. 

CWA represents 39,000 NYNEX 
employees, mostly at New York 
Telephone Co., and IBEW represents 


Congress challenges 
Bush on UI benefits 


By John R. Oravec 

T hwarted by President Bush’s refusal 
to release funds to help the nation’s 
unemployed, Congress acted quickly to 
fashion another measure that would ex- 
tend jobless benefits to some 3 million 
recession victims who have exhausted 
their regular 26 weeks of unemploy- 
ment compensation. 

House and Senate conferees ironed 
out particulars on the legislation — 
which would add up to 20 more weeks 
of payments for long-term jobless 
workers — shortly after both chambers 
passed separate measures by over- 
whelming margins. 

Despite a renewed veto threat from 
the White House, the Senate voted 
69-30 for passage — well above the 
two-thirds needed to override President 
Bush’s rejection of the bill. 

The House approved its measure 
twice — first, a week before the Senate 
action, by a vote of 283-125. Then, for 
procedural reasons on a slightly revised 
version, it approved the legislation by 
a veto-proof margin of 294-127. 

A two-thirds majority by both 
chambers of Congress are needed to 
override a veto. If all 433 House 
members are to vote, 289 affirmative 
votes would be needed to reject Bush’s 
veto. 

The new bill declares that Bush’s 


signature automatically triggers an 
emergency designation, releasing funds 
from an unemployment trust fund. Bush 
had signed the previous legislation but 
refused to declare the emergency. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said a long-term extension of jobless 
benefits is long overdue. 

Noting that the nation’s unemploy- 
ment insurance system has been 
weakened severely by government in- 
difference, Kirkland said, “Only a 
minority of unemployed workers 
qualify and receive benefits at all.” 

In August, barely 3 million of the 8.5 
million officially jobless were drawing 
benefits. That left 5.5 million shut out 
of the system. 

“All the pronoucements that ‘pros- 
perity is just around the corner’ are of 
little comfort to the 3 million Americans 
who will use up their jobless benefits 
this year,” Kirkland said. 

But Bush said he would trash the 
benefits legislation. Speaking at a 
$l,000-a-plate Republican Party fund- 
raising affair, he said he’s tired of Con- 
gress “sending me a bunch of garbage 
I will not sign.” 

Besides the automatic trigger, which 
was not in the Senate bill, a major dif- 
ference between the two congressional 
measures was the House stipulation that 
Continued on Page 4 


about 18,000 workers, mainly at New 
England Telephone Co. Membership 
ratification votes are being scheduled. 

The tentative accord provides for a 
13.6 percent wage increase over the 
contract term and maintains fully paid 
health care benefits — the major issue 
in the 1989 strike. 

The agreement also includes a possi- 
ble cost-of-living adjustment and pro- 
vides an increase in pension benefits. 
In addition, an increased pay differen- 


tial for workers in New York City and 
some other areas is included. 

The unions also won NYNEX ’s 
pledge that the company would remain 
neutral in union organizing efforts at its 
subsidiaries and would recognize the 
union off a card check of majority sup- 
port at those units. 

“It proves that from out of a hostile 
labor-management situation, when both 
sides are committed to respecting the 
Continued on Page 7 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland tells Senate Judiciary Committee that 
Clarence Thomas's views on government's role should disqualify him from 
sitting on the Supreme Court. Federation General Counsel Laurence Gold 
is in background. See Page 3. 


Tragedy adds urgency to workplace safety reform drive 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he horrible North Carolina chicken 
plant fire has sharply focused public 
attention on the drastic need for reform 
of the Occupational Safety and Health 
Act. 

In the aftermath of the fatal fire at the 
Imperial Food Products plant in 
Hamlet, N.C., Congress has gotten 
serious about the Comprehensive Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Reform 
Act (S. 1622 and H.R. 3160), which 
was introduced Aug. 1, one month 
before the fire. 


One part of the reform legislation 
would give workers a voice in their own 
safety and health through the establish- 
ment of workplace committees in plants 
with more than 10 employees. 

In the case of the Hamlet plant, North 
Carolina’s Republican Gov. James 
Martin said, “It is clear to me that such 
a requirement . . . could very well have 
led to a correction of the conditions 
which cost the lives of 25 good peo- 
ple.” 

In opening hearings on H.R. 3160 
before the House Committee on Educa- 


tion and Labor Sept. 12, committee 
chairman Rep. William D. Ford (D- 
Mich.) noted that “We are meeting now 
because this deadly fire and loss of life 
should be a signal to us that there may 
be more Hamlets waiting to happen.” 

“The awful truth is that such unsafe 
and unhealthful working conditions (as 
in Hamlet) exist in workplaces in every 
state in this country,” testified AFL- 
CIO Director of Occupational Safety 
and Health Peg Seminario. 

“Twenty years after the passage of 
OSH A, the promise of a safe and 


healthful workplace for all American 
workers is still far from a reality,” she 
said. “The OSHA law and OSHA pro- 
gram is failing to protect millions of 
workers.” 

In addition to the workplace commit- 
tees, the measure also would correct 
other major deficiencies by strengthen- 
ing OSHA standard-setting and enforce- 
ment, extending OSHA coverage to 
federal, state and local government 
employees and providing a section on 
victims’ rights. 

Continued on Page 2 


Illegal imports of prison-made 
Chinese goods must be stopped, the 
AFL-CIO tells Congress. See Page 9. 






OSHA reform gets new impetus following tragedy 


Continued from Page 1 

The legislation also would: 

• Provide for mandatory safety and 
health programs in all workplaces. 

• Give workers the right to 
challenge weak citations and penalties. 

• Give OSHA inspectors the right 
to quickly shut down dangerous jobs. 

• Give workers the right to refuse 
unsafe work without fear of losing their 
jobs. 

• Recommend jail terms and fines 
for employers who knowingly put their 
workers at risk of serious injury. 

• Provide for mandatory safety and 
health training for all workers, along 
with mandatory safety and health stan- 
dards on key hazards. 

“Today the OSHA program is simp- 
ly overwhelmed and not capable of 
dealing with the mounting safety and 
health problems confronting American 
workers,” Seminario said. 

“There are only 1,200 federal OSHA 
inspectors and about 800 state OSHA 
inspectors to inspect this nation’s 5 
million private-sector workplaces,” she 
said. “We can’t wait for government 
inspectors. We need a new approach at 
the workplace itself. We need to ad- 
dress safety and health problems before 
deaths, injuries and illness occur. 

“If the OSHA reform bill were law,” 
she said, “those doors in Hamlet, North 
Carolina, would have been unlocked.” 

The Hamlet fire highlights the weak- 
ness of many state OSHA programs. 
North Carolina is among 23 states and 
two territories that have been granted 
permission by federal OSHA to run 
their own plans and assume respon- 
sibility for job safety and health, pro- 
vided certain conditions are met. 

However, North Carolina had failed 
to meet OSHA criteria on staffing and 
number of inspections needed to en- 
force existing regulations. According to 
OSHA’s most recent evaluation of the 
state plan, North Carolina had only 22 
safety inspectors, six of whom were 
trainees, and 13 health inspectors, seven 
of whom were trainees. 




Anne Martens/Page One Photography Jim Bonds/Raleigh News and Observer 


the OSHA reform bill were law, those doors in Hamlet, North Carolina, 
would have been unlocked. M 

— Peg Seminario 
AFL-CIO safety director 


In 1990, only 100 manufacturing 
establishments were inspected under 
North Carolina’s general schedule for 
safety inspections, and only five general 
schedule health inspections were 
conducted. 

The deficiencies of the North 
Carolina plan made so obvious by the 
Hamlet fire led the AFL-CIO to peti- 
tion federal OSHA Sept. 1 1 to take over 
the program. Assistant Secretary of 
Labor Gerard F. Scanned, the ad- 
ministrator of OSHA, told the congres- 
sional hearing a re-examination of the 
state plan was under way. 

In a meeting held Sept 20, Scanned 
and North Carolina Commissioner of 
Labor John C. Brooks agreed to a 


cooperative approach. Specifically, the 
federal OSHA program is to look at 
ways to help the state program hire ad- 
ditional inspectors and to work together 
on evaluations and revisions, according 
to a statement. 

Seminario said the agreement “in no 
way addresses the basic inadequacies of 
the North Carolina program. The 
federal government is failing to meet its 
responsibility to assure the safety and 
health of ad North Carolina workers. ” 

“The program is so deficient it 
demands the federal government move 
in and take over,” she said. 

Besides endorsing workplace com- 
mittees, Gov. Martin told the panel of 
his other plans to strengthen North 


Carolina safety enforcement, including 
a recommendation to ad employers to 
review fire safety. 

Martin also has asked for 27 addi- 
tional health and safety inspectors and, 
if the inspectors were not added, the 
state would turn its responsibilities over 
to federal OSHA, he said. “If we are 
going to do it, we must do it right.” 

Before the hearing was over, Ford 
said he would try to strip OSHA en- 
forcement power from all the states 
unless they could show good reason not 
to within 90 days. 

He said the current system did not ap- 
pear to be working and he accused state 
and federal OSHA authorities of “mu- 
tual finger-pointing . ’ ’ 


Push for blood-borne disease standard gets union backing 


C ongress should pass legislation to put 
into effect Dec. 1 a blood-borne 
disease standard based on universal 
precautions, the Service Employees told 
a House subcommittee. 

The measure, in the form of an 
amendment to the fiscal 1992 ap- 
propriations bill for the departments of 
Labor and Health and Human Services, 
passed the Senate Sept. 11 by a 99-1 
vote. The House version of the money 
bill does not contain similar language. 

In testimony before the House sub- 
committee on health and the environ- 


ment Sept. 19, SEIU Secretary-Treas- 
urer Richard W. Cordtz said “univer- 
sal precautions are the only proven 
method to controlling the transmission 
of blood-borne disease in the health-care 
setting. Any changes in policy which 
undermine universal precautions will ac- 
tually increase the threat of HIV trans- 
mission for workers and patients alike. ” 
SEIU first asked the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration for a 
blood-borne disease standard in 1986. 
OSHA proposed preliminary rules on 
preventing the spread of blood-borne 


diseases — such as acquired immune 
deficiency syndrome and hepatitis B — 
in May 1989. 

The standard would require medical 
workers who can be exposed to blood, 
saliva and other body fluids to wear 
gloves, gowns, face masks and other 
equipment. If OSHA fails to issue final 
rules by the deadline, the proposed rules 
will take effect. 

Opponents of the universal precau- 
tions standard support legislation in- 
troduced by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) 
requiring disclosure of HIV status by 


health-care workers and patients. 
Cordtz told the panel that “it is a 
mistake to think that measures aimed at 
identifying and restricting HIV-infected 
health-care workers will not affect 
health-care workers or patients who are 
not HIV-infected.” 

“Such measures will have a substan- 
tial, negative impact on all health-care 
workers and all patients by increasing 
costs, undermining infection control 
and encouraging discrimination against 
anyone suspected of being HIV- 
infected,” he said. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 21 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1991 


. fcftOR C0 MMW/Cj>, 

IE® 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00 1 - 1 1 85) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





i 


IMSW10N 


Kirkland: Thomas ideological gladiator 

Panel split sends nomination to floor without recommendation 


By James B. Parks 

S upreme Court nominee Clarence 
Thomas’s attacks on government 
alone disqualify him from a seat on the 
high court, AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland said. 

“Judge Thomas’s accomplish- 
ments — and the basis upon which he 
was selected by the President — are as 
a gladiator in the ideological arena,” 
Kirkland said. “His pamphleteer’s 
ability to reduce complex questions to 
caricatures and to belittle those who 
have a different social vision made him 
a hero of the right and its candidate for 
Justice (Thurgood) Marshall’s seat.” 
Kirkland, testifying before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, said the Thomas 
record is “deeply disturbing from the 
perspective of the trade union move- 
ment and of the working men and 
women of our unions.” 

The committee also heard from 
AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William 
Lucy, president of the Coalition of 
Black Trade Unionists, and a variety of 
other civil rights and women’s groups 
who opposed the nomination. The com- 
mittee voted 7-7 on the nomination 
Sept. 27 and sent it to the full Senate 
without recommendation. The Senate 
could take up the matter this week. 

Kirkland said Thomas’s “extreme, 
anti-government views betray a tragic 
lack of understanding regarding 
America’s historical experience. As this 
nation has proved, democratic govern- 
ment is not the enemy of freedom. 
Neither unfettered ‘property rights’ nor 
unregulated markets answer all social 
problems. Democratic government is 
the means whereby Americans have 
always joined together to create for 

Compromise 

By Mike Hall 

B ipartisan Senate negotiators believe 
their amendments to family and 
medical leave legislation could win 
enough votes to override a threatened 
presidential veto. 

The amendments, offered by Sen. 
Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), and 
backed by the bill’s chief sponsor Sen. 
Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), still re- 
quire employers to give workers up to 
12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth 
or adoption of a child or the serious ill- 
ness of either the employee or an im- 
mediate family member. 

The bill covers firms with 50 or more 
workers and requires employers to pro- 
tect the workers’ jobs and to provide 
continuing benefits during leaves. 

Most of the changes were designed 
to address employers’ concerns about 
tightening eligibility and reporting re- 
quirements for workers. For example, 
employees would have to give 30 days’ 
notice, when possible, for foreseeable 
leaves, such as births, adoptions or 
planned medical treatments. It also re- 
quires a medical certificate to justify the 
need for the leave. 

‘ ‘It seems unreasonable for those who 
continue to oppose this legislation to 
simply say ‘never,’ ” AFL-CIO Leg- 
islative Director Robert M. McGlotten 
said in a letter to members of the 
Senate. 

The bill, S.5, exempts part-time 


themselves and their posterity a more 
just, humane and free society.” 

Noting that Thomas has scorned 
Franklin Roosevelt for his “attack on 
property rights,” Kirkland quoted the 
nominee as saying “the government’s 
role is to assure a climate in which 
business can flourish and then stand 
back and stay out of the way.” 

Just ask “the families of those 25 
workers who died behind locked doors 
in an uninspected North Carolina 
chicken plant,” Kirkland said. “They 
don’t believe that assuring an employ- 
er’s unfettered ‘property rights’ is the 
answer to all social problems. Judge 
Thomas’s idea that democratic govern- 
ment actions dangerously erode ‘prop- 
erty rights’ is an absurd and dangerous 
one in the modern era.” 

Thomas has scorned child labor laws, 
environmental laws, securities and 
banking laws, and product safety and 
workplace safety laws — the kind of 
government action we take for granted 
today, Kirkland said. 

“From the building of the intercon- 
tinental railroads to the space program, 
from Social Security to the GI Bill, and 
from the Fair Labor Standards Act to 
the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 
the government’s role has been to ad- 
dress social and economic problems in 
a way that ameliorates the abuses and 
failings of the marketplace and recog- 
nizes our human needs,” he said. 

“Judge Thomas does not grasp that 
truth. His public statements and 
writings assert that this body of legisla- 
tion is not merely unsound but repug- 
nant,” Kirkland said. 

“In his view, these basic statements 
of our reciprocal obligations to each 


workers who work less than 25 hours 
per week and “key employees” — 
those in the highest-paid 10 percent of 
the work force. 

“With these and other changes, the 
family and medical leave legislation 
becomes a truly manageable public 
policy to address the needs of the work 
force of the future,” McGlotten said. 
“This is a policy designed for the 
average worker who must take time off 


** It seems unreasonable 
for those who continue to 
oppose this legislation to 
simply say ‘never.’ & 

— Robert M. McGlotten 
AFL-CIO Legislative Director 


from the job to cope with a family 
emergency, but who needs to have that 
job back when the emergency is over. ” 

Bond said he hoped the administra- 
tion would accept the compromise, but 
he admitted that the White House has 
not changed its position on the legisla- 
tion. Last year, President Bush vetoed 
similar legislation despite his campaign 
promises to support family leave. 

A recent study of four states with 
similar leave policies showed that “well 
over 90 percent of the employers found 


other are “antithetical to freedom,’ 
he noted. 

Kirkland said the AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Council’s Aug. 1 vote against 
the nomination was based on his ex- 
treme anti-government views and his 
“unwillingness to enforce anti- 
discrimination laws” in his time at the 
Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission. 

But, Kirkland said, a third reason to 
oppose the nominee emerged during the 
hearings as Thomas and his handlers at- 
tempted to manipulate the confirmation 
process and to deny the Senate its con- 
stitutional role. 

“Judge Thomas — refusing either to 
disavow or to accept any of his past 
statements — simply dismissed his 
life’s work as beside the point,” 
Kirkland said. 

“This transparent effort to create an 
image of moderation and open-minded- 
ness out of a record that demonstrates 
the very opposite views suggests ‘men- 
tal reservation’ and a ‘purpose of eva- 
sion.’ ” 

Lucy expressed “grave concern 
about the past injuries and the insen- 
sitivity heaped on workers . . . who 
sought redress and fairness” when 
Thomas headed the EEOC. 

Lucy cited several of Thomas’s state- 
ments which he said “strongly suggest 
that he believes that institutions should 
not be held accountable for their dis- 
criminatory behavior and should not be 
forced by government to change that 
behavior ... As a black I have a difficult 
time visualizing Mr. Thomas as a Su- 
preme Court justice addressing issues 
of fairness and equity that are crucial 
to millions of black Americans.” 


these state laws easy to implement,” 
Dodd said during a Washington press 
conference. 

Other studies, Dodd said, have shown 
family leave policies result in “tremen- 
dous savings to employers in terms of 
employee training, productivity, loyalty 
and absenteeism.” 

While some companies have similar 
policies, Bond said, others have policies 
“that are actually hostile towards 
families. Those are the employers we 
are trying to reach with this legisla- 
tion.” 

Dodd pointed out that former Reagan 
administration Surgeon General C. 
Everett Koop backs the legislation, 
citing family leave policies that are 
deeply integrated in other countries. 
“There are obvious lessons in this for 
the United States,” Koop has said. 
“Children remain our most precious 
national resource. It’s high time we 
begin to treat them as such.” 

Sens. Edward M. Kennedy CD- 
Mass.), Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) and 
Dan Coats (R-Ind.) announced their 
support of the compromise at the news 
conference. Ford is the Senate majori- 
ty whip. 

While no schedule has been set for 
floor action, the bill’s backers hope to 
have it before the full Senate in early 
fall. After the Senate votes, the House 
is expected to act quickly on the legis- 
lation. 


Capitol Digest 


T he labor-backed Construction Safety, 
Health and Education Improvement 
Act cleared a major hurdle when the 
House Education and Labor Commit- 
tee approved the measure 25-14. 

“We believe this legislation, if 
adopted, will significantly improve 
safety and health at construction work 
sites,” said Robert M. McGlotten, the 
AFL-CIO’s legislative director. “It will 
also lay a sound foundation for com- 
prehensive reform of the Occupational 
Safety and Health Act as it concerns all 
industries.” 

Construction accidents claim about 
2,500 lives annually and account for 
another 300,000 serious injuries. 

The bill, H.R. 1063, would create an 
office of Construction Safety, Health 
and Education within the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration and 
would require more stringent reporting 
of accidents and deaths. 

It also would establish safety manage- 
ment systems at multi-employer proj- 
ects and set requirements for safety and 
health programs, including construction 
safety training for workers and OSHA 
inspectors. 

Hearings have not yet begun on a 
similar Senate bill, S. 673. 

Elsewhere in Congress: 

HIGHWAYS — House members 
are drafting new legislation reauthoriz- 
ing federal highway and mass transit 
funding. The original bill, H.R. 2950, 
contained a 5-cents-a-gallon increase in 
the gasoline tax as part of its funding 
mechanism. The new bill probably will 
authorize the same $150 billion spend- 
ing level as the first, but spread the 
spending over six years instead of five. 
About 1 million jobs will be created by 
the legislation. The Senate passed a 
smaller reauthorization earlier. 

MINERS’ HEALTH — More than 
120,000 retired coal miners and their 
beneficiaries could lose their health 
benefits if Congress doesn’t implement 
recommendations from a special com- 
mission, Mine Workers President Rich- 
ard L. Trumka told the Senate. The 
commission recommended spreading to 
the entire coal industry the cost of 
benefits for “orphan” beneficiaries, 
who are not covered by a plan because 
their employer is no longer operating 
or is not a signatory to a current coal 
wage agreement. 

WORKPLACE MONITORING 

— About 10 million American workers 
are monitored by covert electronic 
surveillance devices at job sites across 
the country. Communications Workers 
President Morton Bahr told the Senate 
Labor and Human Resources’ employ- 
ment and productivity subcommittee 
that employer snooping often violates 
workers’ privacy rights, and studies 
have shown such monitoring adversely 
affects workers’ health. Bahr urged 
the subcommittee to approve a Senate 
bill, S. 516, which would give workers 
the “right to know” when and under 
what conditions such monitoring 
occurs. 


boosts family leave bill 







Senate, House 
pass UI bills 
by big margins 

Continued from Page 1 
the extension of benefits be permanent. 
Conferees agreed to Senate language 
stating the extension would expire next 
July 4, with the immediate focus on eas- 
ing the plight of the recession victims. 

Even though the White House insists 
that the recession is over and the 
economy is in recovery, Labor Depart- 
ment reports show that some 300,000 
long-term jobless workers have been 
exhausting their regular benefits nearly 
every month through much of 1991. 

In July alone, 334,000 jobless ran out 
of regular benefits, according the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because of 
the flat economy, historical trends sug- 
gest that the number of workers who ex- 
haust benefits will remain at or 300,000 
for months to come. 

In renewing his veto threat, Bush in- 
sisted that the $6.4 billion cost of fund- 
ing the benefits extension would bust 
the federal budget. 

But Democratic leaders pointed out 
that there is a surplus of nearly $8 
billion dollars in die unemployment 
trust fund, which was set up for high 
unemployment emergencies. They also 
noted that Bush has no difficulty finding 
funds to meet foreign crises, but cries 
poverty when Americans are trapped by 
economic conditions of his own 
making. 

Congressional Democrats were 
enraged by Bush’s labeling of the 
legislation as rubbish at the Republican 
fundraiser in New Brunswick, N.J. 

That remark shows he “is out of 
touch with the way the average work- 
ing families live,” said House Majority 
Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.). 

“This is the president’s domestic 
agenda: mingling with the millionaires, 
raising campaign funds, calling the 
recession no big deal and referring to 
unemployment benefits as garbage.” 

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas), chief 
sponsor of the Senate bill, said, “Gar- 
bage is not the kind of word you’d ex- 
pect from a kinder and gentler presi- 
dent.” 

Before the conferees met, House 
Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) 
said it was essential that the final bill 
Congress sends to the president incor- 

Some 100,000 

By John R. Oravec 

W orkers in the U.S. aerospace in- 
dustry are facing the loss of up to 
100,000 jobs during 1991 due to cut- 
backs in defense spending, uncertainty 
in NASA projects and stiffer foreign 
competition. 

While the United States should re- 
main the world leader in aerospace dur- 
ing the 1990s, its dominant position in 
all markets is likely to tail off, a study 
by the Aerospace Industries Association 
said. 

Defense spending reductions will take 
their toll in the longer run in other sec- 
tors with some 800,000 job losses over- 
all through the mid-1990s, according to 
a separate study by the Defense Budget 
Project (DBP). 

The overall impact will be the heav- 
iest in states with a high level of 
defense-related purchasing activity as 
well as defense industry employment, 
the DBP study said. 

States that will be hardest hit, accord- 
ing to the DBP private research group 
study, include California, 50,800 jobs; 
Virginia, 14,100 jobs; Connecticut, 



SENATE VOTE 


Rollcall of 69-30 Senate vote to extend unemployment benefits measure is “right.” (KEY: R — right; W — wrong; A 

by 20 weeks. In the AFL-CIO reckoning, a yes vote for the absent.) 56 Democrats and 13 Republicans voted “right.' 


MICHIGAN 
LEVIN, C. (D) 
RIEGLE (D) 


NEW YORK 
D’AMATO (R) 
MOYNIHAN (D) 


TENNESSEE 
GORE (D) 
SASSER (D) 


HAWAII 

AKAKA (D) 
INOUYE (D) 


ALABAMA 
HEFLIN (D) 
SHELBY (D) 


IDAHO 

CRAIG (R) 
SYMMS (R) 


MINNESOTA 
DURENBERGER (R) 
WELLSTONE (D) 


NORTH CAROLINA 
HELMS (R) 
SANFORD (D) 


ALASKA 
MURKOWSKI (R) 
STEVENS (R) 


TEXAS 
BENTSEN (D) 
GRAMM, P. (R) 


ILLINOIS 

DIXON, A. (D) 
SIMON (D) 


MISSISSIPPI 
COCHRAN (R) 
LOTT (R) 


NORTH DAKOTA 
BURDICK (D) 
CONRAD (D) 


ARIZONA 
DECONCINI (D) 
MCCAIN (R) 


UTAH 
GARN (R) 
HATCH (R) 


INDIANA 

COATS (R) 
LUGAR (R) 


MISSOURI 
BOND (R) 
DANFORTH (R) 


OHIO 

GLENN (D) 
METZENBAUM (D) 


ARKANSAS 
BUMPERS (D) 
PRYOR (D) 


VERMONT 
JEFFORDS (R) 
LEAHY (D) 


IOWA 

GRASSLEY (R) 
HARKIN (D) 


MONTANA 
BAUCUS (D) 
BURNS (R) 


OKLAHOMA 
BOREN (D) 
NICKLES, D. (R) 


CALIFORNIA 
CRANSTON (D) 
SEYMOUR (R) 


VIRGINIA 
ROBB (D) 
WARNER (R) 


KANSAS 
DOLE (R) 
KASSEBAUM (R) 


NEBRASKA 

EXON (D) 
KERREY, B. (D) 


OREGON 
HATFIELD (R) 
PACKWOOD (R) 


COLORADO 
BROWN (R) 
WIRTH (D) 


KENTUCKY 
FORD, W. (D) 
MCCONNELL (R) 


WASHINGTON 
ADAMS (D) 
GORTON (R) 


NEVADA 
BRYAN, R. (D) 
REID (D) 


PENNSYLVANIA 
SPECTER (R) 
WOFFORD (D) 


CONNECTICUT 
DODD (D) 
LIEBERMAN (D) 


LOUISIANA 
BREAUX (D) 
JOHNSTON, B. (D) 


WEST VIRGINIA 
BYRD, R. (D) 
ROCKEFELLER (D) 


NEW HAMPSHIRE 
RUDMAN (R) 
SMITH, R.C. (R) 


RHODE ISLAND 
CHAFEE (R) 
PELL (D) 


DELAWARE 
BIDEN (D) 
ROTH, W. (R) 


MAINE 
COHEN (R) 
MITCHELL, G.(D) 

MARYLAND 
MIKULSKI (D) 
SARBANES (D) 

MASSACHUSETTS 
KENNEDY, E. (D) 
KERRY, J. (D) 


WISCONSIN 
KASTEN (R) 
KOHL (D) 


NEW JERSEY 
BRADLEY (D) 
LAUTENBERG (D) 


SOUTH CAROLINA 
HOLUNGS (D) 
THURMOND (R) 


FLORIDA 

GRAHAM, B. (D) 
MACK (R) 


SOUTH DAKOTA 
DASCHLE (D) 
PRESSLER (R) 


WYOMING 
SIMPSON (R) 
WALLOP (R) 


NEW MEXICO 
BINGAMAN (D) 
DOMENICI (R) 


GEORGIA 
FOWLER (D) 
NUNN (D) 


porate the House language for an auto- 
matic triger on the benefits extensions, 
rather than again giving Bush the op- 
tion of signing legislation and refusing 
to fund the benefits. 

Bush probably will get the new legis- 
lation this week. The Senate was ex- 
pected to take up the compromise bill 
Sept. 27, while the House scheduled a 
vote for Oct. 1. 

Prior to both the House and Senate 
votes, state AFL-CIOs targeted key 
lawmakers, including many Republi- 
cans, in an effort to shore up support 
for the bills and build a veto-proof bar- 
rier around the legislation. 

Thirteen Republicans, mainly from 
states whose jobless rates exceed the na- 
tional average of 6.8 percent, joined 56 
Democrats in the approving the Senate 
bill. All 30 “no” votes came from 
Republicans. 

In the first House vote, 48 Republi- 
cans joined 234 Democrats and one in- 
dependent in approving the bill; 18 
Democrats and 107 Republicans voted 
against the measure. On the second 
vote, 243 Democrats, 50 Republicans 
and one independent approved the 


measure. Eighteen Democrats and 109 
Republicans opposed it. 

The compromise agreement, based 
on unemployment rates in various 
states, would provide the long-term 
unemployed in 31 states with an added 
seven weeks of benefits, 13 states and 
the District of Columbia with 13 more 
weeks, and six states and Puerto Rico 
with 20 more weeks. 

The effective date of the legislation 
is Oct. 6, but unemployed workers who 
exhausted their benefits on or after 
March 1 would be included. The pro- 
grams expire July 4, 1992. 

The current unemployment insurance 
law does provide for extended benefits. 
But it’s so stringent, that only one 
state — Rhode Island — qualifies for 
those payments. 

In welcoming the House passage of 
the bill, H.R. 3040, AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten said the extension is vitally 
need for the long-term unemployed 
whose benefits ran out but have not 
been able to find a new job. 

Unlike the legislation passed in 
August, McGlotten noted that the new 


House bill does not give Bush a “back 
door” to slip through — by signing it 
into law, shedding a crocodile tear for 
the millions of jobless and then refus- 
ing to release funds for the benefits. 

Before the Senate voted final ap- 
proval on its bill, S. 1722, members re- 
jected a substitute measure, 57-42, by 
Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) that would 
provide only a 10- week extension. It 
also rejected an amendment by Sen. 
Phil Gramm (R-Texas) on a 60-39 vote 
to cut the capital gains tax. 

Unemployment rose in 40 states since 
July 1990, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics said. 

Seven states recorded jobless rates of 
8 percent or higher in July, compared 
with just one state a year earlier, BLS 
said. 

Of the 271 metropolitan areas issuing 
employment data in July, 151 showed 
an increase of at least 1 percent and 55 
had jobless rates of 8 percent and 
higher. 

The highest rates were in McAllen- 
Edinburg-Mission, Texas, at 16 per- 
cent; Fall River, Mass., 15.8 percent; 
and Modesto, Calif., 14.8 percent. 


aerospace workers could lose jobs this year 


7,100 jobs; and Hawaii, 2,000 jobs. 

Earlier studies projected that some 
55,000 federal and civilian employees 
of the Department of Defense would be 
affected by job reductions or transfers 
by 1997 with the closing of 31 major 
military bases and realignments in 28 
other government facilities. 

To help ease the impact of the job 
losses, $150 million in job training 
funds is being transferred from DOD 
to the Labor Department. The funds 
will be made available to states and 
communities that apply for assistance to 
operate retraining and re-employment 
assistance programs for workers dis- 
placed by base closing and defense cut- 
backs. 

As defense spending tightened over 
the years, the aerospace industry has 
relied more heavily on export markets, 
the AIA said. But the study warned that 
firms in Europe, Japan and the Pacific 
rim countries, which have more support 
from their governments, are mounting 
efforts to cut into the edge that -U.S. 
companies have held. 

In the first six months of the year, 


61.000 aerospace jobs had been 
eliminated, the AIA said. In 1990, the 
industry had an overall payroll of 1.27 
million, down from 1.33 million in 
1989. 

Most cutbacks have been among ad- 
ministrative employees. Production 
workers lost the smallest percentage of 
jobs in 1990 — about 4 percent or 

18.000 positions, the industry group 
said. 

But the cutbacks are continuing. In 
early September, General Dynamics 
Corp. announced it would lop off anoth- 
er 1,500 jobs at facilities in California, 
Arizona, Arkansas and New Mexico 
next year. The reductions are on top of 

3.000 others who are being laid off this 
year. Most of the cuts are in the com- 
pany’s Air Defense Systems Division. 

General Electric Aerospace Co. also 
disclosed plans to slash another 1 ,400 
jobs at facilities in New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania because of shrinking 
aerospace and defense markets. Last 
year, the company said it would 
eliminate 2,000 jobs through attrition 
and retirements. 


Aerospace still has the largest foreign 
trade balance of any U.S. manufactur- 
ing sector, according to Commerce 
Department data. In the first seven 
months of 1991, U.S. airplane exports 
amounted to $13.3 billion, compared 
with imports of $1.9 billion. At the 
same time, U.S. firms exported $5.8 
billion in airplane parts, while imports 
amounted to $2.5 billion. 

Over the past three decades, the 
aerospace industry has shifted away 
from its traditional defense base, AIA 
figures show. Government contracts ac- 
counted for 80 percent of aerospace 
sales in the 1960s, compared with 55 
percent in 1990. Meanwhile, exports 
rose from 7 percent of total sales in 
1966 to 26 percent in 1990. 

However, the U.S. advantage in 
overseas space projects is becoming 
more tenuous, the AIA said. 

American firms dominated in the 
market as demand for space vehicles 
and launch services grew steadily dur- 
ing the 1980s. But now, at least seven 
nations offer launch facilities and space 
vehicles, the study noted. 





Laborers raise per capita 
to foster growth agenda 


By John R. Oravec 
Las Vegas 

T he Laborers broke new ground at 
their 20th convention in approving a 
series of mandates to bolster organiz- 
ing, job safety, staff training and 
political action programs. 

Underscoring the need for sound 
funding of LIUNA’s growth agenda, 
the more than 2,000 delegates voted 
overwhelmingly to raise the monthly 
per capita payments and the minimum 
on local dues, as well as adopting key 
resolutions to shape the union’s goals 
over the next five years. 

In his keynote address, LIUNA Presi- 
dent Angelo Fosco noted that the union 
is encountering many of the same hur- 
dles it faced when delegates last con- 
vened five years ago — hard economic 
times, labor’s foes riding high in elected 
office and jobs lost in the foreign trade 
deficit. But with the initiatives launched 
then, the union made progress in dif- 
ficult times, he said. 

He pointed to marked accomplish- 
ments in safety and health efforts to 
eliminate hazards that members en- 
counter daily on their jobs. And the start 
of a unionwide training initiative is 
already bringing dividends, he said. 

Fosco told delegates that training 
would remain a focal point of the 
union’s priority agenda, which includes 
specialized tutoring for union repre- 
sentatives. 

“Our members deserve the best rep- 
resentation, and they are going to get 
it,” he stressed. “In fact, this union will 
not rest until we realize a very impor- 
tant goal: training for every member of 
the Laborers’ union.” 

Fosco said the organizing efforts 
would be stepped up in a range of sec- 
tors beyond the construction industry. 
They include federal, state and local 
public employees, service contract 
workers and health care as well as in- 
dustrial plants linked to construction. 

In addition to expanding operations 
of the LIUNA organizing department, 


the convention approved the creation of 
two new departments — communica- 
tions and research and economics — to 
broaden services to members. Dele- 
gates also put priorities on political ac- 
tion efforts through increased participa- 
tion in the Laborers’ Political League 
(LPL) with voluntary payroll checkoff 
funds and wider involvement in inter- 
national affairs. 

To fund the new departments and ex- 
pand membership services, the 
delegates approved a $2 increase in 
monthly per capita payments to the in- 
ternational. The increase will come in 
three steps, rising $1 to $6 in January 
1992, to $6.50 in January 1993 and to 
$7 in January 1995. 

The minimum monthly dues for lo- 
cals was increased $5 from the current 
$10, also in three steps, rising to $13 
next January, to $14 in 1993 and to $15 
in 1995. For local unions already above 
the minimum, the rates will be raised 
$3, $1 and $1 in the same time frames. 

Fosco and Secretary-Treasurer Ar- 
thur A. Coia were re-elected to new 
five-year terms by acclamation. Also 
returned to office were nine of the in- 
cumbent vice presidents who sought re- 
election. Elected for the first time was 
Enrico Mancinelli of Hamilton, Ont., 
as the 10th vice president. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told delegates that 
America’s workers are paying for the 
inequities of “marketplace economics” 
instituted by the Reagan and Bush ad- 
ministrations. 

“People are way ahead of politicians 
as to advancing real solutions to the na- 
tion’s ills,” Donahue said. On that 
basis, he urged that trade unionists 
judge all candidates on what they are 
going to do for workers and their 
families. 

Donahue noted that labor’s im- 
mediate priorities in Congress include 
the Senate passage of the ban on the 
“permanent replacement” of striking 
workers, extended unemployment bene- 



Bud Federici/Affiliated Graphics 

LIUNA delegates demonstrate for the re-election of President Angelo Fosco. 


fits, health care reform, highway con- 
struction programs and the negotiation 
of trade agreements that protect U.S. 
jobs and vital industries. 

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who an- 
nounced his candidacy for the Demo- 
cratic Party’s nomination for President 
Sept. 15, told cheering delegates that it 
is time to adopt an agenda that puts the 
needs of America’s working families 
first. 

With the changing international situa- 
tion, Harkin said, “the real threat is that 
37 million Americans are without health 
insurance. Tens of thousands of our 
kids are dropping out of our schools. 
Our people can’t find decent jobs with 
decent pay and benefits.” 

To correct the inequities that emerged 
during the 1980s, Harkin said supply- 
side economics should be scrapped 
along with communism as Med systems. 


Harkin called for adoption of 
“resource-based economics” with the 
priority of investing in America, its 
peoples’ needs and the nation’s in- 
frastructure. 

Other convention speakers included 
prospective Democratic candidate Jerry 
Brown, the former governor of Califor- 
nia; Sen. Robert Packwood (R-Ore.), 
Reps. William Clay (D-Mo.) and 
Esteban Torres (D-Calif.); President 
Robert A. Georgine of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department; Robert McCormick of the 
National Constructors Association and 
Peterson Zah of the Navajo Nation. 

Actress Pamela Reed, daughter of the 
late LIUNA secretary-treasurer Vernon 
Reed, evoked tears and received a stan- 
ding ovation from delegates in reminis- 
cing about union activities she shared 
with her father. 


AIW elects new officers, considers union restructuring 


Pittsburgh 

D elegates to the Allied Industrial 
Worker’s 28th convention elected 
three new top officers and voted to 
create a restructuring commission to 
study “all aspects” of the union and 
make recommendations to the 1993 
convention. 

Nick Serraglio, secretary-treasurer 
since 1989, was elected president to 
succeed Dominick D’Ambrosio, who 
announced his retirement at the open- 
ing of the convention after holding the 
union’s top post for 16 years. 

Keith Kirchner, an international 
representative from Milwaukee, was 
elected secretary-treasurer. And Fred 
Norris, a local union president from 
Ecorse, Mich., was elected interna- 
tional board member at-large. 

The restructuring commission was 
mandated to propose necessary con- 
stitutional changes for the next AIW 
convention. It would study all levels of 
the union to make services more effi- 
cient and economical, as well as to ex- 


plore possible mergers with other inter- 
national unions. 

The commission is composed of all 
nine executive board members and a 
delegate and alternate from each of the 
six AIW regions. Its formation was pro- 
posed in a resolution that addressed the 
problems of a 15 percent membership 
decline over the last two years stem- 
ming from layoffs and plant closings. 

Serraglio, 66, has been an AIW 
member since the early 1940s. He 
became president of a Cleveland local 
at age 20 and had been a regional direc- 
tor of the union for 18 years. 

Kirchner, 43, had been a regional 
director based in Milwaukee for 15 
years. Norris, 46, has been president of 
AIW Local 616 in Ecorse for 14 years. 
He defeated incumbent at-large board 
member Mary Gildea. 

In a tribute to D’Ambrosio, delegates 
drafted a resolution that name the 
union’s scholarship after him. 

The convention called on Congress to 
establish a national health care system 


patterned after Canada’s single-payer 
program and urged the Senate to pass 
S. 55, the Workplace Fairness Bill, 
which would prohibit the hiring of 
“permanent replacements” for strikers. 

In other resolutions, delegates called 
for stepping up organizing efforts at 
new plants; assuring that political can- 
didates to support the AIW’s legislative 
agenda; continuing alternative strategies 
such as in-plant movements and cor- 
porate campaigns; and actively suppor- 
ting changes in U.S. trade policy to pro- 
tect American jobs. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told delegates that 
the massive turnout of trade unionists 
and allies at the Aug. 31 Solidarity Day 
demonstration clearly underscored a 
message for Congress to pass labor’s 
legislative agenda. 

President Lynn Williams of the 
Steelworkers decried the destructive ef- 
forts of American employers to develop 
a low- wage social order. He said it is 
the wrong approach to compete with 



President Nick Serraglio 


other major industrialized countries that 
rely on high-wage economics and a 
well-educated work force. 



Labor panel passes job training reform legislation 


By Candice Johnson 

W ith evidence mounting that the na- 
tion’s job training program is not 
making the grade, the House Education 
and Labor Committee approved an 
amendment to reform the Job Training 
Partnership Act. 

Based on reviews by the General Ac- 
counting Office and congressional 
testimony, the committee voted changes 
to JTPA to ensure that black and white 
female participants are treated the same 
as men and to expand funding for youth 
employment services. The committee 
also made JTPA participants eligible for 
jobs in clean-up and humanitarian relief 
after natural disasters. 

JTPA “is vulnerable to waste, abuse 
and mismanagement’ ’ because of inade- 
quate federal and state monitoring and 
guidance, a GAO investigation found. 

A GAO review of 227 local JTPA 
programs in 16 states also found that 
white participants were more likely to 
receive classroom instruction and on- 
the-job training than black participants, 
who were more often referred to job 
search assistance. 

Women received more classroom 
training than men, but often were 
trained for lower wage occupations, the 
report noted. 

GAO had outlined those findings 
before the House subcommittee on 
employment and housing, but added 
that the difference in training “does not 
mean that equal opportunity laws have 
been violated” by the local programs. 
Those findings sparked legislators to 
draft the amendment — H.R. 3033 — 
and to ensure that participants receive 
comparable levels of service. 


In its review of JTPA oversight, 
GAO found exessive on-the-job train- 
ing contracts for lower-skill jobs at 
nearly all the sites reviewed, with the 
program operating more as a subsidy to 
local employers than a real training op- 
portunity for workers, the agency 
noted. 

Other serious shortcomings included 
the underreporting and misclassification 
of administrative costs and improper 
spending on program administration, 


which siphoned off dollars that could 
have been used for job training. 

Under JTPA, more than 600 local 
programs provide employment and 
training services to young and adult 
workers, primarily through contracts 
with such community organizations as 
trade schools and community colleges. 
Classroom training, basic education 
skills, on-the-job training, work ex- 
perience and job search assistance are 
the most common training activities. 

A minimum of 70 percent of JTPA 
funds must be spent on actual training, 
with administrative costs limited to 15 
percent. 

The GAO’s oversight review looked 
at 12 local programs, or service deliv- 
ery areas, in six states and did not in- 
clude for review those service delivery 


areas with known problems, earlier 
identified by the Labor Department’s 
Inspector General. 

But the results revealed a troubled 
program that too often is cheating those 
persons seeking real job training oppor- 
tunities by limiting funds available for 
real training or wasting dollars on ex- 
cessive on-the-job training. 

The study also highlighted a lack of 
guidance from the U.S. Labor Depart- 
ment on key issues, particularly those 


uncovered earlier by both the GAO and 
the Department’s own inspector gen- 
eral. 

At 11 of the 12 surveyed sites, nearly 
three-fourths of the on-the-job training 
contracts for lower-skill jobs — such as 
dishwasher, hotel maid, car wash atten- 
dant and fast-food worker — exceeded 
the training period recommended by the 
Labor Department, which is 30 or 
fewer days. 

Some 558 OJT contracts were ar- 
ranged by the local programs reviewed; 
407 exceeded the Labor Department’s 
suggested training times at an excess 
cost of $250,000, the survey found. 

On average, a worker might spend 65 
days in an OJT program for hotel maids 
or meat wrappers, 45 days to learn to 
become a fast-food worker and 129 


days, or more than six months, in OJT 
to become a car wash attendant. 

At nine of the programs reviewed, 
persons were placed in OJT programs 
despite years of experience in the oc- 
cupation for which they were being 
“trained.” A tool and die worker with 
12 years’ experience underwent five 
months of OJT, while a custodian who 
had worked for 19 years was given 
three months’ training. 

And in some instances, OJT contracts 
were used to subsidize the wages of 
workers already on the job, and to pay 
for training normally provided by the 
employer. While the practice is not per- 
vasive, GAO believes “that using OJT 
to subsidize a current employee’s wages 
is an abuse of the program and should 
not be tolerated,” the report stated. 

The GAO also found significant er- 
rors in the reporting of administrative 
expenditures, ranging from 10 percent 
at one local program to 66 percent at 
another, despite JTPA regulations that 
outline how costs should be charged. 

In some programs, salaries of man- 
agers or directors were wrongly 
charged as training costs. Five states 
permitted local programs to charge 
employment-generating activities, such 
as labor market studies and skill pro- 
files, to a support service category 
rather than to administrative costs as the 
Labor Department has stressed. 

As a rule, mismanagement and other 
program shortcomings were not discov- 
ered by either the required biannual 
audits or state monitoring, the GAO 
report said, stressing the need for more 
specific instructions and guidance from 
the Labor Department. 


Studies found that JTPA “is vulnerable to waste, 
abuse and mismanagement ” because of inadequate 
federal and state monitoring. The program sometimes 
operates more as a subsidy to local employers than as 
a real training opportunity for workers. 


APRI seeks coalition for economic justice 


By James B. Parks 
Los Angeles 

T he A. Philip Randolph Institute will 
play a key role in turning the tide of 
anti-labor policies of the Bush ad- 
ministration, delegates to the APRI an- 
nual convention were told. 

Meeting under the theme, “Building 
Justice, Quality and Progress in Amer- 
ica,” the delegates heard an array of 
speakers call for a multiracial coalition 
for economic justice in America. 

“With the notable exception of the 
American labor movement, there has 
been no effective sustained response to 
the continuing Reagan-Bush right-wing 
attack on our coalition and our goals, ’ ’ 
said APRI President Norman A. Hill in 
his keynote address. 

“Instead, we have suffered from a 
leadership vacuum and from the failure 
of many liberals and the U.S. Congress 
to respond effectively to the racial 
politics of the right wing,” he said. 

On the other hand, Solidarity Day 
1991 was “great evidence of a multi- 
racial coalition for economic justice in 
America,” Hill said. “Labor’s al- 
lies . . . marched alongside our trade 
union brothers and sisters. We gave 
proud voice that day to the aspirations 
and dreams of the working women and 
men of our land.” 

One of APRI’s main goals, Hill said, 
is to monitor elected officials and lobby 
them to support the labor agenda and 
then to send a message that “if you 
forget us, we will make Election Day 
your day of reckoning and let you know 
what it’s like to be unemployed.” 
Hill called for a new commitment to 
the principles of the “Freedom 
Budget” prepared 25 years ago by the 
institute’s founders, AFL-CIO Vice 
President A. Philip Randolph and 
Bayard Rustin. The budget had among 
its goals a full employment economy 


and decent wages for working Ameri- 
cans. APRI will update the budget for 
1992, he said. 

Saying that full employment is an 
“economic mirage,” Bricklayers Presi- 
dent John Joyce called for an economic 
bill of rights that would guarantee food, 
housing, health care and employment 
for all Americans. 

The events in Eastern and Central 
Europe show that people will rally 
around the principle of democracy, 
Joyce said. The political process in 
America must be changed so that peo- 
ple who are affected by economic deci- 
sions have a say in them. 

Ken Young, executive assistant to 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
told the convention that Solidarity Day 
1991 showed labor’s enemies they can- 
not separate or divide the movement. 
He also commended the APRI and civil 
rights organizations for having “the 
guts to take a stand” against the 
nomination of Clarence Thomas to the 
U.S. Supreme Court. 

Young assailed President Bush’s 
economic policies, saying “economic 
advantage for the few ... is the driving 
force” of the administration’s interna- 
tional trade policy. Referring to the 
tragic Imperial Chicken fire, Young 
said an “unregulated free market leads 
to the gutting of OSHA laws and lock- 
ed fire doors in North Carolina.” 

One highlight of the conference was 
the two-day workshop on redistricting. 
Panelists from various political action 
groups discussed current redistricting 
strategies and their political implica- 
tions. The panel was chaired by Brooks 
Sunkett, vice president of the Com- 
munications Workers, and included 
John Dean, constituency liaison for the 
Democratic National Committee; Tony 
Harrison, a political consultant; and 
Judith Sanders, political action director 


of the Mexican-American Legal 
Defense and Education Fund. 

Another panelist was Sonya Jarvis, 
executive director of the National Coali- 
tion for Black Voter Participation, a 
40-member organization that includes 
the AFL-CIO, APRI and the Coalition 
of Black Trade Unionists. The group 
promotes voter registration and educa- 
tion about the political process. 

The delegates also took part in 
workshops on recruiting youth 
members and senior members, media 
and communications, labor in the 
schools, community services, organiz- 
ing and international affairs. 

Other speakers included Edgar Rom- 
ney, executive vice president of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers; William 
Stodghill, vice president of the Service 
Employees; Joseph Shantz, the AFL- 
CIO ’s director of organization and field 
services; John Henning, executive sec- 
retary-treasurer of the California State 
AFL-CIO; William R. Robertson, ex- 
ecutive secretary-treasurer of the Los 
Angeles AFL-CIO; David Sickler, di- 
rector of AFL-CIO Region VI; Rep. 
Julian Dixon (D-Calif.); Democratic 
National Committee Chairman Ron 
Brown and Professor Charles Hamilton 
of Columbia University. 

A student conference sponsored by 
APRI and Frontlash was held in con- 
junction with the APRI convention. The 
students attending the conference heard 
special presentations by James An- 
drews, secretary-treasurer of the North 
Carolina AFL-CIO and Green Lewis, 
assistant director of the AFL-CIO ’s 
Organization and Field Services 
Department. 

Students also participated in 
workshops on racism on campus, the 
labor movement and civil rights, coali- 
tions with labor on campus and why 
workers need unions. 


Unit of 1,800 
selects UFCW 

Liberal, Kan. 

T he Food and Commercial Work- 
ers were elected to represent 
some 1,800 meat-packing workers 
at National Beef Packing Co., the 
largest organizing victory in the 
packing-house industry over the 
past decade, the union said. 

The workers — about three- 
quarters of whom are Southeast 
Asian or Hispanic immigrants — 
voted 863 to 671 for the UFCW in 
a National Labor Relations Board 
election. 

Phil Immesote, vice president of 
the UFCW’s food processing, 
packing and manufacturing divi- 
sion, said the major concern at Na- 
tional Beef was worker safety, 
although “benefits are always an 
issue in organizing campaigns.” 
In the early days of the cam- 
paign, he said, three workers died 
from exposure to toxic fumes in a 
“blood tank.” The Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration 
now is investigating those deaths. 

Other campaign issues were 
health care coverage, job security 
and speed-ups. 

During the six-month organizing 
drive, UFCW members from 
plants as close as Dodge City, 
Kan., and as far away as Texas 
made the trip to Liberal to talk to 
workers about the benefits of union 
representation, while Asian and 
Hispanic organizers came from 
other campaigns to meet with the 
immigrant workers. 

The victory margin of more than 
200 votes was a dramatic tur- 
naround from the vote against the 
union in 1976. 




NYNEX ‘grow together’ 


Accord will 

Continued from Page 1 

goals and ideals of each other, we can 
turn the corner and make positive gains 
that are good for the workers and fair 
for the company,” CWA President 
Morton Bahr said. 

Bahr applauded NYNEX chief ex- 
ecutive officer Bill Ferguson for realiz- 
ing that a labor-management partner- 
ship can make “NYNEX a standout in 
the increasingly competitive telecom- 
munications industry . ’ ’ 

The settlement demonstrates that 
“when strong, profitable telecom- 
munications companies deal fairly with 
their employees, it is to the benefit of 
everyone involved,” he said. 

IBEW President John J. Barry called 

IBT wins one 
in long war 
with Ovemite 

By James B. Parks 

A fter nine years of legal wrangling, 
the Teamsters are preparing for con- 
tract talks — the next battle in a long 
war with Overnite Transportation 
Co. — following an appeals court rul- 
ing that the company was guilty of un- 
fair labor practices. 

“We applaud the court’s decision. 
This is the first good news we’ve had 
out of Overnite,” said Louis Richard, 
a general organizer for the IBT. “But 
we just won the skirmish; the real war 
is yet to come.” 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
7th Circuit last month enforced a 
bargaining order by the National Labor 
Relations Board after ruling that Over- 
nite, one of the last major unorganized 
cartage companies, violated federal 
labor law by interfering in a 1982 IBT 
organizing campaign at its Bedford 
Park, 111., terminal. The company has 
been refusing to bargain since — ignor- 
ing NLRB findings or appealing them 
to the federal courts. 

The ruling will force Overnite to 
bargain with IBT Local 705, Richard 
said, but it will not change the com- 
pany’s mind about unions. 

Richard said the length of the case 
will make it more difficult to organize 
the workers at Ovemite. Anti-union 
companies like Overnite use the legal 
process to stymie organizing and use the 
extended time span between filing an 
unfair labor practice charge and final 
resolution to weaken the union’s 
chances of winning. 

“The shifty labor management at- 
torneys know full well they can drag it 
out if they want to” for years, Richard 
said. During that time they trim the pro- 
union workers off the payroll by firing 
them or forcing them out. ‘ ‘By die time 
the court says ‘OK,’ you have a new 
group of workers. They deplete your 
unit.” 

The company never intended to bar- 
gain with the union and through its 
behavior “was making good on a prom- 
ise never to cooperate with the union,” 
the court said. 

According to court documents, the 
union and the company met six times 
in unsuccessful attempts to agree on a 
contract. The company remained in- 
transigent, agreeing only to policies in 
effect at unorganized terminals. 

The union made several concessions 
and was ready to accept the company’s 
counterproposal with two modifica- 
tions — requiring overtime pay and in- 
stituting the union’s health and welfare 
proposal. When the company refused, 
the union pursued the NLRB filing. 


help unions, 

the settlement “a pleasant contrast to 
what took place in 1989. ’ ’ He noted that 
following the strike, union and com- 
pany representatives met to “open a 
dialogue that could help prevent a 
recurrence” of that dispute. 

The unions set up committees to meet 
regularly with company officials and 
“to do what we’re supposed to do — 
communicate,” Barry said. As a result, 
“we achieved something unprecedented 
with NYNEX and hope to continue this 
harmony through better communica- 
tion,” he added. 

Bahr said the agreement with 
NYNEX “represents a major leap for- 
ward” in the kind of “contract terms 
and labor relations policies we are 



Iowans vent anger 
at governor’s veto 

Waterloo, Iowa 

D elegates to the Iowa AFL-CIO con- 
vention vented their anger at 
Republican Gov. Terry E. Bransted’s 
attacks on collective bargaining. 

Labor has filed suit challenging 
Bransted’s veto of an appropriations bill 
that would fund a collective bargaining 
agreement for state workers. 

Speaker after speaker at the conven- 
tion, held Aug. 20-22, assailed the 
governor’s stance, and a resolution to 
impeach him was introduced and refer- 
red to the executive board for consid- 
eration. 

In other convention action, the per 
capita was raised from 89 cents to 93 
cents, and Cathy Cody was elected 
auditor. 

AFL-CIO Legislative Director 
Robert McGlotten briefed the delegates 
on the federation’s efforts for national 
health care reform and Senate enact- 
ment of S. 55, the Workplace Fairness 
Bill, which bans the “permanent 
replacement” of striking workers. 

Rep. David R. Nagle (D-Iowa) also 
addressed the convention. Nagle played 
a pivotal role in the 247-182 passage of 
H.R. 5, the House version of the 
Workplace Fairness Bill. 

Education high 
on R.I.’s agenda 

Providence, R.I. 

M ore than 500 delegates attended the 
Rhode Island AFL-CIO conven- 
tion, where they re-elected officers and 
adopted a variety of resolutions. 

Edward J. McElroy Jr., president, 
and George Nee, secretary-treasurer, 
were re-elected by unanimous vote. 
McElroy has been president since 1977 
while Nee was elected to his first full 
term after replacing James F. Kiley in 
March 1991, when Kiley retired. 

The delegates also adopted resolu- 
tions on health care and education 
reform and urged increased support of 
the United Way campaign. 

The urgency of health care reform 
was stressed by Ira Magaziner, co- 
author of “America’s Choice: High 
Skills, Low Wages,” a report urging 
changes in American education and job 
training. He said health care would 
become increasingly problematic as the 
American population ages. 


demanding throughout the industry.” 
CWA has been pressing for “wall- 
to-wall” union recognition, with 
employers recognizing the union 
throughout their companies and sub- 
sidiaries. Companies that deal with the 
union in a partnership will “find the 
union most cooperative,” he said. 

At a New York news conference, 
CWA Vice President Jan Pierce, IBEW 
Local 2222 business manager Myles 
Clavey and NYNEX Vice President Jim 
Dowdall agreed that the settlement 
promised the beginning of a new rela- 
tionship and “increased union- 
management cooperation and trust.” 
Pierce, who estimated that some 
10,000 NYNEX workers could become 

North Dakota votes 
per capita increase 

Jamestown, N.D. 

A 5-cent increase in the per capita, to 
85 cents per member per month, and 
several constitutional changes were 
voted by delegates to the North Dakota 
AFL-CIO convention Sept. 19-21. 

Delegates amended the constitution to 
require statewide councils to have a 
minimum of 30 percent of that council’s 
local unions as members in order to 
affiliate with the state federation. 
Another constitutional change, reflect- 
ing the national AFL-CIO recommen- 
dation, would allow delegates and af- 
filiates access to the delegate list prior 
to conventions. 

Elected as vice president, filling an 
open seat for District V, was Jan Miller; 
all other officers, including President 
David Kemnitz and Secretary-Treasurer 
Myron Yantzer, were re-elected with- 
out opposition. 

Addressing the convention were: 
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.); Rep. 
Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.); state Labor 
Commissioner Craig Hagen and Treas- 
urer Bob Hanson; Area COPE Direc- 
tor Randy Kiser; and Eli Cohen-Kagen, 
an attache from the Embassy of Israel. 

Delegates also approved resolutions 
calling for national health care reform, 
workplace fairness and in support of a 
higher minimum wage for those busi- 
nesses using the state’s economic 
development loan fund. 

Washington AFL-CIO 
scores labor board 

Everett, Wash. 

D elegates attending the Washington 
AFL-CIO convention urged an in- 
vestigation of the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board. 

If it is uncovered that the board has 
failed to enforce labor law and its in- 
tent, the board should be dissolved, the 
delegates said. 

The more than 500 delegates also en- 
dorsed Initiative 1 19, the “Death With 
Dignity” resolution that would allow 
patients not to continue medical care if 
they are terminally ill. 

Delegates also passed resolutions cal- 
ling for national health care reform, the 
right of privacy for workers engaged in 
any legal, off-duty activity and for a 
condemnation of fascist and racist hate 
groups. 

BCTD reaches pacts 
for 6,000 at TVA 

T he AFL-CIO Building and Construc- 
tion Trades Department has reached 
new agreements with the Tennessee 
Valley Authority covering 6,000 current 
maintenance workers and providing for 


union members, said the neutrality pro- 
vision would help both the company and 
union “grow together.” Following the 
strike, conversations between the parties 
sought “a new environment” for labor- 
management cooperation, he said. 

Bahr said he would recommend that 
the settlement be used as the basis for 
next year’s round of negotiations with 
other telecommunications employers 
and invited employers to begin negotia- 
tions. “Anyone who is interested in 
starting early will find a willing part- 
ner here,” he added. 

In an unrelated development, 
NYNEX announced it would reduce its 
management ranks by 1,875 jobs in an 
effort to streamline operations. 



an additional 11,000 project jobs over the 
decade. 


The contracts, signed by the Ten- 
nessee Valley Trades and Labor Coun- 
cil and the TVA, include a project 
maintenance agreement and a separate 
construction project agreement. 

Under the arrangement, TVA will no 
longer act as a contractor, but will 
follow the standard utility practice of 
hiring private contractors for major con- 
struction efforts. The agreement also 
provides for more flexibility in 
maintenance and modification work. 

BCTD President Robert A. Georgine 
said the agreements “will stabilize the 
TVA work force and will assure TVA a 
continuing supply of skilled and produc- 
tive workers.” 

Sturdivant inspects 
contaminated center 

G overnment Employees President 
John Sturdivant strapped on a 
respirator to inspect the clean-up efforts 
at a Social Security Payment Center in 
Richmond, Calif., where an outbreak 
of Type A Legionnaire’s disease occur- 
red recently. 

“AFGE will continue to monitor the 
progress of this clean-up effort to assure 
the health and safety of its members,” 
Sturdivant stated. “And you can be sure 
that we will closely monitor the future 
maintenance of this facility as well to 
eliminate further health risks.” 

AFGE Local 1122 President Dave 
Mack and other local union leaders at 
the payment center were successful in 
closing down the center after the death 
of an employee, who worked for a 
janitorial contractor. They discovered 
that two other janitors were stricken and 
in serious condition, and that 12 peo- 
ple were ill with pneumonia or other 
respiratory ailments. 

The 1,200 employees are on ad- 
ministrative leave until the cleanup and 
tests continue. 

Brommer, Peterson 
elected in Minnesota 

Minneapolis 

D elegates to the Minnesota AFL-CIO 
convention elected Bernard Brom- 
mer and William Peterson to their first 
four-year terms as president and 
secretary-treasurer, respectively. 

Brommer, formerly secretary- 
treasurer, was elected to replace Dan 
Gustafson as president when Gustafson 
retired in January. Peterson, president 
of the Minnesota State Building Trades 
Council, became secretary-treasurer at 
that time. 

Among more than 100 resolutions 
were calls for reform of the nation’s 
health care, education and workplace 
safety and health systems. 






AFA ratifies United pact; Pilots assist Delta deal 


By Candice Johnson 

A fter nearly five years without a pay 
raise, Flight Attendants ratified a 
new 54-month agreement with United 
Airlines that will raise pay from 18 per- 
cent to 21 percent over the contract 
term. 

Meanwhile, a new study warned that 
the deregulation of the airline industry 
could lead to the demise of other 
established carriers as they continue to 
sell off assets, declare bankruptcy or 
shut down — taking workers’ jobs with 
them and leaving passengers with fewer 
and more costly options in the future. 

Airline unions are pressing to hold 
their own in the often unfriendly skies, 
winning new contracts that limit “B- 
scale” categories and provide wage in- 
creases, while helping carriers maintain 
an economic edge. 

The Air Line Pilots at Delta Air Lines 
agreed to extend their contract by 16 
months, to help the carrier balance the 
“economic burden” of Delta’s $1.39 
billion purchase of Pan American 
World Airways assets. The contract, 
which now covers about 8,300 pilots, 
was extended from Sept. 1, 1993, to 
Jan. 1, 1995, and provides for a 2 per- 
cent wage increase over that period. 

Another 728 Pan Am pilots will 
transfer to Delta and will reach pay 
parity with their counterparts by 1995. 
The Transport Workers, representing 


some 28,000 mechanics and ground 
workers at American Airlines, reached 
a tentative agreement to extend their 
current contract for two years, to March 
1, 1995. Mail ratification ballots will be 
counted on Oct. 4. 

The Flight Attendants’ pact with 
United provides initial wage increases 
of 6 percent to 9 percent to the 16,000 
attendants, with 4 percent pay increases 
in each of the following three contract 
years. 

The contract, ratified by a 8,083 to 
4,224 vote, “proves that unity and 
solidarity can win any battle,” said 
AFA President Dee Maki. United atten- 
dants had been without an agreement 
since November 1987. 

Diane Robertson, who heads the 
AFA’s United master executive coun- 
cil, said negotiators were successful in 
rejecting more than 200 management 
demands for concessions. 

“Because of their solidarity and 
strength, United flight attendants have 
been able to make improvements in 
many areas of the contract” and reverse 
concessionary trends, she added. 

The AFA also won a year-long mora- 
torium on weight restrictions, ending 
monthly and annual “weigh-ins” for at- 
tendants, and gained additional rest 
time for AFA members on international 
flights. 

Other improvements include main- 


taining employer-paid health care 
premiums, enhanced dental and pre- 
scription drug benefits, pension gains 
and a streamlined grievance process. 

But the problems that have plagued 
the industry over the 13 years of 
deregulation are growing more serious, 
according to a study by the Transpor- 
tation Research Board, an arm of the 
National Academy of Sciences, which 
warned that the ongoing trend of con- 
solidation among large carriers could 
hurt passenger service and competition 
in the industry. 

The committee maintained that “if as 
many as five or six major carriers sur- 
vive the pending shakeout . . . pricing 
will remain competitive.” 

But industry analysts point out that 
airlines are continuing to fail, and that 
as few as three major carriers may sur- 
vive, not enough to sustain true com- 
petition, the report said. 

Of the 17 airlines formed following 
deregulation in 1978, 14 no longer fly. 
Eastern and Braniff airlines folded, 
while Pan Am is selling off assets and 
Continental Airlines operates under 
bankruptcy court protection. 

Trans World Airlines has defaulted 
on debts and has sold several assets, in- 
cluding trans- Atlantic routes, to other 
carriers. 

The National Academy of Sciences 
panel also recommended that the Fed- 


eral Aviation Administration step up 
staffing and inspection, especially in 
safety areas, a move that airline unions 
have sought since the first years of 
deregulation. 

While the committee maintained that 
competition and deregulation had 
“generated many benefits for con- 
sumers,” an earlier report by the Air 
Line Pilots, “Airlines in Crisis: 
Deregulation and Globalization in the 
1990s,” found just the opposite. 

The ALPA report noted that deregu- 
lation, rather than being the best way 
to increase competition and new car- 
riers, instead resulted in the market con- 
centration of just a few airlines and 
higher fares for many passengers. 

In another industry development, the 
National Institute for Occupational 
Safety and Health will determine 
whether to proceed with a study on 
possible reproductive problems related 
to flight attendants’ work environments. 

Investigations are slated for next year 
on two conditions faced by female flight 
attendants — exposure to ionizing 
radiation and disruption of the body’s 
metabolic and sleep patterns. 

Other factors that could affect 
reproductive health are attendants’ 
closed work environment and concen- 
trated exposure to chemicals and, on in- 
ternational flights, tobacco smoke and 
ergonomic concerns. 


Sheet Metal Workers granted 
rehearing on double-breasting 


AFL-CIO helps 
free Paraguay 
union leader 

Q uick action by the AFL-CIO helped 
win the release from detention of 
Victor Baez-Mosqueria, general secre- 
tary of the Paraguay United Workers 
Central (CUT). 

Baez was arrested Sept. 5 after CUT 
delegates defied a judge’s order to 
postpone their national convention. The 
judge, a holdover from the Stroessner 
dictatorship, issued the ruling after a 
defeated labor leader complained. 

An injunction was issued just hours 
before the convention was scheduled to 
begin. After delegates voted to defy the 
injunction, the judge issued an arrest 
order for Baez, who turned himself in. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
immediately sent a letter to Paraguayan 
President Andres Rodriquez protesting 
the arrest. He also sent William Doher- 
ty, executive director of the AFL-CIO ’s 
American Institute for Free Labor De- 
velopment, to Paraguay to seek Baez’s 
release. 

Doherty and AIFLD Southern Cone 
Director Agustin Torres-Lazo met with 
Paraguayan officials and held a press 
conference to protest the arrest on 
behalf of the AFL-CIO, the Interna- 
tional Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions and the InterAmerican Regional 
Organization of Workers. 



Calling the arrest a “tragic violation 
of human and trade union rights,” they 
asked that Baez be set free at once. 
“The world has almost left behind the 
period of government by force during 
which, and in the name of legality, they 
trampled upon the dignity of peoples 
and made a mockery of freedom and de- 
mocracy,” Doherty said. 

The resulting publicity and the threat 
of possible trade sanctions forced the 
government’s release of Baez Sept. 1 1 . 

After Baez’s release, CUT sent a let- 
ter to Kirkland thanking him for U.S. 
labor’s solidarity. The publicity 
generated by the AFL-CIO actions also 
strengthened the process of democrati- 
zation in Paraguay, the letter said. 


By James B. Parks 

T he Sheet Metal Workers will get 
another hearing before a federal ap- 
peals court over its effort to thwart the 
double-breasting practice of a Pitts- 
burgh contractor. 

The full Court of Appeals for the 3rd 
Circuit will hear the case, Limbach Co. 
vs. Sheet Metal Workers International 
Association, said Marsha S. Berzon, an 
AFL-CIO attorney. That move vacates 
the previous ruling by a three-judge 
panel that the union engaged in an il- 
legal secondary boycott, said Berzon, 
who argued the case. 

Limbach, a longtime union 
mechanical contracting firm, in 
1982-83 reorganized into a double- 
breasted operation, buying up non- 
union companies. Limbach was a mem- 
ber of multiemployer bargaining 
associations in each of the metropolitan 
areas where it operates. 

The Sheet Metal Workers claimed the 
non-union operations violated its labor 
agreement with Limbach and threatened 
to disclaim interest in representing Lim- 
bach employees when their contracts 
expired, which is allowed in the con- 
struction industry under the National 
Labor Relations Board’s 1987 ruling in 
the John Deklewa and Sons case. 

In 1986, three union locals did not 
renew expired collective bargaining 
agreements and issued disclaimers ter- 


minating their representation of Lim- 
bach employees. The company sued the 
international and locals alleging an il- 
legal secondary boycott, and received 
a $2 million judgment in a jury trial. 

The company’s lawyers claimed that 
when it disclaimed representation, the 
Sheet Metal Workers induced union 
members working for Limbach to quit, 
which made the action a strike. The key 
issues, Berzon said, were whether the 
double-breasted operation qualified as 
a separate company and, if it did, 
whether the action was an illegal strike. 
The appeals court panel said the com- 
panies were separate, but there was no 
strike. 

The panel did accept another Lim- 
bach argument that the disclaimer was 
coercion. The panel said the disclaimer 
is illegal if it is used to force a company 
to stop associating with a separate non- 
union company. 

But Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, in a 
stinging dissent, said Congress did not 
intend the secondary boycott provision 
to apply to a union’s efforts to prevent 
double-breasting. 

By applying the secondary boycott 
provision to an economic and bargain- 
ing strategy, the panel “has deprived 
unions of their traditional weapons and 
thereby shifted, perhaps irreparably, the 
balance between the parties in the con- 
struction industry,” Sloviter said. 


Oil company agrees to pay $5.8 million after fatal blast 


T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration and CITGO 
Petroleum Corp. have reached a settle- 
ment in the wake of last March’s fatal 
explosion and fire at a Louisiana 
facility. 

Six workers were killed at CITGO ’s 
Lake Charles, La., refinery March 3. 
OSHA investigators said the accident 
occurred when an improperly closed 
drainage valve allowed water to mix 
with superheated oil, causing a severe 


steam explosion and subsequent fire. 

CITGO agreed to pay a $5.8 million 
fine plus $200,000 to fund a planned 
government-conducted training pro- 
gram for workers in the petrochemical 
industry. The National Institute for Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health is to work 
with OSHA in developing the program. 

The firm also agreed to implement a 
corporate wide abatement program, in- 
cluding a process safety management 
plan. CITGO also has refineries in Cor- 


pus Christi, Texas, and Paulsboro, N.J. 

“The agreement is, in a small way, 
something affirmative for safety and 
health,” said Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO 
director of occupational safety and 
health. “We’d like to see more of that, 
but in a more meaningful and signifi- 
cant way.” 

Meanwhile, OSHA proposed penal- 
ties totaling $2.8 million against Union 
Carbide Chemicals and Plastic Co. Inc. 
following an investigation into an ex- 


plosion last spring that killed one 
worker and injured 32. 

OSHA said the company intentionally 
disregarded or continued operating with 
indifference to unsafe working condi- 
tions and cited three alleged serious 
violations of agency standards. 

The March 12 blast occurred at the 
company’s Port Lavaca, Texas, facil- 
ity, in equipment involved in the pro- 
duction of ethylene oxide, the company 
said after the explosion. 





Action urged to stop China prison-labor exports 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


FAST Secretary-Treasurer Jeffrey Fiedler (right) testifies on China forced labor. 
Former Chinese prisoner Harry Wu (left) and Asia Watch Washington Direc- 
tor Mike Jendrzejczyk also testified. 


By Michael Byrne 

C hina will not end its use of forced 
labor to make products for export to 
the United States until the U.S. govern- 
ment holds Chinese officials and U.S. 
businesses accountable for violations of 
the law, the AFL-CIO told a House sub- 
committee. 

Jeffrey Fiedler, secretary-treasurer of 
the AFL-CIO Food and Allied Service 
Trades Department, said he returned 
from China with further evidence that 
Chinese officials are participating in a 
scheme to use prison labor for export 
ventures. 

“It can now be stated unequivocally 
that the massive Chinese prison labor 
system has destroyed American jobs in 
the shoe, toy, garment, textile, hand- 
tool and electronics industries at a 
minimum,” Fiedler told the subcom- 
mittees on international economic 
policy and trade and human rights and 
international organizations of the House 
Foreign Affairs Committee. 

“American workers cannot compete 
with slave labor from China,” he said. 
“Unfortunately, the administration has 
done nothing to prevent the importation 
of prison-made products into the United 
States despite extensive knowledge 
about the systematic nature of the 
trade.” 

While calling on Congress to over- 
ride the expected veto by President 
Bush of legislation conditioning China’s 
most-favored-nation trade status, 
Fiedler also noted that U.S. companies 
must share some of the blame. 

“Information is readily available 
about American business people know- 
ingly purchasing prison-made products 
and witnessing the actual production in 
prison factories,” he said. 

Fiedler appeared before the subcom- 
mittee with former Chinese prisoner 
Harry Wu, whose profile of the Chinese 
gulag system was reported by the AFL- 
CIO News in November 1990. In his 
book, “Laogai: The Chinese Gulag,” 


Wu describes how the prison system 
uses “thought reform through forced 
labor” to “re-educate” dissidents. 

At great personal risk, Wu made two 
separate trips to China this year, pos- 
ing as an American businessman. He 
was solicited by a number of prison of- 
ficials eager to export goods made by 
prison laborers. 

At Qinghai Hide and Garment Fac- 
tory (Qinghai No. 2 Labor Reform 
Detachment), for example, Wu found 
police managers aware of the U.S. ban 
on prison labor-made goods but quite 
willing to do business, on condition that 
their goods be sold either through a 
state-run export-import company or a 
Hong Kong trading firm, to disguise 
their point of origin. 

Their Hong Kong partner, Winmate 
Trading Co. Ltd., which is buying $5.2 
million worth of leather from the 
Qinghai factory this year, assured Wu 


that the products would be of high qual- 
ity or the inmates would be “punish- 
ed” or “beaten,” in the words of a 
Winmate secretary. 

Fiedler, a board member of the 
Democracy for China Fund, accom- 
panied Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) 
and others on a human rights mission 
to China earlier this year. In a meeting 
with the director general of the Chinese 
trade ministry, he was told that prison 
factories fall under the jurisdiction of 
the ministry of justice. 

“‘We know there are prisons and 
next to the prisons are factories run by 
the sons and daughters of ministry of 
justice officials,’” Fiedler quoted the 
official as saying. This means “that the 
families of Communist Party, ministry 
of justice and probably public security 
bureau officials reap millions of dollars 
in income from the prison-made prod- 
ucts trade,” Fiedler said. 


This factional dispute within the 
Chinese government throws into ques- 
tion any formal agreement with the 
ministries of foreign affairs or trade 
“that does not fully involve and bind 
both the ministry of justice and the 
public security bureau,” Fieldler said. 

Fielder called for a memorandum of 
understanding with the Chinese that 
would include complete and unfettered 
access to the Chinese prison and deten- 
tion system by U.S. Customs officials, 
and an increase in the number of 
customs inspectors devoted to in- 
vestigating illegal exports. 

Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington 
director of Asia Watch, testified that his 
organization has evidence that a New 
York trading company raided by U.S. 
Customs agents Sept. 4 imports textiles 
made by prison labor. The company, 
First National Trading Co., Inc. was 
mentioned in a Chinese journal for 
labor-camp officials as having provid- 
ed knitting machines to one camp in ex- 
change for cotton cloth, he said. 

The company was among 23 com- 
panies raided on suspicion of bringing 
Chinese clothing into the United States 
illegally. But those raids were directed 
at fraud, Fiedler said, and not the prob- 
lem of prison labor. He urged Congress 
to investigate what the Bush administra- 
tion knows about the problem and why 
it hasn’t taken action. 

“Pursuing exclusively the Chinese 
side of the prison labor equation clouds 
the fact that, as a matter of policy, we 
should be prosecuting American citizen 
violators,” he said. “While the Chinese 
are producing the goods, American 
companies are buying them with the 
knowledge that it is illegal.” 

Fiedler also called for changes in the 
law to allow unions and other groups 
to sue violators and to beef up re- 
quirements for reporting by American 
firms seeking to do business in China. 
Americans who violate the law should 
be subject to criminal penalties, he said. 


Kirkland: Beware free-market zealotry 


Geneva 

C onfronting the problems of 
working people in Eastern and 
Central Europe is crucial to the 
ultimate success of democracy in 
former totalitarian states, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland said. 

While millions of people have dis- 
covered the lie of communism, it is 
up to those who cherish democracy 
to help prevent communism’s demise 
from giving way to the tyranny of an 
unregulated marketplace, which also 
reduces humans to the level of iso- 
lated survivors, Kirkland said. 

Kirkland, who chairs the Trade 
Union Advisory Committee of the 
Organization of Economic Coopera- 
tion and Development, addressed a 
conference on the special needs of 
Central and Eastern Europe with a 
warning that the people in these 
emerging democracies not fall into 
the trap of “replacing one misguided 
utopia with another.” 

The conference laid the ground- 
work for future cooperation between 
OECD and the International Labor 
Organization in developing operations 
in the individual countries to provide 
needed assistance, said Paul Barton of 
the AFL-CIO ’s European office. 

In warning against the free market 
Utopians, Kirkland said, “I have 
nothing against capital or markets as 
such — so long as they do not 
become the golden calves of idolatry. 
Trade unions emerged from them, 


learned to live with them and become 
the instruments through which they 
are humanized. 

“But they do have dangerous short- 
comings. Markets have no names, no 
faces and they cannot be elected to or 
removed from office. They do not 
know the difference between employ- 
ment and exploitation. They do not 
clean up after themselves, and they do 
not naturally promote the ideals of 
humanity and community. 

“Yet there are those Utopians out 
there who, from the comfort of their 
own regulated and semi-socialized 
economies, seem to relish the idea of 
imposing some sort of grand experi- 
ment in free market ideology on the 
newly emerging democracies.” 

Markets had that kind of open field 
in the United States in “the period 
that immediately preceded the Great 
Depression of the 1930s,” Kirkland 
said. “It was a time when markets 
ruled, and whatever business wanted 
it got. It had command of the state, 
for all practical political purposes.” 

But markets did not bring electri- 
city to the countryside, or pave the 
highways, or reforest, Kirkland said, 
‘ ‘It took the New Deal to do that. And 
the policies that emerged from the 
New Deal — in which government 
designed a social safety net and set out 
to repair the damage, ameliorate the 
harshness, restrain the abuses, and 
balance the deficiencies of the 
marketplace — are what set the stage 


for the greatest and most balanced 
period of growth and prosperity in the 
economic history of any nation,” he 
said. 

Kirkland noted that Western Euro- 
pean workers accepted great sacri- 
fices at the time of the Marshall Plan, 
but “had anyone tried to persuade 
them that things must get worse for 
them in order to get better eventual- 
ly, they might have refused. They 
might have accepted the overtures of 
Stalin and succumbed to the lure of 
the workers’ utopia through com- 
munist totalitarianism. 

“Yet this is precisely the message 
that the workers of the former com- 
munist dictatorships are receiving to- 
day — at home, from the Western 
democracies, and from the elites of 
international finance. 

“Let me point out that the message 
is Leninist. The idea that, in order to 
improve in the future, something has 
to be made worse to begin with is just 
another form of ‘revolutionary defeat- 
ism,’ or of Lenin’s dogma that dic- 
tatorship is the necessary prelude to 
the universal realm of freedom,” 
Kirkland said. 

“That is the doctrine that drives the 
relentless pursuit of utopia — wheth- 
er it is undertaken by the right or left 
or by free-market liberals. In any 
case, it is a dehumanizing, anti- 
democratic and dangerous exercise, 
and it’s in everyone’s best interest to 
steer clear of it.” 


ILGWU assists 
cheated workers 

San Francisco 

W orkers who were cheated out of 
more than $1 million in wages and 
overtime pay by the owners of nine area 
garment shops have received a 
$300,000 first payment through the ef- 
forts of the Ladies’ Garment Workers. 

When factory owners Raymond and 
Yee Nor Kong vanished — owing holi- 
day, overtime and vacation pay, as well 
as insurance premiums and bonuses to 
some 450 Asian immigrant workers — 
the ILGWU took up the cause of the 
non-union workers. 

The union filed claims with the state 
labor commissioner and called on the 
Labor Department to seek an injunction 
to ban the transport and sale of cloth- 
ing made in the nine Kong factories. 
Last month, a state superior court 
judge ordered that the $300,000 held by 
the state and federal labor departments 
be released to the workers as back 
wages. 

The ILGWU also arranged health 
care conversion coverage for the work- 
ers through the Chinese and Kaiser 
hospitals, after the hospitals canceled 
workers benefits because payments 
from the Kongs bounced. 

The more than 30 workers who en- 
trusted their savings or mortgaged their 
homes to the Kongs and who need in- 
dividual legal representation will also 
be helped, said Katie Quan, manager of 
the ILGWU ’s Pacific Northwest Re- 
gion. Workers gave the Kongs personal 
loans of more than $1.5 million. 





Trade deficit 
rises on flood 
of factory goods 

By John R. Oravec 

T he U.S. foreign trade deficit surged 
by $2. 1 billion in July to $5.9 billion, 
the Commerce Department reported, 
with the sharpest jolt coming with a tor- 
rent of manufactured goods imports. 

On a seasonally adjusted basis, im- 
ports jumped $2.4 billion from June to 
$41.2 billion, while exports grew only 
$0.3 billion to $35.3 billion. Before 
seasonal adjustment, the government 
data showed that exports actually drop- 
ped by $2. 1 billion and imports rose by 
$1.9 billion. That put the real merchan- 
dise trade shortfall at $7.7 billion. 

In manufactured goods, the nation 
posted a deficit of $7.7 billion for the 
month to match the overall shortfall. 
Exports fell by $2.2 billion in July to 
$26 billion while imports accelerated by 
$1.9 billion to $33.7 billion. 

During the first seven months of 
1991, the trade shortfall in manufac- 
tured goods amounted to $32.5 billion 
to exceed the overall merchandise trade 
deficit, AFL-CIO economist Mark A. 
Anderson pointed out. 

“If this deteriorating condition con- 
tinues, it will take a heavy toll in the 
employment of American workers as 
more U.S. factory jobs disappear,” 
Anderson warned. 

He noted that foreign trade analysts 
have determined that for each $1 billion 
loss in trade, 25,000 U.S. jobs are 
wiped out. 

The government said imports of con- 
sumer goods rose by $1.1 billion over 
the month. Other rising imports in- 
cluded autos, trucks, parts and engines, 
up $0.6 billion; capital goods, up $0.6 
billion, and industrial supplies and 
materials, up $0.3 billion. 

A pickup in exports came in industrial 
supplies and goods, up $0.4 billion; 
foods, feeds and beverages, up $0.2 
billion; vehicles, parts and engines, up 
$0.2 billion, while capital goods exports 
decreased $0.7 billion. 

On a country -by-country basis, the 
largest deficit continued with Japan, ris- 
ing to $3.8 billion. Deficits also 
widened with China, $1.3 billion; 
OPEC, $1.1 billion; Taiwan, $0.9 
billion; Canada, $0.5 billion; South 
Korea, $0.3 billion; and Hong Kong, 
$0.3 billion. 

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price In- 
dex for urban wage earners (CPI-W) 
edged up just 0.1 percent in August. 
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 
lower prices for many grocery items 
and lower utility charges partly offset 
higher costs of clothing, medical care, 
tuitions and books, and tobacco prod- 
ucts. 

Consumers paid higher prices for 
clothing, up 1.2 percent; health care, 
up 0.8 percent; gasoline, up 0.5 per- 
cent; and auto insurance, up 1.2 per- 
cent. BLS noted that auto insurance 
policy rates shot up 8.8 percent over the 
past 12 months. 

Workers recouped from a sharp 
downturn in real weekly earnings from 
a month earlier as the August rate rose 
1.1 percent. Despite the pickup, real 
earnings last month were still 0.6 per- 
cent below August 1990, BLS said. 



m • i ^ i • i 

The -^^-get^;richer.,. jggj 

Percent change in average family income before and after taxes - 1977 to 1992 (in constant dollars) 

1 40% | ^ ^ I | ^ ^ | +136% 


120 % 


® 100 % 


Before-tax income 


Family income groups and average 1992 incomes 


O 

co 

£ 

LU 

Z 

o 

o 


Source: Citizens for Tax Justice 


Middle-class pays more, gets less 


IRS makes it harder for poor 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

W hile middle-income families are 
paying more and more in federal 
taxes, they are getting back less and less 
in government services, a study by the 
Citizens for Tax Justice reveals. 

After-tax income for middle-income 
families grew by only 1 percent over 15 
years while the after-tax income of the 
richest 1 percent of the population in- 
creased 136 percent, according to the 
study, “Inequality and the Federal 
Budget Deficit.” 

“Instead of getting better roads, 
education and law enforcement for their 
tax dollars, families who earn between 
about $15,000 and $95,000 a year are 
footing the bill for more than a decade 
of tax breaks for the richest 1 percent 
of the population,” said Robert S. 
McIntyre, CTJ director and author of 
the study. 

During the past 10 years, the value 
of traditional federal programs has 
declined $130 billion. This means that 
the typical family now gets an average 
of $1,260 less from the government 
each year in such benefits, even as taxes 
on these families have escalated, the 
study pointed out. 

The study found that the richest 1 
million American families pay 30 per- 
cent less of their incomes in taxes than 
they would if the tax code had remained 
as progressive as it was in 1977. How- 
ever, one out of four middle-income 
families inherited a tax increase of $280 
per year. 

Among the programs that have suf- 
fered from fiscal 1980 to 1990 were the 
justice system and general government 
items, reduced by 42 percent; education 
and training, off 40 percent; and roads 
and transportation, down 21 percent. 

The most fundamental cause of the 
nation’s budget crisis is enormous and 
wholly unjustified tax cuts for the rich, 
said Sheldon Friedman, AFL-CIO 
economist. Meanwhile, he noted, there 
was nothing in the administration’s pro- 
posed budget to fight the recession or 
help the unemployed. 


A new two-page tax form, Schedule 
EIC, unveiled last month by the 
Internal Revenue Service, threatens 
to deny benefits to millions of work- 
ing parents eligible for the Earned 
Income Credit because of its “ex- 
treme complexity,” according to the 
Center on Budget and Policy Priori- 
ties. 

Beginning next year, working 
parents must fill out the form to 
receive the EIC, a tax benefit for 
families with children who will earn 
less than $21,250. Until now, fami- 
lies only needed to file a tax return, 
with no additional schedule attached, 
to receive their credit. If they didn’t 
calculate the credit themselves, IRS 
would do it for them. 

The problems created by the form 
result primarily from changes Con- 
gress and the White House made in 
the EIC last year. The legislation ex- 


Contrary to the supply-side claims of 
the 1980s, lower taxes on rich people 
and profitable corporations failed to 
lead to increased savings and in- 
vestments, the study reveals. Instead, 
national savings fell to record lows, and 
business investments grew by an anemic 
2.1 percent a year from 1981 to 1986. 
That is only a third the annual rate of 
increase over the previous five years. 

“Measured by any and every one of 
these goals, supply-side/trickle-down 
economics was a colossal flop,” McIn- 
tyre said. 

Absent the supply-side tax cuts, there 
would be an excess of $84 billion in 
1992 federal revenue for workers, the 
government and the unemployed who 
are seeking an extension in unemploy- 
ment benefits, the CTJ study said. If 
Congress had simply kept the tax 
system as progressive as it was, three- 
quarters of all families — all but the 


pands the EIC in several ways but 
it also requires the new Schedule 
EIC. 

The law increases the basic credit 
and provides a larger credit for 
families with two or more children. 
For tax year 1991, the maximum 
EIC payment for a family with one 
child will be $1,192. Another in- 
crease is scheduled between 1991 
and 1994. In addition, families can 
get a separate EIC supplemental 
credit of up to $428 if for 1991 they 
paid health insurance premiums for 
a child. 

While IRS can act on its own to 
make minor improvements in the 
form, major changes require con- 
gressional action. Rep. Dan Rosten- 
kowski (D-Ill.) has introduced 
legislation addressing the EIC, but 
its proponents do not anticipate 
widespread support. 


poorest fifth and the richest 5 per- 
cent — would pay lower federal taxes 
than they do now and the Treasury 
would collect almost $76 billion more 
annually in total taxes, the study 
concluded. 

McIntyre explained that the total 
1992 cost of the supply-side tax reduc- 
tions for the richest 1 million fami- 
lies — adding up the $84 billion tax cut 
that they will enjoy in 1992 and the $81 
billion in interest the government must 
pay on the debt incurred due to the 
rich’s tax cuts in previous years — 
comes to a staggering $164 billion. 
Meanwhile, the deficit is up by $143 
billion. 

“The challenge of the 1990s will be 
to reduce the federal deficit — that is, 
pay for the supply-side excesses of the 
1980s — while at the same time mak- 
ing government a better deal for 
average families,” McIntyre said. 




The United Textile Workers execu- 
tive committee has elected Ron 
Myslowka to fill the unexpired term of 
the union’s retiring president, Vernon 
A. Mustard. Myslowka, 49, began his 
career with UTW Local 155 in Wel- 
land, Ontario. He was named vice 
president and Canadian director in 
1985. The committee also elected Nor- 
man Boehm, Jr. to fill the term of 
retiring secretary-treasurer Ernest 
“Mickey” Milewski. Boehm, 52, vice 
president for the Midwest, joined UTW 
in 1972. He has served as president of 
Local 888. Both retirements are effec- 
tive Dec. 31. 

Members of the National Writers 
Union have voted to affiliate with the 
UAW. Voting by mail ballot, the tally 
came to 880-233. The 10-year-old 
NWU has about 3,000 members — 
mostly freelance writers — across the 
country, and contracts with such 
publications as Mother Jones, The Na- 
tion and The Columbia Journalism 
Review. 

Edward Wytkind has been named as 
executive director of the AFL-CIO 
Transportation Trades Department, 
replacing James J. Kennedy Jr. 
Wytkind, previously assistant executive 
director, has worked on legislative and 
political, strike/lockout, media and 
organizing projects and campaigns with 
several labor organizations. He is a 
member of the Food and Commercial 
Workers. 

A host of U.S. mayors marched with 
workers from their cities during 
Solidarity Day ’91, according to U.S. 
Mayor, the newspaper of the U.S. Con- 
ference of Mayors. In addition to 
Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, the 
U.S. conference president who spoke, 
the mayors were Michael A. Trafi- 
cante of Cranston, R.I., Alice K. Wolf 
of Cambridge, Mass., John Bullard of 
New Bedford, Mass., John Daniels of 
New Haven, Conn., and Walter Ken- 
ney of Richmond, Va. 

First-aid classes provided to Ladies’ 
Garment Workers staff just prior to the 
Aug. 31 Solidarity Day march in 
Washington proved to be good plan- 
ning, said George Bailey, director of 
the ILGWU Union Health Center 
Member Assistance Program. The 47 
ILGWU members were needed by 



CLASSES 

The George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies has added two new programs 
for the fall, scheduled for the week of 
Dec. 15-20. Advanced Organizing 
Techniques in the Construction In- 
dustry will draw on the most recent ex- 
perience in the field and on the new 
draft of the Building Trades Organizers 
Handbook. Craft of Negotiating will 
focus on bargaining tactics such as the 
timing and structure of counter- 
proposals, effective communication, 
and the use of mediation. 

VIDEOS 

The following new videos are 


those suffering from the extreme heat 
and humidity, cuts, bruises and other 
minor mishaps, Bailey said. 

AWARDS 

The A. Philip Randolph Institute’s 
three top awards went to a long-time 
labor activist and two political allies of 
working men and women. The awards 
were presented at the institute’s 1991 
convention in Los Angeles. Mary 
Crayton, director of AFL-CIO Region 
VII, received the Randolph Achieve- 
ment Award for her over 20 years of 
commitment and service to APRI and 
the labor movement. Former Rep. 
Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Calif.), co- 
author of the Humphrey-Hawkins full 
employment bill and former chairman 
of the House Education and Labor 
Committee, received the Bayard Rustin 
Humanitarian Award. Marian Wright 
Edelman, president of the Children’s 
Defense Fund, received the Ran- 
dolph/Rustin Freedom Award for her 
work in supporting the rights and 
welfare of children. The organization 
also gave special recognition awards to 
Ken Young, executive assistant to 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland; 
David Claxton, retired political affairs 
director of the Food and Commercial 
Workers and David Didier, a district 
director for the Teachers. 

The Rubber Workers and Bridge- 
stone/Firestone were presented the 
Federal Mediation and Conciliation 
Service Director’s Award for Excel- 
lence in Industrial Relations Sept. 12. 
Director Bernard E. DeLury praised 
“The Partnership for Involvement’’ 
program and the work of managers and 
union leaders at six company locations. 
Rubber Workers President Kenneth 
Coss and Bridgestone/Firestone Vice 
President Sam Torrence accepted the 
dual award. 

Gordon Parks, a director, author, 
composer and photographer, has been 
selected to receive the 1991 Paul 
Robeson Award from Actors’ Equity. 
The award honors those artists, writers 
and performers who, by their work and 
lives, show commitment to the strug- 
gle for justice and equality. Parks 
worked as a photographer for the Farm 
Service Administration and Life 
Magazine and wrote “The Learning 
Tree,’’ producing, directing and com- 
posing the music for the film adapta- 
tion. He also directed the film “Shaft” 
and has written poetry and fiction. 

Two groups with union connections 
are among the winners of the U.S. 
Department of Labor’s second annual 
LIFT awards. The Labor Investing For 
Tomorrow awards, announced Sept. 

1 1 , recognize exemplary achievement 
in designing and managing innovative 



Simpson animators treated 
like totally wrong , dude 

“I’m never going to sign with the 

I union ... if (employees) vote for 
it. I’m just not going to hire them. ” 

Gary Csupo, the partial owner of 
the animation company that draws 
“The Simpsons,” issued that chal- 
lenge in responding to a federal 
lawsuit and union drive that is accus- 
ing the employer, Klasky-Csupo, of 
unfair wage and hour practices. 

The suit was filed in Los Angeles 
U.S. District Court by former em- 
ployee Fred Gardner and current 
employee Nancy Kruse, who are de- 
manding a total of $30,000 in unpaid 
wages. According to the Motion Pic- 
ture Screen Cartoonists, Local 839 
of the Stage Employees, the Los 
Angeles company owes all of its 100 
animators back overtime pay. 

While discussing possible union- 
ization with Klasky-Csupo employ- 
ees, the IATSE local discovered a 
trend at the company of not paying 
overtime to animators who worked 
more than 40 hours a week. 

“The studio has been telling them 
that they’re salaried employees and 
exempt from wage laws,” Cartoon- 
ist Union Business Agent Steve 
Hulett told the Los Angeles Times. 

“They treat them like hourly em- 
ployees — they dock their wages 


if they’re off.” IATSE hopes that 
other Klasky-Csupo employees will 
join the suit. 

Csupo’s told the Times the com- 
pany is not required to pay overtime 
to workers because artists under 
federal labor law are exempt 
from the rights of regular hourly 
workers. 

“I can lay them off and I’ll take 
(the work) to Hungary. I’ll take it to 
Japan,” Csupo said, adding that he 
never would accept a union. 

Federal law — in theory, at 
least — prohibits the firing of em- 
ployees who wish to unionize and 
IATSE pointed out that the only ex- 
clusions apply to artists who create 
drawings from scratch. Animators 
draw from the stipulations created by 
someone else. 

“Isn’t it ironic that the TV show 
that plays to working-class values is 
illegally depriving its own workers 
of wages and will illegally prohibit 
the right to organize?” Hulett said. 
“I don’t think that Simpsons fans 
would like to see this kind of 
hypocrisy.” 

“The Simpsons” is owned by Fox 
Broadcasting and is produced by 
Gracie Films. 

-—Press Associates 


programs to improve the skills of 
American workers. AT&T Work and 
Family Programs, negotiated in a 1989 
contract with the Communications 
Workers and the Electrical Workers, 
was awarded for providing family sup- 
port, including a $10 million Family 
Care Development Fund that goes 


toward child and elder care services. 
The employee-owned Republic Engi- 
neered Steels Inc., Massillon, Ohio, 
also received an award for a new 
management system through a commit- 
tee consisting of representatives of the 
Steelworkers, salaried employees and 
management. 


available from the Labor Institute for 
Public Affairs, 815 16th St., N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20006. 

AFL-CIO Issues Update 
Teleconference is a two-hour version 
of the June 1 1 teleconference on 
Solidarity Day, Workplace Fairness and 
Health Care Reform. Each copy is $10. 
copy is $10. 

Working in the U.S.A. — Know 
Your Rights is an 1 1 -minute video that 
details antidiscrimination provisions of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Im- 
migration Reform and Control Act. 
Previously available in English and 
Spanish, it is available now in Creole 
as well. Each copy is $10. 

PUBLICATIONS 

A Comprehensive Housing Affor- 
dability Strategy is a five-year housing 
plan that each state is required to have 
under the National Affordable Housing 
Act of 1990. The Center for Communi- 
ty Change has produced CHAS: A 
Citizen’s Action Guide to enable 
groups concerned with the development 


of housing for low-income people to 
learn how to use CHAS as an organiz- 
ing tool and to be sure that money is 
directed toward programs that meet 
community needs. For copies, contact 
the Center for Community Change, 
1000 Wisconsin Ave. N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20007. 

TESTIMONY 

The following AFL-CIO testimony is 
available from the AFL-CIO Publica- 
tions and Materials Office, Room 209, 
815 16th Street N.W., Washington, 
D.C. 20006. 

Karen Ignagni, director, AFL-CIO 
Department of Employee Benefits, 
testified before the House Budget Com- 
mittee on National Health Care 
Reform and before the subcommittee 
on select revenue measures, House 
Ways and Means Committee, on the 
Conservatory of First Executive Life 
Insurance Company. (91-30 and 
91-33, respectively.) 


Calvin Johnson, AFL-CIO legislative 
representative, testified before the sub- 
committee on health, House Ways and 
Means Committee, on National Health 
Care Reform. (91-34.) 

William Cunningham, AFL-CIO 
legislative representative , testified 
before the subcommittee on select 
revenue measures, House Ways and 
Means Committee, on Enterprise 
Zones. (91-35.) 

James Ellenberger, assistant director, 
AFL-CIO Department of Occupational 
Safety and Health, testified before the 
subcommittee on health and safety, 
House Committee on Education and 
Labor, on The Indoor Air Quality Act 
of 1991 . (91-36.) 

Sheldon Friedman, AFL-CIO De- 
partment of Economic Research, 
testified before the subcommittee on 
trade, House Committee on Ways and 
Means, on the Operation and Effec- 
tiveness of the Trade Adjustment 
Assistance Program. (91-38.) 





Ravenswood ‘scab metal’ 
gets heave-ho by Strohs 

Steelworkers' campaign nettles company 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he Steelworkers’ campaign to inform consumers 
about the products produced by Ravenswood 
Aluminum Corp. has borne fruit with the announce- 
ment by the Stroh Brewery Co. that it would discon- 
tinue using RAC aluminum in its beer cans. 

Earlier this year, the Steelworkers conducted 
mass leafletting at major sports events around the 
country to increase public awareness of how RAC 
mistreated its workers, providing a list of companies 
that were using “scab scrap metal.” 

Some 1,700 members of Local 5668 in Ravens- 
wood, W. Va. , have been off the job for 1 1 months 
since RAC broke off contract negotiations, locked 
out and “permanently replaced” its workforce. 

“Top officials of the Stroh Brewery Company 
have informed us that they are taking action to 
discontinue using RAC aluminum in their beer 
cans,” said USWA Vice President George Becker. 
“We are pleased with their responsible action, and 
we urge all union members to take note of Stroh’s 
decision in support of our members. We hope other 
RAC customers will follow Stroh’s lead.” 
Meanwhile, the union has accused the company 
of using the court system and the media to create 
dirty smokescreens to cover up the real problems 
of its financial status, community image and refusal 
to bargain with its employees. 

On Sept. 9, RAC filed charges against the 
Steelworkers in a West Virginia court, saying the 
union had violated the state’s Uniform Trade Secrets 
Act by divulging information that the company 
claims came from a Price- Waterhouse corporate 
report. 

The union said that money concealed by a RAC 
officer was revealed in a divorce proceeding and 
that file was a matter of public record. The court 
has taken the charges under advisement and a deci- 
sion is not expected for several weeks. 

The company, which hired security forces and put 
up barbed wire around the plant before bringing in 
scabs, has stepped up its intimidation techniques, 
warning the West Virginia media and complaining 


to the Federal Communications Commission about 
information on the RAC situation distributed by the 
union. 

At issue is a 30-minute video produced by the 
Steelworkers that takes a vivid look at the situation 
at RAC since the lockout. When the USWA paid 
for time to air the video on a television station in 
Wheeling, the station offered RAC the same oppor- 
tunity, but the company refused. 

In a letter to the FCC, WTRF-TV General 
Manager David L.Trabert disputed RAC claims 
“that it demonstrated poor judgment in presenting, 
in as balanced a fashion as possible, an issue which 
is of such critical importance in this area.” 

Jim Bowen, director of USWA District 23, said 
the RAC suit follows a pattern of “bizarre charges” 
and “outrageous things” done by the company 
recently. 

“First, it falsely accused the union of unlawfully 
obtaining readily available public documents,” 
Bowen said. “Then it tried, and failed, to muzzle 
the news media when its chairman got caught in a 
big lie. Instead of engaging in this erratic behavior, 
the company should be sitting down at the bargain- 
ing table and negotiating a new contract for its 
workers.” 

Despite intervention by the Federal Mediation and 
Conciliation Service, the company has refused to 
negotiate. The National Labor Relations Board 
begins hearings this month on unfair labor practices 
complaints it has filed against the company as the 
result of the labor dispute. 

The NLRB charges that RAC violated the Na- 
tional Labor Relations Act by locking out its 
workers, bargaining in bad faith, unilaterally im- 
plementing its final contract offer on Nov. 29, 1990, 
in the absence of a lawful impasse in bargaining, 
and illegally replacing its workers. 

“It’s not surprising that an outlaw corporation, 
which has flouted all accepted standards of decent 
and legal conduct, continues to cynically misuse the 
legal system against its locked-out workers,” 
observed Bowen. 


Solidarity overcomes 
Decker union-busters 

M embers of Mine Workers Local 1972 
showed that solidarity works in a four- 
year struggle with Decker Coal Co. in Wyom- 
ing and Montana. 

The 243 members recently won more than 
$10 million in a National Labor Relations 
Board settlement that included back pay, an 
optional early retirement and a 10-year 
seniority plan added to their pensions. Decker 
also came to terms of a three-year contract 
with increases in wages and benefits and 
agreed to dismiss “permanent replacements” 
it had hired. 

The workers stood their ground in the face 
of years of surface bargaining by the com- 
pany, said local 1972 President Larry Deeds. 
“No one, including Decker, thought we could 
maintain our solidarity and withstand the 
economic violence set upon us,” he said. 

It took 13 months for the NLRB to issue 
a complaint against Decker for bad faith 
bargaining and illegally hiring “permanent 
replacements,” Deeds said. It was another 
two-and-a-half years before a ruling from an 
administrative law judge, which Decker ap- 
pealed to the NLRB and appealed again to the 
U.S. Court of Appeals. 

Deed said the battle was tough, but it would 
have been harder without support from the 
AFL-CIO unions, church groups and 
communities. 

“We as trade unionists are willing to go to 
extraordinary lengths to protect our families, 
America’s most sacred institution,” he said. 
“We are willing to sacrifice all, so that our 
children are able to lead a better life than we 
have had.” 

In a speech to the Wyoming AFL-CIO con- 
vention, Deeds quoted the Rev. Allen Bocek 
of South Africa in describing the Mine 
Workers resolve. “We will go before God to 
be judged, and God will say, ‘where are your 
wounds?’ And we will say, ‘We have no 
wounds. ’ And God will say, ‘Was nothing on 
Earth worth fighting for?’ ” 

“This has been our struggle of the past four 
years,” Deeds said. 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 21 
SEPTEMBER 30, 1991 


INSIDE 

NYNEX agreement 
a pact for future 

In a major turnaround two years after 
a bitter strike, the Communications 
Workers and Electrical Workers ten- 
tatively agree with NYNEX on a con- 
tract a year before the old pact expires. 

N.C. fire dramatizes 
need for OSHA reform 

In the aftermath of the Imperial Chicken 
plant fire, Congress has gotten serious 
about the Comprehensive Occupational 
Safety and Health Act Reform, which 
could have saved lives. 



AFL-CIO: Thomas 
disastrous for workers 

Clarence Thomas’s belief in employers’ 
unfettered ‘property rights’ and his at- 
tacks on government make him unfit to 
sit on the Supreme Court, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland testifies. 

Trouble in the air 
despite union gains 

The Flight Attendants ratify an agree- 
ment with United Airlines as unions 
struggle with the impact of deregula- 
tion — bankruptcies or shutdowns that 
put thousands out of work. 




Workers ’ role crucial 
in new democracies 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
warns against the emerging European 
democracies replacing communism 
with a new utopia to flow from an un- 
regulated marketplace. 

Middle-class bears 
tax burden , gets less 

Middle-income families pay more in 
federal taxes and foot the bill for tax 
breaks for the richest 1 percent of the 
nation’s population, according to a 
Citizens for Tax Justice study. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) it published tvtry two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


9 / 30/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 








VOLUME 36, NUMBER 22 


OCTOBER 14, 1991 


Health care 
crisis moves 
lawmakers 


CWA gains nearly 1,600 workers in hospital breakthrough 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Communications Workers have 
won the right to represent nearly 
1,600 workers at Mercy Hospital in 
Buffalo, N.Y., in two separate National 
Labor Relations Board elections. 

Following a 268-70 vote for the union 
by Mercy’s registered nurses in 
February, 1,220 more Mercy employ- 
ees chose CWA on a 747-247 vote Sept. 
26. The vote was conducted among ser- 
vice, maintenance, technical and 
clerical workers. 


Meanwhile, other AFL-CIO unions 
are carefully planning or launching 
hospital organizing campaigns since an 
April Supreme Court decision that 
made hospital organizing fairer for 
workers. Unions are now conducting 
educational organizing efforts among 
registered nurses, skilled maintenance 
workers, non-professional employees, 
support staff and other groups of 
hospital workers. 

The Supreme Court ruling let stand 
an NLRB rule establishing eight units 


for representation in acute-care facili- 
ties, providing some easing of a decade 
of delay and frustration caused by em- 
ployers’ ability to stall unit determina- 
tions in the absence of a clear-cut law. 

While the new rule should reduce 
hearing time, litigation and other delays 
associated with organizing petitions per- 
sist, hospital management is raising 
questions of unit placement, inclusion 
of workers within the unit and type of 
facility. 

CWA Organizing Director Larry 


Cohen said that, although the April 
1991 Supreme Court decision gave 
hospital workers certain organizing 
rights, the NLRB still is very slowly 
processing petitions for elections or 
recognition. 

In one CWA campaign involving reg- 
istered nurses, a petition for an election 
filed last March has not yet been ad- 
dressed by the board. In Marion, Ohio, 
workers at General Hospital have been 
waiting for three years for the NLRB 
Continued on Page 2 


Carrying their unpaid bills, hundreds of jobless workers 
rally outside the White House to urge President Bush 
to sign legislation extending unemployment benefits. 


Anne Martens/Page One Photography 

Bush had labeled the bill "garbage" and vowed to veto 
it. James Butler, president of AFSCME Local 420 in New 
York, addresses the demonstrators. 


Bush gives jobless 'back of his hand’ 

Labor presses to regain votes for veto override 


By John R. Oravec 

D ismissing pleas from jobless 
workers as well as labor and public 
interest groups, President Bush again 
blocked an extension of unemploy- 
ment compensation, setting up a 
showdown in Congress to override his 
veto of the legislation. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the federation “had hoped the 
president would have some compassion 
and show that he is the president of all 
the people. But instead he has given the 
back of his hand to the unemployed.’’ 
Kirkland urged the Congress to over- 
ride the veto. A Senate vote to override 
could come as early as Oct. 15. 
Unions and their allies launched a 


grass-roots campaign to override the 
veto even before the White House got 
the bill to compensate the long-term 
jobless for up to 20 more weeks. 

While the conference measure passed 
the House by a veto-proof 300-118 
margin, the Senate approved the bill 
65-35 — two votes short for a needed 
override. The grass-roots lobbying is 
focused on five Republican senators 
who supported the bill earlier, but 
switched on the final vote under White 
House pressure. The AFL-CIO planned 
radio ads asking for phone calls to 
senators in Missouri, Montana and 
Minnesota. 

Stressing that an extension of jobless 
benefits is long overdue, Kirkland had 


urged Bush to sign the bill and “begin 
the task of helping unemployed workers 
and their families.’’ 

Kirkland noted that “Congress has 
finally recognized the need to ease the 
suffering of the jobless’’ after 15 
months of economic recession and 
when more than 3 million workers have 
used up their unemployment compen- 
sation. 

Bush vetoed the measure despite 
Labor Department reports showing that 
more than 8 million Americans were on 
the unemployment rolls in September 
while only 2.8 million were drawing 
benefits. More than 5 million of the 
jobless received no benefits at all, while 
Continued on Page 14 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

M ounting evidence of the critical 
condition of the nation’s health care 
system has stirred increasing interest in 
comprehensive reform, as a spate of 
congressional hearings are studying 
various reform proposals. 

New government figures show the 
United States spent $666.2 billion on 
health care in 1990, an increase of 10.5 
percent from 1989. It marked the third 
consecutive year in which expenditures 
increased at a double-digit rate. Na- 
tional spending on health care ac- 
counted for 12.2 percent of gross na- 
tional product in 1990. 

“Congress should recognize that the 
most costly solution would be to do 
nothing at all,” said AF1-CIO Em- 
ployee Benefits Director Karen Ignagni. 
She testified Oct. 2 on national health 
care reform before the Joint Economic 
Committee. “Congress needs to move 
ahead before any more damage is done 
to American families,” she said. 

“As a nation, we cannot afford to 
continue down the current path,” she 
said. “We are spending too much, and 
too inefficiently, and garnering too lit- 
tle in return.” 

Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.), 
chairman of the subcommittee on edu- 
cation and health, echoed Ignagni: “If 
you look at the cost of not taking care 
of the elderly, of not taking care of the 
sick, and grossly underserving Amer- 
ica’s children prenatally up to age 10, 
you have to come down on the side of 
saving them. Pluralism is not worth that 
price tag.” 

Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS 
News Poll published Sept. 26 showed 
that health benefits are playing an in-' 
creasing role in job choice for American 
workers. The poll shows that Amer- 
icans are acutely aware of the need for 
reform. Increasing costs for health care 
Continued on Page 16 





Greyhound 
scabs drive up 
accident rate 



Striking casino workers protest outside the Frontier Hotel 
in Las Vegas over management's unfair labor practices 
while they worked without a contract for two years. 
Several hundred members of HERE Culinary Workers 
Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165, Teamsters Local 995 
and Operating Engineers Local 501 struck Sept. 22 


John LaVoie/HERE Local 226 

after the casino owners unilaterally implemented cuts 
wages, benefits and pensions. Police arrested 27 


in 


pickets, including flag-carrying Local 226 Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Jim Arnold the first day of the walkout. 
Another 98 pickets were arrested a few days later as 
strikebreaking replacements crossed their lines. 


Unions wage hospital organizing battles 


P ointing to a 60 percent increase in 
accidents by Greyhound Lines Inc. 
since the replacement of union drivers 
with poorly trained scabs, the 
Amalgamated Transit Union said a 
federal safety investigation is long 
overdue. 

“This is an ongoing problem that 
Greyhound has been living with since 
the strike began,” said ATU President 
James LaSala. “They’ve been hiring 
unqualified drivers, not training them 
properly and it’s about time a thorough 
investigation was done.” 

The Federal Highway Administration 
in August began an investigation into 
the carrier’s driving record and train- 
ing procedures, citing a rash of ac- 
cidents and passenger complaints. 

Some 6,300 ATU drivers and clerks 
struck Greyhound March 2, 1990, after 
contract negotiations broke down. The 
company filed for bankruptcy three 
months later. LaSala urged Greyhound 
“to negotiate the return of the qualified 
workers that built the industry in the 
first place.” 

Since the scabs started driving, one 
passenger has been killed and 12 injured 
in six separate crashes, according to 
published reports. The latest accident 
occurred Aug. 20 near Los Angeles, 
when a bus rear-ended a produce truck, 
injuring 20 people. 

“The higher accident rates come 
from not having well-trained, ex- 
perienced drivers,” said Joe Jaquay, 
ATU’s director of research. “Nineteen 
months’ experience doesn’t compare to 
the 20-30 years’ experience our drivers 
had. And they cut the initial training 
period from six weeks to 5-12 days, so 
the experience doesn’t help much if the 
drivers were trained wrong. . .” 
According to FHA statistics, Grey- 
hound said it logged 253 million miles 
in 1990, a 31 percent drop from 1989. 
But it had more accidents — 229 in 
1990 compared to 206 in 1989. The in- 
crease in accidents and the drop in miles 
means the accident rate per million 
miles jumped from .563 in 1989 to .905 
in 1990, Jaquay said. 

Another key statistic, Jaquay said, is 
that the average number of miles driven 
by each driver jumped 15 percent since 
the strike began. The average ATU 
driver drove an average of 61 ,000 miles 
in 1989, while the “replacement” 
drivers drove an average of 70,300 
miles in 1990, he said. 

ATU Local 1313 in Kansas City, 
Mo., has requested Greyhound’s acci- 
dent figures from the federal govern- 
ment under the Freedom of Information 
Act, but has not yet received them. 


Continued from Page 1 

to act on its petition, Cohen pointed out. 

“The administrative procedures of 
the NLRB still don’t give workers what 
the Supreme Court said they are entitled 
to — the right to organize,” Cohen 
said. Waiting three years for an elec- 
tion or some other board determination 
actually means no right to a union, he 
said. 

CWA now represents about 5,000 
health care workers in upstate New 
York, plus another 10,000 nationwide. 
The union is involved in organizing 
health care workers in Florida, Oregon, 
Washington State and other areas. 

Other AFL-CIO unions involved in 
campaigns include the Operating 
Engineers, Teachers, AFSCME, 
Service Employees, Teamsters, Food 
and Commercial Workers, Steel- 
workers, UAW, Retail, Wholesale and 
Department Store Union and others. 
The unaffiliated American Nurses 
Association is undertaking or has just 
completed campaigns in nine states. 

“There has been an increase in in- 
terest and organizing because health 
care workers continue to get caught in 


a squeeze,” Cohen added. “Most don’t 
have health care benefits themselves, 
and health care is a big issue for them, ’ ’ 
he added. 

The CWA campaign in Buffalo call- 
ed on workers to sign a petition, rather 
than authorization cards, to show their 
support for the union drive, CWA 
organizer Leslie Jackson said. This 
allowed union supporters to be more 
open in their efforts. 

But many unions are finding that they 
have to overcome workers’ fears of 
employer harassment and intimidation, 
and possibly, loss of their jobs. To 
counter these fears, unions are taking 
time to build effective committees to 
educate hospital workers of their rights 
and the union advantage. 

Between the April Supreme Court 
decision through June 30, some 58 new 
petitions for elections were filed, the 
NLRB said. Prior to the ruling, unions 
were winning about 55.4 percent of 
elections involving health care workers, 
the NLRB found in a 1990 survey. 

Of the 58 new petitions, the 
Operating Engineers have filed more 
than 20 for elections to represent skilled 


maintenance workers, and the union ex- 
pects to see interest continue to grow. 

The Teachers are developing a coor- 
dinated national organizing project 
focusing on registered nurses, other 
professionals and licensed practical 
nurses and technicians, and concen- 
trating in areas where the AFT has had 
success, national representative Richard 
Sanders said. 

“The most successful approach to 
organizing that we have found is a 
union-building, team concept that seems 
to appeal to health care professionals,” 
he said. 

AFSCME’s United Nurses of Amer- 
ica, which represents about 40,000 
nurses nationwide, has campaigns 
under way in Northern California, Ken- 
tucky, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, 
said UNA president Kathy Sackman. 

SEIU has campaigns underway in 
more than 20 hospitals in several states, 
among clerical workers, nurses and 
others. The union also just negotiated 
a first contract for 850 workers at 
Plattsburg, N.Y.’s Champlain Valley 
Hospital, following an election win last 
October. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 22 ®<s^§g^s >3 MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1991 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 



Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





UGMION 


Senate passes family leave bill 


By Mike Hall 

T he Senate overwhelmingly passed 
family and medical leave legislation 
by what is probably a veto-proof 
margin. 

The bill, S. 5, was supported by the 
AFL-CIO and passed by a comfortable 
65-32 margin, with three supporters of 
the bill — Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), 
Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) and David 
Pryor (D-Ark.) — not voting. Those 
three votes would give the Senate 
enough to override the threatened presi- 
dential veto, if Republican backers 
resist White House pressure to switch 
votes. 

The bill now goes to the House where 
similar legislation has been reported out 
of committee. The legislation enjoys 
wide support in the House and has 180 
cosponsors. Last year the House ap- 
proved a similar bill, 237-187, but fell 
short of overriding the president’s veto. 

The legislation requires employers to 
grant employees up to 12 weeks of un- 
paid leave for the birth or adoption of 
a child or the serious illness of either 
the employee or an immediate family 
member. 

President Bush has said he would 
veto a family leave bill, even though 
several recent polls show public support 
for such policies ranging from 70 to 
more than 80 percent. 

The Senate action came on a substi- 
tute offered by Sen. Christopher S. 
Bond (R-Mo.) and backed by the bill’s 


S tate AFL-CIOs are stepping up their 
efforts on behalf of S. 55, the Senate 
version of the Workplace Fairness Bill 
that passed the House by an overwhelm- 
ing 247-182 margin in June. 

State federation officials met in 
Washington Oct. 7 to discuss ways to in- 
crease personal contact between union 
members and their senators, including 
face-to-face meetings, letter-writing and 
post-card campaigns, town meetings and 
individual sessions. 

Plans were set for a national Leaflet 
Day on Oct. 25 to draw attention to the 
bill, which would outlaw the practice of 
hiring “permanent replacements” dur- 
ing a strike. 

Despite the overwhelming vote for 
the bill in the House, the fight must be 
staged all over again in the Senate, 
where a majority is not enough to win 
because of the Senate’s filibuster rule. 


original co-sponsor, Sen. Christopher 
J. Dodd (D-Conn.). Responding to 
business concerns, the substitute covers 
firms with 50 or more workers, but 
tightens some of the eligibility and 
reporting requirements for employees. 

“We think it does strike a critical 
balance between the concerns — legit- 
imate concerns — of business in this 
country and the demands and needs of 
families,” Dodd said. 

“The Senate’s action is encouraging 
for working families,” said AFL-CIO 
Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten. “But it’s a shame that the 
business community and the White 
House haven’t come to the same 
realization the Senate has — that work- 
ing Americans should not have to 
choose between their jobs and their 
families when a crisis occurs.” 

For example, the bill requires 
employees to provide 30-days notice, 
when possible, for foreseeable leaves 
such as births, adoptions or planned 
medical treatments. A medical cer- 
tificate is necessary to justify the need 
for the leave. 

The bill also exempts part-time 
workers who work less than 25 hours 
per week and “key employees,” those 
in the highest-paid 10 percent of the 
work force. 

During the floor debate, several 
senators denounced efforts by op- 
ponents to derail the legislation, even 
after the compromise. 


It takes 60 Senate votes to force 
“cloture,” or end of debate, against the 
expected filibuster that will be mounted 
in the Senate. 

Robert M. McGlotten, AFL-CIO leg- 
islative director, is asking members to 
take advantage of congressional recess 
for Columbus Day and Thanksgiving 
(Nov. 23-Dec. 1) to contact their 
senators at home. 

“At some point in December, the en- 
tire Congress will adjourn for the year 
and will not return until late January for 
the convening of the 1992 session,” 
McGlotten said. “These opportunities 
will allow our members to explain to 
those senators who remain uncommit- 
ted why they should vote for cloture and 
for final passage of the bill.” 

McGlotten said that, in the process of 
campaigning for the bill in the House, 
hometown trade unionists built up a 


“The simple fact is that opponents of 
this bill, especially business lobbyists, 
don’t want to see any changes which 
might make family leave workable. 
They are only concerned with its 
defeat,” Bond said. 

Opponents have charged, but never 
provided evidence, that the legislation 
would place heavy economic burdens 
on American businesses. But a General 
Accounting Office report estimated it 
would cost only about $5.30 per em- 
ployee per year. 

The lack of a leave policy, according 
to the GAO, cost the public about $8 
billion a year. 

When a worker loses his or her job 
due to a family crisis, not only are that 
worker’s taxes lost, but many times he 
or she must turn to unemployment 
benefits or welfare. 

Opponents argued that most Amer- 
ican firms have flexible policies tailored 
for their work forces, but a Chamber 
of Commerce study showed that 82 per- 
cent of employers provide no leave to 
care for sick children. 

Refuting another argument against 
the bill, the Families and Work Institute 
found that in Oregon, which recently 
adopted a similar law, about 91 percent 
of the companies said that law was not 
difficult to implement. That study 
covered four states with such laws and 
found that firms reported little trouble 
with the laws and little increase in their 
costs. 


solid start of 33 Senate co-sponsors of 
S. 55. McGlotten urged all trade union 
activists to contact senators who have 
not signed onto the bill. 

The co-sponsors are: Cranston of 
California, Wirth of Colorado, Dodd 
and Lieberman of Connecticut, Biden 
of Delaware, Fowler of Georgia, Akaka 
and Inouye of Hawaii, Simon of Illinois, 
Harkin of Iowa, Mikulski and Sarbanes 
of Maryland, Kennedy and Kerry of 
Massachusetts, Levin and Riegle of 
Michigan, Wellstone of Minnesota, 
Baucus of Montana, Bradley and 
Lautenberg of New Jersey, Moynihan of 
New York, Burdick of North Dakota, 
Metzenbaum (author of S.55) and Glenn 
of Ohio, Hatfield and Packwood of 
Oregon, Wofford of Pennsylvania, Pell 
of Rhode Island, Gore and Sasser of 
Tennessee, Adams of Washington and 
Byrd and Rockefeller of West Virginia. 




Capitol Digest 


T he AFL-CIO is urging members of 
the House to approve legislation that 
would force U.S. -owned “runaway” 
companies to pay corporate income 
taxes at the same rates as American- 
based firms. That “would end an incen- 
tive to place jobs out of the country,” 
said William Cunningham, an AFL- 
CIO legislative representative. 

The bill, H.R. 2889, would change 
tax laws that have encouraged hundreds 
of U.S. companies to close their 
American plants and open foreign 
manufacturing plants to export goods 
into the American market. 

“These runaway firms import goods 
into the U.S. economy and enjoy defer- 
ral of U.S. income taxes while often 
paying low foreign taxes and experi- 
encing little regulation and using cheap 
labor,” Cunningham told the House 
Ways and Means Committee. 

The runaway firms throw people out 
of work, Cunningham said, and as a 
result other domestic companies lose 
business. Their workers, in turn, lose 
jobs and wages. Federal, state and local 
governments end up suffering from the 
increased cost when taxpayers become 
tax users because of unemployment. 
In other action on Capitol Hill: 

REVENUE FOREGONE - Non- 
profit organizations, such as labor 
unions, churches and charities, gained 
a reprieve from possible massive postal 
rate hikes when House and Senate con- 
ferees reached agreement on the FY 
1992 Postal and Treasury appropria- 
tions bill. The measure restores many 
of the cuts in revenue foregone sought 
by the White House. The appropriation 
did not restore the full funding of 
previous levels and it raised third-class 
mail rates. But it did keep funds for 
second-class permits and third-class 
mailings for “letter size” items. A vote 
on the conference report is expected by 
the end of October. 

JTPA — The House, by an over- 
whelming 420-6 vote, passed AFL- 
ClO-backed changes in the Job Train- 
ing and Partnership Act. The changes 
ensure that female participants receive 
equal treatment in training and expand 
funding for youth employment services. 
The bill now goes to the Senate. 

PERFORMERS — Performing arts 
unions threw their support behind H.R. 
3048, which would modify the 1990 
Immigration Act. The bill retains the re- 
quirement that the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service consult with 
union representatives before approving 
requests to allow an employer to use 
non-immigrant alien artists. “All the 
artists and their unions ever wanted was 
a voice, not a veto,” Jack Golodner, 
president of the AFL-CIO ’s Depart- 
ment of Professional Employees told 
the House Judiciary Committee. The 
bill also calls for a General Accounting 
Office study of U.S. entertainment in- 
dustry employment practices as well as 
those of foreign countries that restrict 
American performers. 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO Legislative Director Robert M. McGlotten and In- meet with state AFL-CIO officials to discuss strategies 
dustrial Union Department President Howard Samuel to pass S. 55, the Workplace Fairness bill. 


Campaign for S. 55 percolates at grass roots 






High court lets stand ALPA judgment against Eastern 


Senate delays voting on Thomas nomination 


T he Senate delayed the vote on the 
Supreme Court nomination of 
Clarence Thomas one week to air a 
charge of sexual misconduct against 
the nominee. 

The new vote was scheduled for 
Tuesday, Oct. 15. 

The charge of misconduct against 
Thomas was made by a former aide, 
University of Oklahoma law pro- 
fessor Anita Hill. When originally 
approached by a Senate committee, 
Hill asked that the information re- 
main confidential. Judiciary Commit- 
tee members privately reviewed the 
allegations — and an FBI investiga- 


tion of the matter — before they 
voted 7-7 to send the Thomas 
nomination to the full Senate without 
a recommendation. The FBI 
reportedly reached no conclusion. 

The Senate approved the delay by 
unanimous consent, the same pro- 
cedure under which the vote was 
orginally set for Oct. 8. Further in- 
vestigation was expected as the com- 
mittee reopened the hearings, with 
Thomas, Hill and others scheduled to 
testily. 

Hill charges that, while she was 
working for Thomas at the Education 
Department’s civil rights office and 


the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, he made inappropriate 
sexual comments. 

His behavior created a hostile 
working environment for her, she 
said. 

Thomas denied the allegations in a 
sworn affidavit released during con- 
sideration by the Senate leadership on 
delaying the vote. 

Hill left government service in 
1983 to become a law professor at 
Oral Roberts University in her native 
Oklahoma before being hired in 1986 
by the University of Oklahoma, 
which has granted her tenure. 


By James B. Parks 

T he Air Line Pilots scored a major 
court victory against Eastern Airlines 
that could mean up to $75 million in 
back pay for former pilots of the 
defunct airline. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 8 
let stand a lower court ruling, in Eastern 
vs. Air Line Pilots Association, that the 
carrier wrongly refused to reinstate 
hundreds of returning striking pilots 
once the ALPA members ended their 
strike and offered to return to work. 

ALPA, in a statement applauding the 
decision, said it was “a significant vic- 
tory . . . against the union-busting strat- 
egy employed by Frank Lorenzo at 
Eastern.” 

ALPA said the company is liable for 
$25 million to $75 million in back pay 
to the former strikers. 

The amount of the liability depends 
on the outcome of other cases current- 
ly pending in federal court, the ALPA 
statement said. 

The lower court ruled the Railway 
Labor Act — which covers the air- 
lines — requires that a newly hired 
pilot must complete all pilot training 
and actually operate a revenue flight 
before he or she can become a “per- 
manent replacement” for a striking 
pilot. Therefore, the returning pilots 
should have been allowed to displace 
the strikebreakers who had not finished 
their training, the court said. 

The pilots had refused to fly for 


Eastern in March 1989 after the airline 
was struck by the Machinists. 

In another RLA case, the U.S. Court 
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled 
that a union member does not have the 
right to a rebate of that portion of union 
dues used for purposes other than col- 
lective bargaining and contract admin- 
istration. 

Reversing a lower court decision in 
Kidwell vs. Transportation Commun- 
ications International Union, the ap- 
peals court said the principles that allow 
non-union members who pay an agency 
fee to receive a rebate do not apply to 
union members. 


Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr., 
who wrote the opinion, said Congress 
intended to eliminate “free riders” by 
spreading the cost of collective bargain- 
ing among all employees in the bargain- 
ing unit. The act permits agency shops 
as a condition of employment, the court 
said, but union membership is not a 
condition of employment. 

Therefore, union membership is vol- 
untary, the court said, and “to find that 
a union may not collect money for po- 
litical activities from its members would 
curtail the political activities tradition- 
ally funded by voluntary union mem- 
bership ...” 


In other court action, the U.S. Su- 
preme Court: 

• Let stand a decision that the 
Teamsters must let its rank-and-file 
members elect national officers. The 
election is set for December. 

• Let stand and order that the Farm 
Workers pay $1.68 million to a Califor- 
nia grower for damage caused during 
the 1979 strike. 

• Let stand an appeals court ruling 
that bans the Federal Election Commis- 
sion from regulating voter guides, 
which list candidates’ positions on 
issues, but do not urge people to sup- 
port specific candidates. 


Hundreds rally to support 
‘replaced’ Holsum workers 



Chris Wallace/BCT 


About 350 people march in support of Holsum Baking workers who have been 
"permanently replaced" by strikebreakers. 


A bout 350 supporters rallied behind 
Phoenix-area Bakery, Confec- 
tionery and Tobacco Workers who were 
forced out and then “permanently 
replaced” at Holsum Bakery. 

The marchers also condemned the 
cutoff of health care benefits for 
Holsum retirees and urged Congress to 
pass strikebreaker legislation. 

“Why does George Bush work to 
break the bonds of oppression in the 
Soviet empire and in Poland while 
allowing the American workers to be 
shackled by unjust laws?” asked Gus 
Cruz, president of BCT Local 232. 
“Starting today, we must commit 
ourselves to getting Congress and 
George Bush to pass the bill that 
outlaws the use of scabs.” 

The bakers were forced out on strike 
in June when Holsum, Arizona’s largest 
baking company, refused to continue 
the federally insured defined benefit 
pension plan that was jointly run by 
labor and management, said Chris 
Wallace, BCT’s assistant director of 
research. Holsum’s final contract offer 


contained a new defined contribution 
plan that was not insured and was run 
by the company. 

When about 180 workers walked out, 
Holsum “permanently replaced” the 
strikers. 

The union, in an effort to regain the 
lost jobs, agreed Sept. 24 to return to 
work unconditionally and the workers 
ratified the company’s final offer on 
Sept. 26. 

But company officials have said the 
final offer was no longer on the table 
and made new demands including elim- 
inating premium wage for Sunday work 
and dropping the guarantee that workers 
would have 12 hours off between shifts. 

A top AFL-CIO legislative priority is 
Senate passage of S. 55, the Workplace 
Fairness bill, which along with the 
House-passed H.R. 5, would ban the 
“permanent replacement” of striking 
workers. 

Cruz exhorted the various unions 
represented in the rally — AFSCME, 
Postal Workers, Communications 
Workers, Musicians, Teamsters and 


Carpenters — to lobby for passage of 
the strikebreaker legislation. 

Other rally speakers included Charles 
R. Huggins, secretary-treasurer of the 
Arizona AFL-CIO, and R.T. Griffin, 
president of the Central Arizona Labor 
Council. 

Holsum has not agreed to hire back 
union members and has told the local 
there are no jobs available. The union 
is considering filing an unfair labor 
practices charge with the National 
Labor Relations Board if the company 


does not sign the contract or does not 
rehire union members as vacancies 
occur, Wallace said. 

The Holsum retirees received notice 
in September they would lose their 
medical coverage on Oct. 1. Calling it 
a “criminal act of corporate irrespon- 
sibility and greed,” Bill Van Dine, 
Local 232 secretary-treasurer, said “the 
sudden, shocking and shameful cutoff 
of health coverage came as a sur- 
prise It was a dastardly act of 

cowardice.” 


Bank mergers should take workers into account, UFCW says 


F ederal regulators should be required 
to consider the impact of bank merg- 
ers on employees and set up a game 
plan to deal with the results of the 
merger, the Food and Commercial 
Workers told Congress. 

The union also volunteered to help 
develop a joint labor-management pro- 
gram to help cushion the harmful effects 
of possible layoffs from the proposed 
merger of BankAmerica and Security 
Pacific Bank. 

UFCW Vice President Beth Shulman 
told the House Banking, Finance and 
Urban Affairs Committee the Bank- 
America merger could put 10,400 
workers at risk in Washington state. 
Some 20,000 workers could lose their 


jobs in 10 Western states as several hun- 
dred branches of the two banks are 
targeted for closing, said Shulman, who 
heads UFCW’s professional division. 

UFCW Local 1182 represents more 
than 4,600 employees of Seattle First 
National Bank (SeaFirst), which is 
owned by BankAmerica. 

The SeaFirst employees, 85 percent 
women and 10 percent members of 
minority groups, have not been told of- 
ficially what will happen to them if the 
merger is approved, Shulman said. 

Recent bank mergers have led to 
massive layoffs, Shulman said, citing 
about 4,000 jobs lost in the 1986 Wells 
Fargo-Crocker Bank merger and 
another 4,000 in the Bank of New 


York-Irving Bank deal. Two mergers 
in July 1991 resulted in more than 
15,000 people being laid off: 6,200 in 
the Chemical Bank-Manufacturer’s 
Hanover merger and 9,000 in the new- 
ly merged Nation’s Bank, she added. 

“It has been estimated that upwards 
of 300,000 further layoffs in the bank- 
ing industry could be realized in the 
next five years,” Shulman said. 

Yet neither of the agencies that over- 
see bank mergers — the Federal Re- 
serve Board and the Office of the 
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) — 
takes into account the human toll of the 
effect on workers. She quoted one OCC 
attorney as saying the agency “looks at 
cost savings and does a financial ana- 


lysis in terms of the effect on institu- 
tions, not necessarily the effect on peo- 
ple.” 

The UFCW offered to “assist in the 
formation of a joint labor-management 
committee to address worker displace- 
ment, through a comprehensive em- 
ployment and training center,” Shul- 
man said. 

For such a program to be successful, 
workers must be part of the planning, 
design and implementation of the proj- 
ects. Second, there must be an on-site, 
multi-service center to deliver services 
to displaced workers in a location where 
the workers feel comfortable and reas- 
sured that the services are established 
to meet their needs, she said. 





Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

OCAW President Robert Wages tells House panel that workers can help make petrochemical plants safer. 

Unions score chemical safety report 

Contract work standards , worker involvement urged 


U nions criticized a government- 
sponsored study of the disaster- 
prone petrochemical industry for fail- 
ing to single out the contract work 
system as the source of safety problems. 
The unions also called for more worker 
involvement in safety inspection and 
training. 

Robert Wages, president of the Oil, 
Chemical and Atomic Workers, and 
James J. Valenti, safety and health 
specialist for the Steelworkers, testified 
before the employment and housing 
subcommittee of the House Govern- 
ment Operations Committee, which 
focused on health and safety standards 
in petrochemical plants. 

The petrochemical industry has suf- 
fered 78 fatalities in 25 accidents over 
the past two years. Witnesses evaluated 
the study of the John Gray Institute, 
which the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration commissioned to 
investigate the impact of contractors on 
the functioning of petrochemical plants. 

“The study tended to drastically 
downplay what I considered some of the 
most revealing findings,” said Valenti, 
including “the relationship between 
contractors and accidents.” Quoting a 
statistic from the report, Valenti said, 
“accidents involving contract workers 
in this industry as a percentage of the 
total number of accidents have in- 
creased every year for the past five 
years.” 


T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration proposed a nearly 
$2.8 million fine against General 
Motors Corp. in the case of a worker 
killed while doing maintenance work. 

OSH A, in issuing the citation Sept. 
26, said management at GM’s Okla- 
homa City assembly plant “essentially 
ignored the requirements of the (lock- 
out/tagout) standard,” leading to the 
April 4 tragedy. 

The lockout/tagout rule addresses the 
procedures necessary to disable equip- 
ment and to prevent the release of 
potentially hazardous energy during 
maintenance and servicing activities that 
would activate machinery and possibly 
harm a worker. 

OSHA alleged 57 egregious and will- 
ful violations of the standard, including 
citations for not training workers on 


The report said contract workers are 
less experienced than direct hire 
employees, suffer greater language bar- 
riers and “are a less qualified work 
force if judged by conventional criteria 
of experience, education, compensa- 
tion, and stability,” Valenti said. 

The study also glossed over the tur- 
bulent relationship between managers 
and workers in the industry, Wages 
said. “This study is replete with 
references to a process of cooperation 
(between) industry and labor. So, if the 
participation of the representatives and 


“The recommendations 
called primarily for 
more meetings, more 
study groups and very 
little action. ” 

—James J. Valenti 
Steelworkers Safety Specialist 


labor is so damn important, why does 
industry and much of government go 
out of their way as a matter of practice 
and policy to prevent them from form- 
ing unions?” he asked. 

The union is interested in talking 
about training and educating workers 
and contractors, said Wages. But this 
means stopping the “politeness” 


reassignment and inadequate energy 
control procedures. 

Donald Smith, 37, a millwright at the 
plant, died from his injuries after his 
head was crushed by a pneumatic lift 
that was activated accidentally. 

OSHA Administrator Gerard F. 
Scanned said that even though UAW 
and GM jointly developed a lockout 
training program in 1984, it was not 
practiced on the production floor and 
had not been updated after the OSHA 
standard was adopted in 1989. 

Scanned cited “a history of hazards, 
accidents, near-misses, non-compdance 
with corporate and plant directives and 
failure to implement any hazardous 
energy control program” at the GM 
plant. 

According to UAW figures submit- 
ted to OSHA, GM had 23 work-related 


charade — and begin addressing the 
problems through negotiations. 

“It’s high time that we jettisoned the 
lawyers, jettisoned the industry postur- 
ing,” Wages said, defining the workers 
as perhaps the most important resource 
the industry has in producing headway 
in the health and safety arena. 

‘ ‘If you’re going to mandate that this 
industry undertake management safety 
and management processes different 
than in the past and you’re going to 
mandate it to the exclusion of the eyes 
and ears that are inside that plant — 
that’s wrong!” he said. 

The employee representatives know 
more about the workplace than anyone 
else, Wages said. “They carry the tool 
box into the plant and work there every 
day. You’ve got operators that have 
worked there for 15, 20 years that can 
tell if there’s something wrong just by 
the sound of the pumps.” 

A safe work force means incorporat- 
ing workers into education and training 
programs and accumulating on-the-job 
experience and on-site training. 

The other solution “is not to bring 
everyone else down to the level of the 
rat contractor, but bring their standards 
up to ours,” Wages said. Boosting stan- 
dards would add stability to the work 
force and prevent primary employers 
from shifting contractor costs to the 
backs of direct-hire workers, he said. 

— Press Associates 


fatalities between 1973 and 1988 related 
to lockout/tagout failures. 

The OSHA penalty “while ap- 
propriate, in no way compensates for 
the loss of Donald Smith’s life and the 
suffering of his family,” said UAW 
Vice President Stephen Yokich. “The 
UAW is convinced that the death of 
Donald Smith could have been pre- 
vented by the full implementation of an 
energy lockout program.” 

While the corporation has an obliga- 
tion to provide a safe and healthy 
workplace, Yokich said, “it appears 
that if a plant’s management decides 
that a safety program — even one as 
critical as energy lockout — gets in the 
way of production, management some- 
how has the option to ignore it. We will 
never accord such thinking because it 
endangers workers’ lives.” 


N.C. OSHA 
revocation 
plea studied 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration is seeking 
comment on a proposal by the 
AFL-CIO to revoke the North 
Carolina state OSHA plan. 

In a notice published in the Sept. 
30 Federal Register, OSHA soli- 
cited comment for 90 days on the 
federation’s Sept. 11 petition, which 
said the North Carolina state plan 
on occupational safety and health 
protection was so dismal it should 
not be trusted anymore and should 
be taken over by federal OSHA. 

The AFL-CIO acted after 25 
workers died in a fire at a chicken 
processing plant in Hamlet, N.C. In 
that plant, exit doors were un- 
marked and locked from the out- 
side, emergency lights were not 
working and neither the fire- 
fighting nor alarm system was ade- 
quate. Company officials have said 
the plant will not reopen. 

Workers told members of Con- 
gress Sept. 12 they were given no 
training or instructions on what to 
do in case of fire — and North 
Carolina officials acknowledged 
after the fire the plant had not been 
inspected in its 11 -year history. 

In introducing the petition, AFL- 
CIO Safety and Health Director Peg 
Seminario said the Sept. 3 fire il- 
lustrated that “North Carolina is 
grossly delinquent in meeting its 
responsibilities to protect the safety 
and health of workers in the 
state. . . .(North Carolina) has con- 
sistently failed to enforce standards 
effectively (and) has repeatedly 
failed to provide adequate person- 
nel to effectively implement its pro- 
gram.” 

Comments, in quadruplicate, 
must be postmarked by Dec. 29 and 
should be sent to the OSHA Docket 
Office, Docket No. T-24, U.S. 
Department of Labor, Room 
N-2626, 200 Constitution Ave. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. 

Comments of up to 10 pages may 
be faxed to 202/523-5046, provided 
the original and three copies are 
sent to the docket as well. 

Organized labor has been work- 
ing in other ways to aid the victims 
of the tragic Hamlet fire. As of 
Oct. 1, the AFL-CIO and its af- 
filiates had contributed $18,600 to 
help the workers and their families 
in a fund that has collected 
$142,000 overall. 

Contributions may be sent to the 
Hamlet Victims’ Assistance Fund, 
c/o The United Way of Richmond 
County, 214 E. Washington St., 
P.O. Box 1025, Rockingham, N.C. 
28379-1025. 

Meanwhile, in the wake of the 
North Carolina fire, OSHA posted 
a notice of “alleged imminent 
danger” at a manufacturing plant in 
Lynn, Mass. The agency said an in- 
spection revealed fire hazards at 
Wain Manufacturing similar to 
those at the Hamlet plant, including 
blocked aisles, inadequately marked 
exits, locked exits and missing fire 
doors. 

Wain, a maker of eyeglass cases, 
shut the plant down and sent its 100 
employees home after the notice 
was posted Sept. 24. OSHA said the 
company agreed to cooperate with 
the agency to correct the problems. 


GM fined for ignoring lockout/tagout rule 




Recession, budget cuts hit teachers hard 


By Candice Johnson 

T eachers are being hit hard by the 
yearlong recession and state and 
local budget cuts, a new report found. 

The AFT annual wage and spending 
survey showed that teacher pay raises 
during the 1990-91 school year — about 
5 percent — were the lowest gains over 
the past 18 years. After adjusting for in- 
flation, teachers gained just $19 since 
1988-89, according to the AFT study, 
Survey and Analysis of Salary Trends, 
1991. 

AFT President A1 Shanker said low 
starting salaries for teachers affect the 
ability of school districts to compete 
with other employers for the most 
capable college graduates — and will 
adversely affect reform efforts. 


“Part of the education reform 
strategy of the mid-1980s was salary 
improvement as a way of drawing tal- 
ented people into teaching,” he said, 
adding “that piece of the strategy has 
been missing in recent years.” 

“Beginning offers in business for 
new college graduates remained high, 
compared to beginning teacher salaries 
in 1991,” he said. Beginning engineers 
were paid as much as 5 1 percent more, 
while liberal arts graduates earned up 
to 14 percent more, the survey found. 

Starting teachers averaged $21,542 
last year, an increase of 4.9 percent 
over the previous school year, but 
below many professional starting 
salaries. 

The recession has hurt state treas- 


uries, and the decline in real estate 
values has hurt tax bases and funding 
for local school districts, the union said. 

Ten years ago, annual teacher salaries 
averaged just $17,544. Teachers made 
gains in many school districts over the 
ten-year period, with pay in the 
1990-1991 period now averaging 
$32,880. But over the past five years, 
those gains have come at a very slow 
pace, with real earnings just $1,000 
higher than 1972 levels, the study said. 
The average teacher had nearly 16 
years’ experience in 1990-91. 

Teacher pay also grew at a slower 
rate than salaries of administrators, cen- 
tral office secretaries, custodians and 
cafeteria workers, the survey found. 
Alaska posted the highest average 


teacher salary, $43,406, while South 
Dakota trailed the country at $22,363. 

The 107 members of the Girard Pro- 
fessional Employees in Girard, Pa., 
were the only AFT members still on 
strike as the school year continues. 
Teacher concerns there include class 
size and work day requirements. 
Teachers in Tawas, Mich., and Lin- 
coln, R.I., returned to work in early 
September while negotiations are con- 
tinuing. Strikes were settled in mini 
Bluff, HI., Peters Township, Pa., and 
Providence, Warwick and Pawtucket, 
R.I. 

The National Education Association 
was still involved in 51 strikes at the end 
of September, with more than half of 
the strikes in Pennsylvania and Illinois. 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


AFL-CI0 President Lane Kirkland discusses the Dayton Charles Dale; TNG Representative Hannah Jo Rayl; 
Daily News situation with, from left, Wes Hills, second Dayton Guild President Rob Modic and Ken Young, 
vice president of the Dayton Guild; TNG President Kirkland's executive assistant. 

NLRB: Dayton paper failed to bargain 


Subscriber boycott 
pressed by Guild 

T he National Labor Relations Board 
has backed the Newspaper Guild’s 
unfair labor practice charges at the 
Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, where the 
union has been seeking a first contract 
for nearly two years. 

Meanwhile, the Dayton Guild is 
keeping the heat on the newspaper — 
owned by Cox Enterprises — with a 
campaign urging subscribers to boycott 
the paper until a contract is reached and 
a request for a federal investigation in- 
to the the Cox chain’s print, radio and 
television holdings in the area. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
met with Rob Modie and Wes Hills, of- 
ficers of the Dayton local, and TNG 
President Charles Dale at federation 
headquarters Oct. 4, to discuss how the 
labor movement could assist the Daily 
News workers. 


R ainfair Inc., a manufacturer of pro- 
tective clothing used by fire fighters, 
postal workers and police officers, has 
been added to the AFL-CIO ’s national 
boycott list. 

The company, based in Racine, Wis., 
was struck June 20 by 136 members of 
Ladies’ Garment Workers Local 187, 
who termed Rainfair’s demands for 
concessions unacceptable. The workers 
have since been “permanently re- 
placed,” and the company has begun to 
transfer work to a non-union facility in 
South Dakota and to overseas produc- 
tion in China. 


In a complaint issued Sept. 30, the 
NLRB charged that the paper was en- 
gaging in surface bargaining. Specific- 
ally, the paper failed to provide the 
union with information needed for 
bargaining, refused to agree to a dues- 
checkoff or union security provisions, 
and took to impasse the issue of whether 
to include “stringers” in the bargain- 
ing unit. 

A hearing on the charges is set for 
Jan. 30 in Dayton. 

The Dayton Guild has been working 
to win a first contract covering 180 
editorial workers, members of the 
News Employees Association of Day- 
ton, who voted to affiliate with the 
Dayton Guild in 1986 and again in 
1989. Key concerns include wages, fair 
treatment for part-time workers, and the 
union security issue. 

The Dayton local is pressing the con- 
nection between the Daily News and the 
refusal of two Cox-owned stations to 
sell the union air time for the boycott 


Rainfair maintained a relatively 
amicable collective bargaining relation- 
ship with ILGWU for 43 years until the 
company was purchased in 1988 by 
Craig Leipold, the son-in-law of the 
head of the Johnson Wax. 

This year the company presented 
workers with a long list of demands, in- 
cluding an increase in health insurance 
co-payments, an offer to increase wages 
by only 10 to 15 cents over 3 years, and 
an end to two paid holidays. 

“We will pursue this boycott relent- 
lessly until our members are back on the 
job with a fair contract,” said ILGWU 


ad. The boycott campaign was begun 
in May after 19 months of unsuccessful 
bargaining. 

The chain has hired union-busters 
King and Ballow, who represented the 
Tribune Co. at the New York Daily 
News, as its bargaining representative. 

In another newspaper industry 
development, the NLRB has ordered a 
representation election for 280 full- and 
part-time workers at The Press of 
Atlantic City. The election covers 
workers at the main office in Pleasant- 
ville and at bureaus in Vineland, Cape 
May and Manahawkin. 

TNG Local 10 had petitioned the 
board in January to represent the cir- 
culation, editorial, finance and 
sales/marketing departments of the 
paper in a single bargaining unit. The 
NLRB rejected the newspaper’s conten- 
tion that departments should be divided 
into separate units, noting that depart- 
ments had “substantial contact with 
each other.” 

boycott list 

President Jay Mazur. With the AFL- 
CIO boycott, “we are now appealing 
to unionized fire fighters, postal 
workers, police officers and customs 
officials not to buy Rainfair protective 
clothing.” 

Boycott activities include leafletting 
at the National Buying Syndicate Fall 
Market in Fort Worth, Texas, the Mid- 
States Fall Buying Show in Minneapolis 
and the International Marine Trade Ex- 
po in Chicago — trade shows geared to 
the outdoor sports market, which rep- 
resents a significant share of Rainfair’s 
sales. 


GPO employees 
gain 20 percent 
salary increase 

S ome 1,300 white-collar workers at 
the Government Printing Office will 
receive more than 20 percent in pay 
raises and bonuses over the next four 
years as the result of negotiations be- 
tween Government Employees and the 
Printing Craft Joint Council (AFGE/ 
PCJC) and GPO management. 

Under the terms of the agreement, the 
workers will receive a 4.1 percent in- 
crease, plus a 1 percent one-time bonus, 
retroactive to the first payday in January 
1991. 

In January 1992, the workers will 
receive a 4.2 percent pay raise, plus a 
1 percent one-time bonus. In January 
1993, workers will receive a cost-of- 
living adjustment. 

AFGE President John Sturdivant 
credited “our professional and local 
union negotiators as well as the nego- 
tiators of the Printing Craft Joint Coun- 
cil, for achieving this important contract 
for the GPO workers.” 

The negotiations, which began last 
November, also were assisted by the 
Congressional Joint Committee on 
Printing. 

If, during the last two years of the 
agreement, the Washington area gets 
locality and geographic pay, the parties 
agreed to re-open the contract. 

Coordination nets 
3 -year GTE pact 

C oordinated bargaining by the AFL- 
CIO Industrial Union Department 
has resulted in new three-year contracts 
that provide wage increases and im- 
provements in the pensions and retire- 
ment plans for more than 1 ,600 workers 
in six GTE lighting and precisions 
materials plants. 

The contracts, which cover workers 
represented by the Machinists, Elec- 
trical Workers, Electronic Workers, 
Teamsters and UAW, will provide a 3 
percent annual pay increase for the term 
of the contract. 

The agreements also provide for a $3 
per month increase for each year of ser- 
vice with its pension program and in- 
clude a $2.50 increase in an early retire- 
ment supplement for workers 58-62 
years old. A long-term disablity pro- 
gram was also introduced. 

Negotiators secured an additional 
month of medical and dental benefits for 
workers who are laid off and held on 
to their 85/15 health insurance plan by 
agreeing to a 5 percent employee con- 
tribution toward premiums in return for 
lowered deductibles. 


Rainfair added to union 






Center adds 
new courses 

S ix new titles are among the 55 insti- 
tutes offered during the next eight 
months by the George Meany Center 
for Labor Studies. At least nine center 
programs will go West again — this 
time in July — in what is now called the 
Western Semester. 

Workshops described in these four 
pages run from Nov. 1, 1991, to July 
1 , 1992, at the center’s campus in Silver 
Spring, Md., except where noted. An 
application form also is included. 

The six new offerings are How to 
Create a Videotape; Contract Cam- 
paigns; Contract Negotiations and the 
Law; Current and Historical Records: 
Management and Preservation; Ad- 
vanced Organizing Techniques in the 
Construction Industry; and Union Ad- 
ministration, Contract Administration 
and the Law. 

Like all other programs offered, ex- 
cept for the College Degree Program 
and the Certified Employment Benefit 
Specialist (CEBS) Programs, the new 
ones are tuition-free. Center programs 
are open to elected or appointed staff 
and officers of AFL-CIO affiliates. 

The new courses, along with other 
programs in communications, negotia- 
ting, organizing, arbitration, labor law 
and union building are described in 
these pages. 

The College Degree Program and the 
Western Semester require a special ap- 
plication form you can get from the 
Center. Contact the Registrar’s office 
at the George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies, 10000 New Hampshire Ave., 
Silver Spring, Md. 20903, 301/431- 
6400 and (fax) 301/434-0371. 

Any AFL-CIO organization or affil- 
iate that wants to use the center should 
contact Janis Underwood at the Reg- 
istrar’s office. 



Current and Historical 
Records: Management 
and Preservation 

December 8-11, 1991 

This three-day workshop for chief ex- 
ecutive officers or their designees will 
acquaint participants with record crea- 
tion, management, preservation and use 
of such material in a historical context. 

What records should be created? 
What records should be saved? What is 
the proper way to display artifacts? 
Does a union need to create its own 
archives or seek out an existing institu- 
tion? These are some of the questions 
that will be discussed in this short 
course. 

Coordinator: Robert Reynolds 


Advanced Organizing 
Techniques in the 
Construction Industry 

December 15-20, 1991 

Experienced construction organizers 
will discuss the latest developments in 
construction organizing with special 
emphasis on land use planning, en- 
vironmental law, new labor law devel- 
opments and work force organizing. 
The program will draw on the most re- 


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The George Meany Center for Labor Studies offers 
55 institutes from Nov. 1, 1991 through June 1992. 
These four pages describe them. 



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cent experience in the field and on the 
new draft of the “Building Trades 
Organizers Handbook.’’ 

Coordinator: Robert J. Pleasure 


Organizing Techniques I 

November 1 7-22, 1991 
February 2-7, 1992 
May 31 -June 5, 1992 
This program is an introduction to 
basic organizing skills for new union 
organizers as well as a refresher course 
for organizers in the private sector. 

Strategies will be discussed for deal- 
ing with anti-union arguments and tech- 
niques used by employers. An overview 
of the law concerning organizing also 
will be covered. Through role playing 
and discussion, participants will learn 
improved communications skills and 
their application to house calls, other 
one-on-one contacts and meetings. 
Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Organizing II 


for developing stronger union support 
or for recruiting new members in units 
where the union is already the recogn- 
ized bargaining agent. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Labor Law for Organizers: 
Traditional and 
New Approaches 

April 5-10, 1992 
This institute on organizing and the 
law in the private sector is for national 
and local staff with responsibility for 
and experience in organizing. Organiz- 
ing in the building trades is covered in 
a separate course. 

The course will emphasize how to use 
the National Labor Relations Act as 
leverage and how to make strategic and 
tactical decisions. The program also 
will deal with alternative routes to ob- 
taining recognition, including tactics to 
obtain voluntary recognition and the 
legal issues those tactics involve. 
Coordinator: Sharon Simon 


Contract Negotiations: 
Private Sector 

December 15-20, 1991 
March 22-27, 1992 
This institute is for full-time officers 
and staff who negotiate agreements in 
the private sector. Early sessions focus 
on the role of the chief negotiator at dif- 
ferent points in the bargaining proc- 
ess — including the preparation and 
design of initial proposals, developing 
committee work and record-keeping 
procedures, the structure and function 
of opening statements, styles of lan- 
guage and economic bargaining, and 
preparing for and directing the ratifica- 
tion process. 

Actual bargaining table tactics, such 
as the timing and structure of counter- 
proposals, avoiding bargaining bot- 
tlenecks, effectively communicating at 
the bargaining table and using media- 
tion will be developed through the use 
of case problems. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


March 8-13 , 1992 
Cosponsored by the AFL-CIO 
Organizing Institute, this course is for 
organizers who have completed Organ- 
izing I, the Organizing Institute Ap- 
prenticeship, or who have extensive ex- 
perience in organizing. 

The course will focus on strengthen- 
ing an organizer’s strategic and 
analytical thinking by using case studies 
to critically discuss recent campaigns. 
The sessions will focus on enhancing 
those skills needed to manage people in 
a campaign, run multiple campaigns, 
target larger units and train committees 
and volunteer organizers. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 

Internal Organizing 

March 29-April 3, 1992 
This institute is for those responsible 


Organizing in the 
Construction Industry 

April 26-May 1, 1992 
This institute will offer building 
trades organizers an opportunity to 
build their skills in implementing local 
and regional campaigns. Participants 
will focus on oral and written com- 
munications with members, unorgan- 
ized workers, contractors and pur- 
chasers of construction services; 
regional survey and targeting techni- 
ques; and “on-site” membership 
recruitment activity. 

Participants will engage in simula- 
tions to get hands-on experience in 
organizing under the guidance of ex- 
perienced building trades organizers 
and labor educators. 

Coordinator: Robert J. Pleasure 


The Craft of Negotiating 

January 12-17, 1992 

This program assumes participants 
have extensive experience in negotiat- 
ing or have taken a basic contract 
negotiating institute at the George 
Meany Center. 

The aim is to improve the skill of the 
participants in collective bargaining, 
grievance-handling and union admini- 
stration by looking at other negotiating 
situations. The recommendations of the 
Harvard Negotiating Project and similar 
negotiating theories are discussed and 
evaluated. 

This institute differs from courses in 
negotiating techniques by focusing on 
sharpening individual skills and de- 
veloping tactics for all types of negotia- 
tions. Videotaping is used to help par- 
ticipants identify their own strengths. 
Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 




Negotiating and Writing 
Contract Language 

December 8-13, 1991 
June 21-26 , 1992 
This institute is designed to improve 
skills needed to develop proposals and 
write contracts that will protect and im- 
prove the rights of members and the 
unions that represent them. 

Uniform principles of contract inter- 
pretation will be discussed. Issues of 
concern to all negotiators, including 
union security, recognition and other 
contract matters will be examined. 
Coordinator: Sharon Simon 

Contract Negotiations 
and the Law 

May 17-22, 1992 
This is a course on the law that 
governs contract negotiations in the 
private sector (law that specifically 
deals with the building trades is covered 
in another course). It is designed for 
negotiators who would like to familiar- 
ize themselves with the legal issues in- 
volved in bargaining. 

The approach will be practical — 
how to recognize and deal with legal 
problems as they arise and how to 
recognize more complex legal issues 
that require the assistance of an at- 
torney. The approach also will be 
strategic — how to use the law to the 
union’s advantage when possible and 
how to integrate the law into the union’s 
bargaining strategy. 

Coordinator: Sharon Simon 

Using Microcomputers 
in Negotiations 

March 8-13, 1992 
This institute shows participants how 
to use small computers in contract 
negotiations and is for union staff or of- 
ficers whose primary responsibility is 
contract negotiations or back-up 
research for negotiators. 

The primary focus will be on the use 
of off-the-shelf spreadsheet software in 
developing contract costing capabilities, 
which will assist the negotiator in 
evaluating employer economic pro- 
posals and developing effective counter- 
proposals. Although Lotus 1-2-3 is used 
in classes, the skills developed during 
the program apply to any standard 
spreadsheet program. 

Knowledge of computers is not 
necessary, but it is helpful to know stan- 
dard contract-costing techniques. 
Coordinators: Jeffrey MacDonald 
and Chuck Hodell 


Contract Negotiations 
in the Construction 
Industry 

February 23-28, 1992 
This program, for appointed or 
elected union staff and officers respon- 
sible for negotiating labor agreements 
with construction industry employers, 
is designed to improve the bargaining 
skills of union negotiators in an increas- 
ingly difficult and complex bargaining 
environment. 

Early sessions will focus on how to 
manage a negotiation from initial pro- 
posals through ratification. The special 
problems associated with employer as- 
sociation bargaining will be analyzed 
and discussed with a full review of legal 
developments as they affect bargaining 
in the construction industry. 
Coordinator: Donald Spatz 


Negotiating Profit Sharing 
and Employee Stock 
Ownership Programs 

January 21-24, 1992 
This program, for full-time union 
staff or officers who expect to deal with 
profit sharing or Employee Stock Own- 
ership Programs (ESOPs) at the bar- 
gaining table or in an organizing drive, 
is offered jointly with the AFL-CIO 
Department of Economic Research. 

The program will include sessions on 
designs and approaches to profit shar- 
ing and ESOPs, information and analy- 
tical skills needed to properly evaluate 
profit-sharing proposals, the ability to 
read and evaluate key employer finan- 
cial documents, information necessary 
in an ESOP feasibility study, and nego- 
tiating problems and tactics associated 
with profit sharing and ESOPs. 
Coordinator: Donald Spatz 


Union Administration, 
Contract Administration 
and the Law 

January 12-17, 1992 
This course, for local officers and 
staff responsible for administration, 
teaches the basics of the law as well as 
current developments in these areas. 

Major topics to be covered are duty 
of fair representation, arbitration law, 
the union’s right to information, the law 
dealing with internal union affairs, 
equal employment opportunity obliga- 
tions and drug testing. 

Coordinator: Sharon Simon 


Contract Campaigns 

January 5-10, 1992 
This institute builds on the skills 
taught in organizing techniques and 
contract negotiations by examining 
ways to increase bargaining power: 
membership mobilization through or- 
ganization, education and action; plan- 
ning and goal setting; research to iden- 
tify employer vulnerabilities; and ap- 
plication and escalation of innovative 
tactics — internally at the workplace 
and externally in the community and 
marketplace. 

The program is designed for national 
and local staff with responsibility for 
organizing and negotiating first con- 
tracts or representatives facing hard 
bargaining situations. 

Coordinator: Donald Spatz 



Service Contract Act: 
Collective Bargaining 
and Organizing 

December 3-6, 1991 
This program, developed by the 
AFL-CIO Economic Research Depart- 
ment, is offered cooperatively with the 
George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies and the AFL-CIO Department 
of Organization and Field Services. It 
is for union officers and staff who either 
service or organize workers covered by 
the Service Contract Act. 

The Service Contract Act, like the 
Davis-Bacon Act, is a federal prevail- 
ing wage law. It covers private sector 
workers providing services to the fed- 
eral government. Unlike Davis-Bacon, 
the Service Contract Act provides that 
a union contract becomes the prevail- 
ing wage. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 


Arbitration: 
Preparation and 
Presentation 

November 3-8, 1991 
January 12-17, 1992 
March 29-April 3, 1992 
This institute concentrates on 
developing the necessary skills to pre- 
pare and present arbitration cases. Dis- 
cussions will focus on what matters can 
be arbitrated and the selection of 
arbitrators. 

Since discipline and discharge cases 
cause more than half of all grievance ar- 
bitrations, special attention will be paid 
to their investigation and to the rules ar- 
bitrators use in deciding them. Mock 


cases are presented before voluntary 
professional arbitrators. 

This program is for union represen- 
tatives newly assigned to arbitration, or 
who will have arbitration as part of their 
responsibility. It will help experienced 
representatives analyze and brush up on 
their techniques. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Advanced Arbitration 

May 3-8, 1992 

This institute, designed to provide ad- 
vanced training for grievance arbitra- 
tion to help participants improve their 
techniques, will include exercises in the 
preparation and writing of post-hearing 
briefs and discussions to assist par- 
ticipants in the examination and cross- 
examination of witnesses. 

Participation is limited to those who 
have attended the basic arbitration in- 
stitute or who are experienced advo- 
cates in grievance arbitration. 
Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Standards of Discipline and 
Discharge in Arbitration 

December 8-13, 1991 
June 21-26, 1992 

This institute examines discipline and 
discharge standards and related issues 
of misconduct applied in grievance arbi- 
tration hearings. 

Participants will hear from arbitrators 
and examine case studies that concen- 
trate on the concept of just cause and 
the development of standards by arbi- 
trators; investigation procedures and 
standards of proof in discipline and 
discharge cases; discipline and dis- 
charge and evidentiary standards for 
alcohol-related, drug-related and off- 
duty misconduct. 

Participation is limited to those who 
attended the basic arbitration institute 
or who are experienced advocates in 
grievance arbitration. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Arbitration in the 
Federal Sector 

March 8-13, 1992 
Although many procedures and prac- 
tices in private-sector arbitration apply 
in federal employment, significant dif- 
ferences do exist and will be discussed 
in this institute. 

Mock cases will be presented before 
professional arbitrators with experience 


Application to Register for Labor Studies 


T o reserve a place in a George Meany Center program, please complete an ap- 
plication and mail it with your payment of $134 to the George Meany Center; 
$99 will be credited to your room and board bill, and $35 will cover your registra- 
tion fee. The deposit for registrants who commute to class is $75. It covers lunches 
for one week and registration. 

Deposits will be refunded if notice of cancellation is received 2 weeks before 
the program. Please make the check payable to the George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies. 

For more information about any program, call the Registration Office at 
301/431-6400, or fax 1-301-434-0371. 

Application to register for Labor Studies 


Center Registrations 
George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies 

10000 New Hampshire Avenue 
Silver Spring, Maryland 20903 


Check One 

□ Commuting to class 

□ Single room @ $99 daily 

□ Double room @ $75 daily 
person with 

(name) 


Please Print or Type 

Please enroll me (course): 

Dates: Enclosed is a deposit of $. 


*(Deposit and registration fee required with application) 
Name: Mr. /Ms. 


Address: 

Citv: 

State: 7 ip 

Snonsorine Union: 


Local Union Number 

Union Position: 


Business Phone: ( ) Signature Date_ 

If you wish to charge your deposit the following must be completed: 


Visa 

Mastercard 

Amerir.an F.Ynress 

Account Number 

Exoiration Date: 

Amount: 

Authorized Signature 


Send me information on: 

(please check) 

Western Semester, 

Off Center. 

College Degree Progam, 

Labor’s Heritage 





in the federal sector. The cases will be 
videotaped and played back for ana- 
lysis. 

The program is for representatives in 
federal sector unions who are or will 
have arbitration as part of their respon- 
sibility . Experienced representatives 
can analyze and brush up on their 
techniques. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 



Labor Relations 
in the Federal Sector 

February 3-7, 1992 
This week-long institute will provide 
an overview to important subjects af- 
fecting the role of staff and officers in 
unions representing workers in the 
federal sector. The institute will be 
taught by professionals in labor rela- 
tions who have extensive experience in 
the federal sector. 

The institute will cover such subjects 
as collective bargaining in the federal 
sector, grievance handling and arbitra- 
tion, how to deal with adverse and per- 
formance-based actions and strengthen- 
ing the union from within. 
Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


New Staff Program 

December 1-13, 1991 
June 7-19, 1992 
This two-week program is designed 
for individuals recently appointed or 
elected to a full-time union staff posi- 
tion. Those who have taken Organizing 
Techniques I and Contract Negotiations 
should not enroll in this program. 

The program has three basic goals: 
to develop personal skills needed to 
function effectively in the many dif- 
ferent roles of a union staff member; to 
improve planning skills needed to 
manage a contract negotiation and to 
organize a campaign to revitalize a local 
union; and to provide insight into the 
structure, operation and goals of the 
U.S. labor movement. 

Coordinators: Donald Spatz, 

Jeffrey MacDonald , 
Marilyn G. Sneiderman, 
and Diana Linton 


Effective Writing 

December 1-6, 1991 
May 17-22 , 1992 
This workshop looks at such different 
writing formats as union correspond- 
ence, contract summaries, committee 
reports, position statements, speeches, 
leaflets, newsletter articles and public 
service announcements. 

Participants complete writing exer- 
cises and edit their own writing each 
day. Individual coaching by profes- 
sional writers and editors is a central 
part of this program. Class size is 
limited to 15. 

Coordinator: Louise D. Walsh 


Newswriting and Editing 
for Union Publications 

February 23-28, 1992 
Union editors and staff get coaching 
on newswriting and editing and pick up 
ideas from other union editors on how 
to make a publication more readable 
and credible. Classes focus on news- 
writing, feature writing, labor law for 


editors (libel and Landrum-Griffin), 
headline writing, photo editing, news 
sources, and layout and design. 
Coordinator: Louise D. Walsh 



Desktop Publishing 

January 21-24, 1992 
February 18-21, 1992 
June 21-24, 1992 
This workshop, for union editors and 
labor educators, will focus on electronic 
layout procedures, text and graphic 
placement and the use of electronic 
“tools” to crop, size and enhance 
graphic elements. Participants will pro- 
duce a short publication using Page- 
Maker software and IBM-compatible 
computers. 

The class is limited to 10 participants 
experienced with computers. Partici- 
pants should have access to Desktop 
Publishing after they finish the course. 
Coordinator: Chuck Hodell 


How to Create a Videotape 

March 8-13, 1992 

This new workshop is for full-time 
local union staff who want to learn the 
basics of how to create short and inex- 
pensive videotapes for their members 
and/or communities. 

The program, led by videotape spe- 
cialists, will concentrate on video 
scriptwriting and will present other 
elements of videotape production. It is 
not a workshop on how to edit video- 
tape. 

Officers and staff of state and local 
AFL-CIOs also are welcome to attend. 
Class size is limited to 20 participants. 
Coordinator: Louise D. Walsh 


Making the 
Legal System Work 

June 7-12, 1992 
This program is designed to improve 
the ability of union staff, officers and 
stewards to solve employment-related 
problems under existing local, state and 
federal legislation while not losing sight 
of the primary importance of the 
union’s rights under the collective 
bargaining agreement. 

The program will build on existing 
problem-solving and advocacy skills to 
enable the participant to more effective- 
ly represent the interests of union 
members. 

Coordinator: David G. Alexander 


Effective Union Action 
for Civil Rights 

April 6-10, 1992 
This is the annual conference of the 
AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department, 
which is planned especially for civil 
rights and women’s rights designees for 
AFL-CIO unions. All union staff mem- 
bers and elected officers interested in 
this important subject also are invited 
to attend. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 



The Union Administrator 
and Business Agent 

May 10-15, 1992 
This workshop will focus on several 
major concerns: identifying and solv- 


ing problems, enhancing leadership 
style, organizing time and support 
systems, organizing the backup system 
in the office, monitoring finances and 
budgeting, reaching members and keep- 
ing out of trouble with the law. 
Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Effective Speaking 

May 3-8, 1992 

This workshop focuses on the basics 
of preparation — selecting topics, re- 
searching, outlining and editing — and 
delivery of the message with vocal var- 
iety, rate, eye contact, audience analysis 
and an awareness of time and locale. 

A variety of speaking situations will 
be presented in daily assignments and 
exercises are videotaped for playback 
and critique. Exercises will emphasize 
listening skills, helping students become 
more attentive and responsive. 
Coordinator: Gene Morrill 


TV: The Cool Medium 

April 12-15, 1992 
This three-day workshop coaches 
union leaders who are confronted oc- 
casionally by television reporters and 
television cameras. Participants will 
have many exercises facing video cam- 
eras: a hostile confrontation, a panel 
discussion, an in-studio interview and 
60 and 20 second addresses. The ses- 
sions may be tailored to individual 
unions if an affiliate wishes to train its 
staff in certain areas. 

One session focuses on working with 
TV reporters — controlling an inter- 
view, recognizing deadly questions and 
avoiding “no comment,” while another 
concentrates on relating to the camera. 
Coordinators: Gene Morrill and 
Louise D. Walsh 


Personal Computers 
for Local Unions 

November 24-27, 1991 
This institute, for union staff 
members will provide information 
about mini- and micro-computer sys- 
tems and how they can be applied, with 
suggestions for staff training and com- 
puter maintenance. 

Classes are taught in plain, non- 
technical terms by instructors who are 
computer specialists as well as union- 
ists. There will be hands-on workshop 
sessions for participants using state-of- 
the-art mini-computers. 

Coordinator: Chuck Hodell 


Labor Law in the 
Construction Industry 

March 1-6, 1992 
This institute will focus on union 
referral practices, union regulation of 
work and anti-trust laws, non-tra- 
ditional economic pressures and cor- 
porate change in the employing unit, in- 
cluding the problems of double-breasted 
contractors. 

Other topics include bankruptcies and 
mergers; union security, union dues and 
related legal issues; collective bargain- 
ing and contract enforcement in multi- 
employer bargaining units; and ERISA 
and job-creating investments. 
Coordinator: Robert J. Pleasure 


Western 
Semester 
July 1992 

T he George Meany Center for 
Labor Studies and the AFL-CIO 
Department of Education will offer 
a semester of education/training pro- 
grams during July 1992. The second 
“Western Semester” program will 
be held at the Harbortown Conven- 
tion Center in Ventura, Calif., 60 
miles north of Los Angeles. 

At least nine courses will be of- 
fered, including Arbitration, Ad- 
vanced Arbitration, Organizing in 
the Construction Industry, Craft of 
Negotiations, Negotiating and 
Writing Contract Language, Effec- 
tive Speaking, News writing and 
Editing, Teaching Techniques for 
Labor Education, as well as a new 
course on Internal Union 
Organizing. 

Enrollment is limited to elected or 
appointed staff and officers of AFL- 
CIO affiliates. Because of limited 
space, first priority goes to ap- 
plicants west of the Mississippi 
River. 

For more information, call 
301/431-6400 or write Western 
Semester Program, George Meany 
Center for Labor Studies, 10000 
New Hampshire Ave., Silver 
Spring, Md. 20903. 

College Degree 
program offered 

T he College Degree Program at the 
George Meany Center for Labor 
Studies, which leads to a Bachelor 
of Arts degree in labor studies from 
Antioch University, allows union 
leaders to earn a degree without in- 
terrupting their union work. 

In addition to an application fee of 
$25, a $75 administrative and coun- 
seling fee is required if you are ac- 
cepted. Tuition costs $50 a credit 
hour ($250 per course). Books and 
materials are extra. 

A room and three meals a day dur- 
ing a week-in-residence costs the 
same as for other center programs, 
currently $99 a day single occupan- 
cy, $75 a day double. 

For more information, call 1-800- 
GMC-4-CDP and ask for the Col- 
lege Degree Program. 

Audio magazine 
goes Off Center 

O FF CENTER is a new quarterly 
audio magazine that provides 
labor leaders with news they can 
use — * on labor law, organizing, 
leadership, motivating membership, 
communications, collective bargain- 
ing and more. 

Interviews, roundtable discussion 
and music add to a lively format for 
the magazine, which is jointly pro- 
duced by the George Meany Center 
for Labor Studies and the AFL-CIO 
Education Department. 

The subscription price for four 
cassettes is $24 for one year, $42 for 
two years and $56 for three years. 
You can send a check to the Center 
at 10000 New Hampshire Ave., 
Silver Spring, Md. 20903, or charge 
it to Visa, Mastercard or American 
Express. Contact the Center at 
301/431-6400; Fax 301/434-0371. 





Occupational Health 
and Safety 

March 1-6, 1992 
This institute is designed to help 
union officials respond effectively to 
various complex problems of workplace 
safety through a mix of problem solv- 
ing approaches. 

Topics include contract negotiations, 
grievance procedure and arbitration, the 
National Labor Relations Board, safe- 
ty and health committees, OSH A in- 
spections, the OSH A appeals process, 
other government safety and health 
agencies and mobilizing community 
support around health and safety issues. 
Coordinator: Donald Spatz 

Union Issues for 
Working Women 

April 26-May 1, 1992 
This institute identifies concerns of 
women workers while developing new 
strategies and approaches to tap the 


energy that millions of women bring to 
the trade union movement. Participants 
examine how unions can act on wom- 
en’s issues through organizing, bargain- 
ing, contract administration and legi- 
slation. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 


Teaching Techniques 
for Labor Education 

March 29-April 3, 1992 
Cosponsored by the AFL-CIO 
Department of Education, the institute 
explains adult education techniques and 
teaches how to run a workshop. Topics 
include how to use questionnaires, 
audio-visuals and conduct effective 
classroom discussions. 

Coordinators: Marjorie Rachlin, 
Donald Spatz, 

Diana Linton, and 
Susan Washington 


Geoige Meany Center 




Certified Employee Benefit 
Specialist (CEBS) Programs: 

January 6-10 

Retirement Plans — Course II 

January 6-10 
Contemporary Legal 
Environment — Course V 

June 8-12 
To Be Announced 

June 8-12 
To Be Announced 
The Certified Employee Benefit 
Specialist Program consists of 10 
courses and corresponding examina- 
tions in areas of importance to the 
employee benefits field, such as life, 
health and other group benefit pro- 
grams; Social Security, savings plans 
and other retirement arrangements; and 
the contemporary legal environment of 
employee benefit plans. 

The 10 courses cover the legal, finan- 
cial and institutional framework in 


which employee benefit plans must 
operate. Emphasis is placed on the 
fundamental principles underlying the 
design and operation of individual 
benefit programs. 

Coordinator: Jeffrey MacDonald 



Central Labor Councils: 
Leadership and Leverage 

February 18-21, 1992 
This institute is for full-time and part- 
time officers and staff of Central Labor 
Councils who want to improve the lead- 
ership and leverage of their councils to 
advance the aims of the labor movement 
in their areas. 

Sessions will examine ways to en- 
courage local union affiliation and 
strategies to build community support 
and work with the news media. Par- 
ticipants will consider AFL-CIO poli- 
cies and procedures that relate to Cen- 
tral Labor Councils. 

Coordinator: Marilyn G. Sneiderman 



Institutes in bold type are open to elected or appointed staff and officers of AFL-CIO affiliates. Those in light type are for the listed organizations only. 


NOVEMBER 1991 
3-8 

Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation 

3-8 

American Federation of Teachers 
3-8 

Laborers’ International Union of 
North America 

10-13 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
Way Employees 

10-15 

Sheet Metal Workers 
International Association 

10-15 

American Federation of State, 
County and Municipal Employees 

15- 17 

AFL-CIO Organizing Institute 

16- 21 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

17-22 

Organizing Techniques I 

17-22 

American Postal Workers Union 
17-Dec. 8 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #157 

24-26 

Union Privilege, AFL-CIO 

24-27 

Personal Computers for Local 
Unions 


DECEMBER 1991 
1-6 

Effective Writing 
1-13 

New Staff Program 
3-6 

Service Contract Act: Collective 
Bargaining and Organizing 

8-11 

Current and Historical Records: 
Management and Preservation 

8-13 

Standards of Discipline and 
Discharge in Arbitration 

8-13 

Negotiating and Writing Contract 
Language 

15-20 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of 
Way Employees 

15-20 

Contract Negotiations: Private 
Sector 

15-20 

Advanced Organizing Techniques 
in the Construction Industry 


JANUARY 1992 

5- 10 

Contract Campaigns 

6 - 10 

Certified Employee Benefit 
Specialist Programs 

11- 17 

AFL-CIO COPE 

12- 17 

Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation 

12-17 

The Craft of Negotiating 
12-17 

United Brotherhood of Carpenters 
and Joiners of America 

12-17 

American Federation of State, 
County and Municipal Employees 

12-17 

Union Administration, Contract 
Administration and the Law 

19-24 

Sheet Metal Workers International 
Association 

19-24 

Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco 
Workers International Union 

21-24 

Negotiating Profit Sharing and 
Employee Stock Ownership 
Program 

21-24 

Desktop Publishing 

25-31 

College Degree Program 


FEBRUARY 1992 
2-7 

Organizing I 

2-7 

Laborers’ International Union of 
North America 

2- 7 

American Federation of Teachers 
2-28 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #158 

3- 7 

Labor Relations in the Federal 
Sector 

9-12 

Association of Flight Attendants 
9-14 

Transportation Communications In- 
ternational Union 

9-14 

Association of Flight Attendants 


14-17 

The Newspaper Guild 

18-21 

Desktop Publishing 
18-21 

Central Labor Councils 

22-26 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

23-28 

Contract Negotiations in the Con- 
struction Industry 

23-28 

Newswriting and Editing for 
Union Publications 

26-March 1 

Amalgamated Transit Union 


MARCH 1992 

1-4 

International Ladies’ Garment 
Workers Union 

1-6 

Service Employees International 
Union 

1-6 

Occupational Health and Safety 
1-6 

Labor Law in the Construction 
Industry 

8-13 

Arbitration in the Federal Sector 
8-13 

Using Microcomputers in 
Negotiations 

8-13 

Organizing U 
8-13 

How to Create a Videotape 
8-April 3 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #159 

14- 19 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

15- 20 

American Federation of State, 
County and Municipal Employees 

15-20 

Transportation Communications 
International Union 

21- 27 

American Postal Workers Union 

22- 27 

Contract Negotiations: Private 
Sector 

22-28 

International Union of Bricklayers 
and Allied Craftsmen 

29-April 3 

Arbitration: Preparation and 
Presentation 


29-April 3 

Teaching Techniques for Labor 
Education 

29-April 3 
Internal Organizing 


APRIL 1992 
5-10 

Labor Law for Organizers 

5- 24 

African-American Labor Center 

6 - 10 

Effective Union Action in Civil 
Rights 

11- 15 

Amalgamated Transit Union 

12- 15 

TV: The Cool Medium 
12-May 8 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #160 

19-24 

Sheet Metal Workers International 
Union 

21-24 

Personal Computers for Local 
Unions 

26-May 1 

Transportation Communications 
International Union 

26-May 1 

United Brotherhood of Carpenters 
and Joiners of America 

26-May 1 

Organizing in the Construction 
Industry 

26-May 1 

Union Issues for Working Women 


MAY 1992 
3-8 

Advanced Arbitration 
3-8 

Effective Speaking 

3-8 

American Federation of State, 
County and Municipal Employees 

3-8 

Laborers’ International Union of 
North America 

3-15 

Communications Workers of 
America 

10-14 

Association of Flight Attendants 

10-15 

The Union Administrator and 
Business Agent 


10-15 

American Federation of Teachers 
10-15 

United Food and Commercial 
Workers International Union 

17-22 

Effective Grievance 
Administration 

17-22 

Contract Negotiations and the 
Law 

17- 22 

Effective Writing 
17- June 5 

African-American Labor Center 
17-June 12 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #161 

18- 21 

Association of Flight Attendants 
26-29 

International Union of Electronic, 
Electrical, Salaried, Machine and 
Furniture Workers 

31-June 5 

Organizing Techniques I 
31-June 5 

American Federation of Teachers 


JUNE 1992 
7-12 

Making the Legal System Work 

7- 19 

New Staff Program 

8 - 12 

Certified Employee Benefit 
Specialist Programs 

14-19 

Transportation Communications 
International Union 

14-19 

Association of Flight Attendants 
14-July 3 

African-American Labor Center 

21- 24 

Desktop Publishing 
21-26 

Standards of Discipline and 
Discharge in Arbitration 

21-26 

Negotiating and Writing Contract 
Language 

21-July 17 

American Institute for Free Labor 
Development #162 

22- 26 

National Association of Broadcast 
Employees and Technicians 

28-30 

The Great Labor Arts Exchange 
28-July 3 

American Federation of Teachers 





Message from Cuba: 
Workers need support 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Aida Valdes Santana describes the plight of Cuban workers for the AFL-CIO 
Labor Committee for a Free Cuba. 


By Michael Byrne 

A ida Valdes Santana, who for 20 
years has given refuge and 
assistance to political prisoners in her 
Cuban home, came to AFL-CIO head- 
quarters bearing a message for 
American workers. 

“Your support is vitally important in 
our struggle for democracy in Cuba,” 
she told the AFL-CIO Labor Commit- 
tee for a Free Cuba. “It is important 
that we meet with you and feel your 
support, the support of all American 
workers.” 

Valdes described how Cuban workers 
are blackballed once they challenge the 
government of Fidel Castro, how im- 
prisonment has turned productive 
workers into unemployed outcasts. 

“I am trying to help ex-prisoners who 
have been unable to find work,” she 
said. “Those who disagree with the 
government don’t have a chance to get 
a job, certainly not one in which they 
have expertise or experience.” 

Valdes is herself a former political 
prisoner who has been sentenced to jail 
on several occasions for “ideological 
differences.” In 1987, the peaceful war 
she has waged against the government 
since 1963 led her to join the Cuban 
Committee on Human Rights, one of 
the few non-communist movements that 
exist in Cuba. 

Valdes, who on Oct. 8 received the 
Madame Curie Award for her work 


By James B. Parks 

T rade advantages under the General- 
ized System of Preferences should be 
withdrawn from Thailand, El Salvador, 
Bangladesh, Syria, Panama and 
Mauritania because of worker rights 
violations, the AFL-CIO told a review 
panel. 

“The linkage of worker rights to 
trade benefits . . . can be a powerful in- 
strument to encourage the adoption of 
internationally recognized rights and 
standards and thus support the basic 
premise of GSP to promote equitable 
economic and social growth in the less 
developed world,” said Mark Ander- 
son of the AFL-CIO ’s Economic 
Research Department. 

The AFL-CIO has been successful in 
getting basic worker rights incorporated 
as a condition in extending U.S. trade 
advantages under the GSP. Basic 
worker rights are defined as the inter- 
nationally recognized standards of the 
International Labor Organization. 

But the Bush and Reagan administra- 
tions have not vigorously executed the 
provisions, removing or suspending on- 
ly seven countries since 1985, when the 
rules went into effect. The AFL-CIO 
has filed petitions citing documented 
abuses in more than 25 countries in the 
past six years, Anderson said. Current- 
ly, only four nations — Burma, 
Liberia, Romania and Sudan — are 
suspended. 

The AFL-CIO in May petitioned to 
have seven countries removed from the 
GSP list. The Office of the U.S. Trade 
Representative “summarily dismissed” 
the petitions for Guatemala and In- 
donesia, claiming the evidence was not 
sufficient to even warrant a review, 
Anderson said. 

That left Thailand, El Salvador, 
Bangladesh, Syria and Panama. The 
federation also is supporting Africa 


with political prisoners from the Inter- 
national Federation of Human Rights in 
Paris, met with the committee before 
returning to Cuba. She thanked the 
committee for its work in helping gain 
the release of Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, 
who attended the meeting, and of Mario 
Chanes de Armas, who still is not free 
to leave Cuba to join his family in 
Miami. 

Committee Chairman John De- 
Concini, president of the Bakery, Con- 
fectionery and Tobacco Workers, and 
William Doherty, executive director of 
the American Institute for Free Labor 
Development, reported on the federa- 
tion’s continuing efforts to pressure 
Castro to release Chanes, the former 
leader of the Cuban Brewery Workers 
who recently was released from Cuban 
jails after 30 years. 

DeConcini, Doherty and AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland recently met 
with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ar- 
mando Duran Ache, urging that 
Venezuela try to convince Castro to 
grant Chanes an exit permit. While his 
family has been able to communicate 
with Chanes on the telephone, those 
messages now apparently are being 
monitored, Doherty reported. 

Kirkland has sent letters to all Latin 
American leaders, seeking their help to 
gain Chanes’ freedom. While Chanes 
was released from prison at the end of 
his 30-year sentence, Kirkland pointed 


Watch’s petition on Mauritania. 

Appearing before the USTR’s GSP 
subcommittee, Anderson reiterated the 
federation’s call to expedite the normal 
one-year investigation into Thailand’s 
violations. 

Thailand’s military rulers, after tak- 
ing power in a coup, eliminated by 
decree the state enterprise unions, by 
far the largest component of the coun- 
try’s labor movement. The federation 
in its May GSP petition noted that a 


The AFL-CIO has 
filed over 25 GSP 
petitions since 1985, 
but the Reagan-Bush 
administrations have 
only suspended seven 
countries. 


year’s wait to complete an investigation 
would mean that no labor movement in 
Thailand would exist. 

“There is no proof that any change 
in direction is forthcoming,” Anderson 
said. “Indeed, all indications point to 
the government of Thailand’s continued 
intention to destroy the labor movement 
and to threaten and harass its leaders. ’ ’ 

The Thai government has shrugged 
off international petitions to investigate 
or acknowledge its complicity in the 
June 19 disappearance of Thanong Po- 
arn, president of the Labor Congress of 
Thailand. And the exploitation of child 
labor in Thailand has gotten worse, 
Anderson said. 

In El Salvador, trade union leaders 
live under constant threat of violence 
and harassment by the government. 

The nation’s leaders have made no ef- 


out, he is being denied an I.D. card that 
would entitle him to receive food ra- 
tions and is surviving on food shared by 
friends. 

Kirkland has invited both Chanes and 
Diaz to attend the AFL-CIO convention 
in Detroit in November. 

Meanwhile, Diaz fears that Chanes is 
in mortal danger while in Cuba, where 
Castro wields an iron fist against 
dissent. 


forts to correct widely acknowledged 
worker rights violations and freedom of 
association in the private sector is 
almost non-existent, Anderson said. 

Bangladesh is retrogressing in protec- 
ting the rights of its impoverished 
workers. The so-called “bright spot” 
in this very poor nation’s economy, the 
garment industry, routinely exploits 
women and children. 

Some 27 people were killed and at 
least 100 injured when fire swept the 
Sharaka Garments factory in Dhaka, 
Bangladesh, on Dec. 27, 1990. Of the 
dead, 11 were under 16 years of age, 
and three of these were girls under 12. 

Two workers, age 14 and 16, told an 
AFL-CIO representative the factory 
regularly employs children as young as 
7 years old. The workers died because 
the escape doors were locked, officials 
said. 

The Bush and Reagan administrations 
have been most negligent in not enfor- 
cing GSP workers rights provisions is 
Syria, Anderson said. 

Syria has a consistent record of 
worker rights violations documented by 
the ILO over the years. It also has been 
designated by the U.S. State Depart- 
ment as a “terrorist nation,” which, 
under the GSP law, is reason enough 
to withhold benefits, he said. 

In Panama, several labor codes pass- 
ed in 1990 severely restrict worker 
rights. Workers in export processing 
zones have had their contracts 
unilaterally extended by employers for 
up to four years and their right to strike 
curtailed. 

In Mauritania, laws abolishing 
slavery are commonly ignored and 
worker rights, particularly for blacks, 
are severely abridged. Trade union 
leaders have been detained, harassed 
and intimidated by the government, 
Anderson said. 


‘ ‘I know that he is in ill health, ’ ’ Diaz 
told the committee, “and there is no 
medicine for him.” 

But, as Diaz noted, Chanes is but one 
of several political prisoner who have 
been freed from Cuban jails but denied 
exit permits. 

Those are the “children” of Aida 
Valdes, who would be waiting for her 
to bring the comforting words of hope 
and freedom to come. 

Unions , academia 
exchange views 
on worker ills 

Linthicum Heights, Md. 

M ethods of getting members more in- 
volved in their locals were ex- 
plored by unionists and academics dur- 
ing “Challenges for Unions,” a con- 
ference sponsored by the AFL-CIO and 
Cornell University at the Masters, 
Mates and Pilots Training Center. 

To activate membership, Bricklayers 
President John T. Joyce said, his union 
is trying to make union meetings more 
interesting by developing study circles 
and establishing a new level of union 
governance that gives locals a more ac- 
tive voice in international union activi- 
ties. 

The conference included an exchange 
of ideas between union officials and 
labor academics about how each group 
tries to provide information about and 
for workers and unions. 

Professor Thomas Kochan of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
noted that in the present anti-union 
political climate, unions are forced to 
debate issues such as the permanent 
replacement of strikers instead of in- 
tegrating labor policy with social 
benefits, as is the case in Europe. 

“Nobody in the Department of Labor 
can even address these issues,” Kochan 
noted. 

In addition to Joyce and Kochan, par- 
ticipants in the conference included A1 
Bilik, president of the AFL-CIO Public 
Employee Department; Rudy Oswald, 
director of the AFL-CIO Department of 
Economic Research; Mark Anderson, 
assistant director of the Department of 
Economic Research; Joe Shantz, direc- 
tor of the AFL-CIO Department of 
Organization and Field Services; 
Walter Kamiat, AFL-CIO associate 
general counsel; Richard Hurd of Cor- 
nell University; and Mary Ellen Kelley 
of Carnegie Mellon University. 


GSP trade benefit withdrawals sought 

AFL-CIO cites worker rights abuses in six countries 






PED: We make government work 


Atlantic City, N.J. 

P ublic employee unions, looking to 
counter the neglect of public services 
during the Reagan-Bush administra- 
tions, used the convention of the AFL- 
CIO ’s Public Employee Department to 
explore how employee programs can 
make government work better 
“In these challenging times, public 
employee unions are leading the battle 
to improve government,” PED Presi- 
dent A1 Bilik told the 300 delegates 
from 33 unions during the Oct. 3-5 
convention. 

“First, that means fighting for full 
collective bargaining rights for all 
public workers, including federal 
workers and public employees in the 24 
states without full bargaining rights,” 
Bilik said. 

He also called on the federal govern- 
ment to meet domestic needs and to 
form a new partnership with state and 
local governments. 

“And third, many public programs 
can be reformed to make government 
work better,” Bilik said. “And no one 
knows how to do that better that the 
workers who provide services on a 
daily basis.” 

Delegates reviewed various union- 
initiated programs to improve public 
services at five concurrent sessions dur- 
ing the convention, including how in- 
itiatives by public sector unions to 
reorganize government programs 
helped bring positive changes in 
services as well as jobs. 

PED also honored 11 innovative 
union efforts to improve government on 
all levels, based on their impact in 
strengthening the union, improving 
jobs, promoting excellence in the public 
sector and enhancing productivity and 
cost-effective service delivery: 

• Cincinnati Federation of Teachers 
initiated a range of efforts to improve 
the education of children and, at the 


Pittsburgh 

M ore than 500 delegates to the sixth 
biennial convention of the Coali- 
tion of Labor Union Women were told 
that unionization would lead the grow- 
ing number of women in the work force 
into ‘ ‘The Decade of Empowerment, ’ ’ 
the convention theme. 

“Unionization is the most empower- 
ing way a working woman can improve 
her economic life,” CLUW President 
Joyce Miller said. The 7.5 million 
union women in the United States earn 
about 30 percent more than their non- 
union counterparts. 

“Union membership is more effec- 
tive in raising the wages of low income 
workers than education, job training, or 
work experience,” Miller said. 

Where social policy falls short, union 
contracts often make up the difference, 
according to the 20,000-member coalition. 

Miller criticized the policies of the 
Reagan and Bush administrations, 
which “have obviously felt that 
minimum standards are not necessary 


Honolulu, Hawaii 

T he United Transportation Union 
elected G. Thomas DuBose as presi- 
dent. DuBose defeated Fred Hardin, 
who headed the union since 1979. 

UTU convention delegates voted 
410-259 for DuBose, who held the post 
of assistant president since 1987. 
DuBose also served as a vice president 
of the UTU, and as vice president of the 
Switchmen’s Union, which merged in 


same time, to professionalize teaching. 

• Local 21 of the Professional and 
Technical Engineers in San Francisco 
worked through a labor-management 
committee to reorganize their depart- 
ment to better respond to the needs of 
neighborhoods and communities. 

• The Postal Workers designed and 
implemented a window clerk training 
program that is now used throughout 
the Postal Service. 

• Fire Fighters Local 493 in 
Phoenix, Ariz., helped create a regional 
emergency response system in the city 
and its suburbs. 

• The Fire Fighters also helped pro- 
ducers shape positive concepts about 
fire fighters and the union for the film 
“Backdraft.” 

• The Montana AFL-CIO shaped a 
New Directions State Economic Devel- 
opment plan to build the state’s 
economy. 

• Professional Airways Systems 
Specialists, Marine Engineers District 
1 improved operations through col- 
laborative decision-making through its 
Employee Involvement Process with the 
Federal Aviation Administration. 

• Service Employees Local 503 in 
Oregon negotiated contract language 
that called for creating labor-manage- 
ment teams with authority to reassign 
staff to meet changing workload 
demands. 

• Government Employees Local 
1857 at the PACER Share Gainsharing 
Demonstration Project at the Sacramen- 
to, Calif., Air Logistics Center im- 
proved productivity through a type of 
profit-sharing and developed a more 
flexible personnel system. 

• Letter Carriers, North/Central 
Jersey Merged Branch 38 aggressively 
marketed Express Mail Service to local 
businesses and grabbed a share of the 
Federal Express business. 

• AFSCME Council 6 in Minnesota 


for employers in the areas of family 
leave, health insurance, and child 
care.” 

Government figures show that 
women make up about 45 percent of the 
work force and have grown to more 
than half of the nation’s union 
members. However, 64 percent of these 
working women hold minimum wage 
jobs, Miller said. 

A study by the U.S. Department of 
Education’s Center for Education 
Statistics found that, in 1988, the me- 
dian annual income for women who had 
completed four years of college was less 
than that of men who had completed 
four years of high school. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas Donahue told the delegates 
during an open forum that a goal of 
organized labor for the coming decade 
is to “eliminate the gap between 
women’s and men’s earning and to 
remove the glass ceiling. The gap is an 
affront to our basic notions of equality 
and fairness.” 


1969 with three other unions — the 
Railroad Trainmen, Locomotive Fire- 
men and Enginemen and Railway Con- 
ductors and Brakemen — to form the 
UTU. 

The 671 delegates also elected a new 
secretary-treasurer, Charles L. Little, 
who defeated incumbent Thomas J. 
McGuire, and elected three new vice 
presidents while returning 13 others. 

Elected assistant president was L.W. 


negotiated an agreement with the state 
to restructure the state’s mental retar- 
dation system so that state workers will 
be guaranteed job security. 

Bilik and Secretary-Treasurer John 
Leyden were re-elected to two-year 
terms, along with eight vice presidents: 
AFSCME President Gerald W. 
McEntee, Teachers President Albert 
Shanker, Service Employees President 
John J. Sweeney, Fire Fighters Presi- 
dent Alfred K. Whitehead, Postal 
Workers President Moe Biller, Labor- 
ers President Angelo Fosco, Letter Car- 
riers President Vincent R. Sombrotto 
and Government Employees President 
John N. Sturdivant. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the delegates, meeting under the 
theme ‘New Dimensions in Public 
Service,’ that federal cutbacks have 
worsened the nation’s problems, in- 
cluding crime, the environment and 
homelessness. 

“Cities and states are wallowing in 
an epidemic of fiscal crises as they 
struggle to deal with huge social prob- 
lems they are left to face on their own 
as the federal government off-loads all 
responsibility,” he said. 

Joseph Sensenbrenner, former mayor 
of Madison, Wis., stressed the impor- 
tance and benefit of having union 
members involved in the decision- 
making process. 

“There are no satisfied customers 
without satisfied employees,” he said. 

Public employees can play an active 
role by influencing the investments of 
the nearly $1 trillion in public employee 
pension funds, said Regina Markey of 
the AFL-CIO Housing Investment 
Trust. 

Other speakers included the Rev. 
Jesse Jackson; Julie Davis, secretary- 
treasurer of the Ontario Federation of 
Labour; and Jeff Faux, president of the 
Economic Policy Institute. 


Donahue noted that the Labor 
Department may be construing the so- 
called “glass ceiling” too narrowly. “It 
doesn’t affect only those women who 
aspire to top corporate leadership posi- 
tions. There is an elaborate architecture 
of ceilings and other barriers that hold 
back millions more women on the mid- 
dle and lower rungs of the ladder — in 
health care, service industries, and lots 
of other places.” 

Other speakers included Sen. Harris 
Wofford (D-Pa); Judge Lisa Richette, 
Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas; 
Clothing and Textile Workers President 
Jack Sheinkman; AFSCME President 
Gerald McEntee; AFSCME Secretary- 
Treasurer William Lucy, the president 
of the Coalition of Black Trade 
Unionists; Electronic Workers Presi- 
dent William H. Bywater; Steelworkers 
President Lynn R. Williams; Viviana 
Lopez, Frontlash; Katie Quan, Asian 
Labor Caucus; and Huguette Plamon- 
don, Canadian Labour Congress. 


Swert, a UTU vice president. Delegates 
also voted in elections for legislative 
director, alternate vice presidents and 
other offices. 

The election marks the third defeat of 
an incumbent rail union president this 
year. Earlier, Ronald McLaughlin was 
elected president of the Locomotive 
Engineers and Robert Scardelletti presi- 
dent of the Transportation Communica- 
tions Union. 



Oregon AFL-CIO 
urges fair tax plan 

Portland 

D elegates to the Oregon AFL-CIO 
convention urged changes in the 
state tax system to raise additional 
revenues and elected President Irv Flet- 
cher to a sixth term. 

Fletcher defeated AFSCME Local 88 
President Arlene Collins to become the 
longest-serving state AFL-CIO presi- 
dent since the AFL and CIO merger 36 
years ago. Delegates also voted to ex- 
tend the president’s term from two to 
four years. 

A convention resolution called for in- 
creases in the personal income tax and 
corporate taxes and endorsed a luxury 
tax on such items as jewelry, furs, 
luxury-class cars and “high-priced gifts 
and novelties.” 

Fletcher stressed that the endorse- 
ment of the luxury tax does not repre- 
sent a softening of labor’s traditional 
stance against a regressive general sales 
tax. Oregon is one of a handful of states 
without a sales tax. Since the state 
passed a limitation on property taxes, 
however, revenues have fallen. 

To generate additional revenues, one 
resolution called for increasing the cur- 
rent maximum personal income tax rate 
by almost a full percentage point from 
9 to 9.9 and increasing the corporate tax 
from 6.6 percent to 10 percent. 

The resolution also called for restric- 
ting the 1 .5 percent property tax limita- 
tion to owner-occupied dwellings and 
allowing the tax rate on other proper- 
ties to be as high as 2.5 percent. 

Virginia labor votes 
‘fair share’ campaign 

Norfolk, Va. 

T he Virginia AFL-CIO has launched 
a grass-roots campaign to pass leg- 
islation that would enable unions to 
negotiate “fair share” service fees for 
non-union members. 

Meeting under the theme “Fair 
Share,” delegates to the state federation 
convention heard plans to mount a 
statewide media campaign and petition 
drive to urge the General Assembly to 
pass a bill allowing the fees. 

The state federation, which has made 
the bill its top legislative priority, plans 
to gamer 10,000 signatures on the peti- 
tion by January 1992. A similar bill was 
nearly reported out of committee in the 
last assembly session. 

Legislative redistricting has given the 
federation “an extraordinary opportuni- 
ty to pass fair share legislation,” said 
state AFL-CIO President Daniel G. 
LeBlanc in announcing the campaign. 
“But it won’t be won in the legislature 
until it is won on the factory floor . . . 
until there is a consensus by working 
families in Virginia for justice in the 
workplace.” 

In an effort to bolster the bill’s 
chances, the delegates endorsed 60 can- 
didates for legislative seats. They also 
gave their backing to Democrat Kay 
Slaughter in a special congressional 
race. 

State Sen. Yvonne Miller (D- 
Norfolk), who introduced the “Fair 
Share” bill, was the keynote speaker 
for the Sept. 20-21 convention. 


CLUW: Unions can boost working women 


DuBose elected United Transportation Union president 






Workers need jobs, trade assistance, AFL-CIO says 


By John R. Oravec 

W hen U.S. workers lose their jobs 
as a result of deliberate national 
trade policy, including the proposed 
free trade agreement with Mexico, they 
should be entitled to federal assistance 
and compensation, the AFL-CIO told 
the Senate Finance Committee. 

“But no amount or kind of assistance 
can take the place of a steady, decent 
job,” federation economist Sheldon 
Friedman testified. “Such jobs are 
becoming all too rare in today’s 
economy.” 

Friedman underlined the point that 
“what workers and the economy need 
the most are trade and industrial policies 
that create good jobs in America and 
stop the hemorrhage of those jobs” to 
overseas. 

Yet, studies show that the job-loss 
fallout from the North American Free 
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that the 
Bush administration is recklessly 
pushing will be heavy on U.S. workers. 
He noted that property owners who 


are dispossessed by government action 
are usually entitled to compensation. 
Workers, whose jobs are wiped out by 
government action and often sustain 
more serious damage, should have the 
same entitlements. 

An appropriate vehicle to help dis- 
placed U.S. workers is an improved and 
expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance 
(TAA) program, Friedman said. 

TAA has been the government’s 
longstanding commitment to help 
workers who are injured by its trade 
policies, he noted. 

“In 1962, 1974 and again in 1988, 
Congress made it clear that workers in- 
jured by trade were entitled to special 
help,” Friedman said. “But cutbacks 
have gutted TAA during a decade of un- 
precedented need, often turning the 
government’s commitment to workers 
into an empty promise.” 

The Reagan and Bush administrations 
repeatedly have tried to terminate the 
program, most recently in the presi- 
dent’s 1992 budget proposal, Friedman 


pointed out. While Reagan and Bush 
have not succeeded in killing TAA, its 
scope has been scaled back drastically 
since 1981. 

The AFL-CIO is calling for com- 
prehensive and substantial im- 
provements in TAA benefits to offset 
the damage caused by NAFTA or other 
trade policies, including: 

• Restoration of the 1974 wage 
replacement formula of up to 70 per- 
cent of a worker’s prior pay with the 
combination of TAA benefits and un- 
employment compensation. 

• Improved duration of benefits and 
benefit entitlement for 104 weeks and 
52 weeks more for workers in retrain- 
ing programs. 

• Continuation of medical insurance 
for displaced workers during the ex- 
tended period of TAA coverage. 

• A bridge for benefits of workers 
near retirement who are eligible for 
pensions or Social Security within four 
years after displacement. 

• Emphasis on targeted job creation 


that may include planning grants, sub- 
sidized loans and labor-management 
alternative arrangements. 

Friedman said the rules for eligibil- 
ity for TAA must be updated so 
workers who are injured by foreign 
trade can qualify for and receive 
benefits. The amount of assistance has 
plummeted over the years. 

From 1976 to 1980, an average of 

250.000 workers were certified each 
year to receive benefits. But during the 
1980s only an average of 52,000 were 
certified. And in 1990, when the trade 
deficit exceeded $100 billion, only 

19.000 displaced workers actually 
received weekly TAA benefits. 

A new criterion must be established 
for the export of jobs to Mexico under 
the pending NAFTA, Friedman 
stressed. Many workers have been 
denied certification because an 
employer has transferred their jobs to 
another U.S. plant before shipping the 
work they had been doing to plants in 
Mexico. 


Mexico trade warnings are raised 

Maquiladora workers at risk on and off the job 


W hile the Bush administration presses for a trade 
agreement that would expand the burgeoning 
maquiladora industries from along the U.S. -Mexican 
border to all over Mexico, those plants are poison- 
ing their workers on and off the job. 

• In recent months, hundreds of workers have 
suffered food poisoning at maquiladora cafeterias, in- 
cluding one worker who died after eating con- 
taminated chicken at a plant in Juarez, Mexico. 

• Women workers formerly employed at an elec- 
tronics manufacturing plant in Matamoros, Mexico, 
are suing the U.S. owners for exposure to hazardous 
workplace chemicals that caused them to miscarry 
or deliver babies with birth defects. 

Meanwhile, as Mexican workers undergo the 
exploitation of low pay and horrid working condi- 
tions, U.S. workers face the export of their jobs. 

With Bush continuing to press for a pact with Mex- 
ico within the North American Free Trade Agree- 
ment (NAFTA), trade unionists, environmentalists 
and citizens groups are campaigning at public forums 
and at government hearings to head off economic and 
health disaster. 

AFL-CIO representatives have pointed out that the 
loss of jobs will be felt by U.S. workers in all parts 
of the country, and the impact will be just as intense 
in states bordering Mexico. 

At an August hearing on NAFTA in Houston, 
business leaders endorsed claims of the Bush ad- 
ministration on the Mexico trade agreement before 
an interagency panel of the Trade Policy Staff Com- 
mittee. State officials, while welcoming any economic 
benefits that be derived from the agreement, voiced 
concern about the adverse affects on Texas jobs, the 
environment and the infrastructure. 

Outside, union members and environmental groups 
protested that the Bush administration cannot be 
trusted to craft an agreement that will protect the jobs 


of U.S. workers and the regional environment. 

At a rally that included the Texas AFL-CIO, Craig 
Merrilees of the Fair Trade Campaign warned: “This 
trade agreement will be disaster for the working peo- 
ple of Texas, and it is just another windfall govern- 
ment giveaway to big business that will come at the 
expense of ordinary citizens and their environment.” 

The result, he said, will be “lower wages, fewer 
jobs, a lower standard of living and lower environ- 
mental protection.” 

At Environmental Protection Agency hearings in 
Brownsville, Texas, officials charged that EPA’s 
border plan is ill-conceived and should be scrapped 
and a new policy drafted. Other witnesses said the 
plan fails to address local concerns and does not to 
provide answers to the pollution problems. 

In a tour of the Matamoros region, union and con- 
gressional officials examined the stark contrast be- 
tween the high-tech maquiladora plants and the 
squalid living conditions of Mexican workers. The 
delegation, including AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue and House Majority Leader 
Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), also met with U.S. and 
Mexican labor representatives on both sides of the 
border. 

In Seattle, a coalition of labor, human rights and 
environmental groups spelled out their concerns in 
demonstrations as U.S. , Canadian and Mexican gov- 
ernment officials met during a second round of talks. 

At a rally backed by the Washington State AFL- 
CIO, demonstrators assailed the exploitation of Mex- 
ican workers at pay of 50 cents an hour and voiced 
their concerns for unemployed Canadian unionists 
who lost their jobs when their plants moved south. 

“We need to show these corporations that moral 
behavior knows no borders,” Sister Susan Mika, the 
Benedictine nun who heads the Coalition for Justice 
in the Maquiladoras, told the Seattle rally. 


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Corporations are being advised about how they 
can shut down U.S. operations and move to Mex- 
ico where they can exploit cheap labor. 


Nearly 500,000 U.S. jobs could be at risk, study finds 


“U.S. businesses are looking to Mexico for 
workers, not customers ” 

— Professor Timothy Koechlin 


H undreds of thousands of U.S. jobs 
are threatened by the pending trade 
agreement with Mexico as U.S. com- 
panies shift production across the 
border, according to a new study by the 
University of Massachusetts/Amherst 
and Skidmore College. 

The job loss during the 1990s would 
range from 260,000 to 439,000 as more 
U.S. firms relocate operations to Mex- 
ico to cash in on cheap labor, four 
economists concluded in a study sub- 
mitted to the Trade Policy Staff Com- 
mittee. They also found that U.S. in- 
vestment in Mexico would surge by 
more than $31 billion to $52.7 billion 
by the end of the decade. 

Other analysts in earlier studies on 


the pending trade agreement also 
warned of dire economic impact on 
U.S. workers and their communities. 
Some findings projected job losses of 
550,000, as well as a resultant erosion 
of the U.S. standard of living. 

UMass economist Sam Bowles said, 
“When firms head south looking for 
labor at bargain prices and are ready to 
exploit Mexico’s more lax environmen- 
tal standards, the pressure to lower 


wages and weaken environmental pro- 
tections in the United States begins to 
build.” 

Prof. Gerald Epstein cautioned that 
Mexico’s low wages and easy access to 
the U.S. markets make it attractive for 
investment. 

“The free trade agreement will pro- 
vide U.S. businesses with assurances 
that the U.S. market will be open to 
them if they relocate in Mexico,” said 


Epstein, an expert on international 
finance. “The result will be a massive 
shift of investment to Mexico.” 

In criticizing the administration’s 
claim of a minimal impact on U.S. jobs, 
Prof. Timothy Koechlin pointed out that 
White House policymakers assumed 
Mexican markets would open to U.S. 
goods. 

“U.S. businesses are looking to Mex- 
ico for workers, not customers,” 
Koechlin said. 

Economist Mehrene Larudee noted 
that Mexican workers also need jobs. 
The proposed trade agreement should 
provide protections for “people on both 
sides of the border from possible abuses 
of the increased mobility of firms.” 






Jobless benefits exhausted 
by 300,000 in September 


Continued from Page 1 

some 300,000 exhausted their regular 
26 weeks of benefits last month. 

Instead, the president pointed to the 
one-tenth of 1 percent decline in jobless 
rate to 6.7 percent and the meager 
24,000 gain in payrolls, which were 
primarily low-paying service sector 
jobs. Manufacturing and construction 
jobs declined. 

While Bush insisted that the 
“unemployment figures show the 
economy is moving in the right direc- 
tion,” the Joint Economic Committee 
of Congress said that government data 
“show no evidence that a self-sustain- 
ing recovery has begun.” 

In urging Bush to sign the legislation, 
some 300 unemployed workers rallied 
outside the White House. They brought 
along their unpaid bills — rent, mort- 
gage, utilities and overdue car 
payments. 

The demonstrators placed the bills in 
a plastic trash bag — a reference to 
Bush’s labeling of the legislation “gar- 
bage” at a $l,000-a-plate Republican 
fund-raiser — and tried to deliver it to 
the president. But uniformed White 
House guards pushed the bag back 
through the White House gates with 
their billy clubs. 

Under the umbrella of the Phila- 
delphia Unemployment Project, the 
demonstrators included members of the 
Clothing and Textile Workers, Plumb- 
ers, Carpenters, Laborers and 
AFSCME from a half-dozen East Coast 
cities. 

“We are facing the loss of our homes 
and everything we have,” said Peggy 
Quirk, an unemployed hotel and 
restaurant manager. “The president 
needs to know what we are facing.” 

After being turned away from the 
White House, the demonstrators went 
to Capitol Hill to plead their case with 
the five GOP senators who switched 
votes against final passage of the 
legislation. The five are John Danforth 
and Christopher Bond of Missouri, 
Conrad Burns of Montana, David 
Durenberger of Minnesota and John 
Seymour of California. 

Although unable to meet with the 
senators, the jobless brought a strong 
message on the plight of the unem- 
ployed. That message is being pursued 
by state labor federations in the four 
states. 

Under White House prodding, the 
Republicans are trying to champion a 
substitute measure sponsored by Sen. 
Robert Dole (R-Kan.) that the Senate 


soundly defeated before approving the 
Democratic bill sponsored by Sen. 
Lloyd Bent sen (D-Texas) and Rep. 
Thomas J. Downey (D-N.Y.). 

Unlike the Democratic bill that would 
be retroactive to February and provide 
up to 20 additional weeks of benefits, 
the Dole proposal only calls for six to 
ten more weeks with severely limited 
coverage. 

John Dodds, director of the Phila- 
delphia Unemployed Project branded 
the Dole bill “a sham” and charged that 
it would exclude hundreds of thousands 
of jobless workers from coverage. 

According to a congressional study, 
Dodds said, it would provide no 
benefits for the jobless in the four states 
where the five Republican senators 
switched their votes. Excluded would 
be 5,500 jobless in Montana, 29,000 in 
Minnesota, 39,280 in Missouri and 
305,000 in California. 

Under the measure Bush vetoed, 
jobless workers who exhausted their 
regular benefits would be granted an ad- 
ditional 20 weeks of compensation in 
states with jobless rates of 8 percent and 
higher. In states with 7 percent unem- 
ployment, the jobless would receive 13 
more weeks of benefits. And in all other 
states the jobless would receive an ad- 
ditional seven weeks of benefits. 

Under the existing unemployment in- 
surance law, no state is eligible for ex- 
tended benefits. The long-term jobless 
in Rhode Island, where the unemploy- 
ment rate is 8.5 percent, were the last to 
be stripped from the extended UI program. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics 
reported that in September three major 
states had jobless rates of 8 percent and 
higher — Florida, 8 percent; Massa- 
chusetts, 9.2 percent; and Michigan, 
9.7 percent. California was at 7.7 per- 
cent and Illinois at 7.1 percent. 

At 8.4 million, the number counted 
as officially unemployed was 1.6 
million above July 1990 at the start of 
the Bush recession. And the number of 
workers in part-time jobs who want 
full-time work rose from 5.9 million to 
6.4 million. BLS counts part-time 
workers as fully employed. At the same 
time, the number of discouraged 
workers who dropped out of the labor 
force rose to 1.1 million. 

As a result, said AFL-CIO economist 
Markley Roberts, almost 16 million 
workers were unemployed or under- 
employed in September. 

Economists warned that the nation’s 
jobless rate could likely rise in coming 
months because of mass layoffs. 




Source: Census Bureau 


Recession drops millions 
from low-income to poor 


T he nation’s poverty rate rose sharp- 
ly last year as the Bush recession 
mowed its way through low-income 
households, the Census Bureau 
reported. 

The report said 2.1 million more 
Americans — including 840,000 more 
children — fell into poverty in 1990, 
pushing the total poor to 33.6 million. 
This was significantly higher than of 
31.5 million in 1989 and was the first 
annual increase in the poor since 1983. 

In addition, the erosion in both in- 
dividual worker wages and household 
income continued to decline, with a 
drop of 2 percent or $525 a year for the 
average middle-income family. 

The Census Bureau said 13.5 percent 
of all Americans lived in poverty in 
1990, also significantly higher than the 
12.8 percent in 1989. 

The average poverty threshold in 
1990 was $13,359 for a family of four 
and $6,652 for a person living alone. 

But worse, the poverty rate is “like- 
ly to be substantially higher today than 
it was in 1990” because poverty in- 
creases with unemployment rates and 
those rates have been well above 1990, 
said Robert Greenstein of the Center on 
Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). 

“Weak government policies to assist 
the recession’s victims, including the 
weakest level of unemployment in- 
surance protection in any recession 
since World War II — along with bud- 
get cuts aimed at the poor that were 
passed earlier this year in a number of 


states — add to the likelihood of a 
further substantial rise in poverty in 
1991,” Greenstein added. 

The figures showed declining in- 
comes for middle-income families, the 
CBPP pointed out. The new data show 
a 2 percent decline, or a drop of $709 
last year in median family income. 

The income of the typical middle- 
income household fell by $525 in 1990, 
after adjustment for inflation. In the 
Northeast and the West, the decline was 
more than $1,000. 

In addition to the recession, an im- 
portant factor in the poverty picture has 
been the long-term erosion in wages, 
the CBPP observed, saying: “This has 
made it harder for low-wage workers 
to climb out of poverty through work 
and has also affected the incomes of 
middle-income families . ’ ’ 

The Census data show that earnings 
of the typical full-time male workers fell 
$1,046 in 1990. 

The CBPP also pointed out that Labor 
Department data show that average 
hourly wages for non-supervisory 
workers were lower in 1990 than in any 
year since 1964. 

Other factors contributing to the up- 
ward trend in poverty since the 1970s, 
the CBPP said, include reduced govern- 
ment benefits, the increase in the pro- 
portion of families headed by a woman, 
and the growing tendency for the 
economy to distribute wages and other 
income more unevenly than in the past. 

— Press Associates 


Bush recession lingers on as signs of recovery remain murky 


N o clear signs of recovery emerged 
in government economic reports or 
private surveys as the Bush recession 
staggered into its 16th month. Any blips 
of an upturn were weak. 

• Revised data on the economy’s 
second quarter performance showed the 
recession was worse than earlier 
readings indicated, the Commerce 
Department reported. In the latest 
reading, the gross national product 
shrunk at an annual rate of 0.5 percent. 
The GNP declined 2.8 percent in the 


first quarter, as well as 1.6 percent in 
the fourth quarter of 1990. 

• Consumer confidence in the 
economy slipped again in September, 
according to the Conference Board. Its 
index dropped 4.5 percentage points 
from August and stood 28.5 percent 
below July 1990. 

• A similar downturn appeared in 
an ABC News-Money magazine poll, 
which showed consumer confidence at 
an eight-month low. Finance worries 
struck deep into the middle class, the 


pollsters said, and 83 percent of the 
respondents gave a negative rating to 
the overall economy. 

• Voters disapproved of President 
Bush’s handling of the economy by a 
margin of 51 to 41 percent, a Wall 
Street Joumal/NBC News poll found. 
Voters also said the country is on the 
wrong track by 49 to 33 percent. 

• The index of leading economic in- 
dicators was flat in August as only four 
of the 11 components edged up. 

Six components pointed down: con- 


tracts and orders for plant and equip- 
ment, building permits, money supply, 
deliveries from suppliers, prices for 
materials sensitive to the business cycle, 
as well as higher initial claims for state 
unemployment insurance. 

On the plus side were a rise in orders 
for durable goods, a longer average 
workweek, higher stock prices, and a 
rise consumer expectations. But the 
stocks have dropped sharply and con- 
sumers are showing new worries in Oc- 
tober about the economy. 


AFL-CIO NEWSGRAFIC 






John Grzelak 

Polish trade unionists Stephan Boczek and Jerzey Tokarczyk watch as Otto 
Pruitt, a member of the Electronic Workers, winds wire on a cellular 
manufacturing system at a General Electric plant in Ft. Wayne. 

Solidarity Day ’91 lasts 
3 weeks for Polish group 

Unionists learn from Hoosier hospitality 



Sigurd Lucassen was elected to his 
first full five-year term as president of 
the Carpenters. Delegates to the union’s 
convention in Atlantic City elected 
Lucassen by a 1,378-878 margin over 
John “Whitey” Rogers, the union’s 
secretary. Lucassen, who was first vice 
president, became president when 
former president Patrick Campbell, 
retired in 1988. A third presidential 
candidate, Jeff Brunker, received 23 
votes. Dean Sooter was re-elected first 
vice president by a 1,398-865 margin 
over second vice president Jack 
McMillan. Paschal McGuiness was 
elected second vice president over Jim 
Davis by 1 ,319-935 vote count. 
McGuiness is president of the New 
York State Council of Carpenters and 
Local 608. Jim Patterson, an interna- 
tional union representative, was elected 
secretary over Tom Hanahan 
1,492-731. Jim Bledsoe, the union’s 
director of forest products, was elected 
treasurer over incumbent Wayne 
Pierce by a margin of 1,252-757. A 
third treasurer candidate, Willie 
Sheperson, received 242 votes. 

David Arian has been elected presi- 
dent of the Longshoremen and Ware- 
housemen, replacing James Herman, 
who retired after guiding the union 
since 1977. Arian defeated Randy 
Vekich by a 10,702 to 10,454 vote after 
a partial re-run held Oct. 1-2. Arian, 
44, a leader of Local 13 in Los Angeles- 
Long Beach, promised to put more em- 
phasis on organizing to bolster the 
50,000-member union. 

Herb Sargent, a writer and script 
consultant for “Saturday Night Live,” 
has been elected president of the 
Writers Guild of America, East. He 
succeeds Edward Adler, who stepped 
down after 10 years. Claire Labine 
won re-election as vice president, and 
Jane Bollinger was re-elected 
secretary -treasurer. 

Richard J. Walsh and Donald A. 
Johnson have been returned to office 
as president and secretary -treasurer, 
respectively, of the Illinois State 
Federation of Labor. Walsh, a member 
of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, 
had served as president of the state 
federation since Robert G. Gibson 
retired in December 1989. Because the 
two were unopposed after nominations 
closed, a scheduled vote in December 
was canceled. Walsh and Johnson begin 
their new terms April 1 . 

Robert A. Georgine, president of the 
AFL-CIO Building and Construction 
Trades Department, has been appointed 
chairman of National Philanthropy 
Day. Georgine has served on boards for 
a variety of philanthropic organizations, 
including the Blueprint for Cure Com- 
mittee for the Diabetes Research In- 
stitute of the University of Miami 
School of Medicine. The National 
Philanthropy Day, a day set aside to 
honor the contributions philanthropy 
has made to society, will be celebrated 
Nov. 19. NPD committee members 
represent such organizations as the 
United Way, the American Red Cross, 
the United Negro College Fund and 
many others. 

Farm Workers President Cesar 
Chavez led pickets in front of the of- 
fices of KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate in 
San Francisco, to condemn CBS TV 
News for “grave inaccuracies and 
outright lies’ ’ in a two-part report aired 
Sept. 18 and 19. “How ironic that the 


news organization which aired Edward 
R. Murrow’s historic ‘Harvest of 
Shame’ broadcast in the 1950s is 
bashing the people who are still fighting 
for farm workers in the 1990s,” 
Chavez said. The San Francisco protest 
coincided with pickets at CBS affiliates 
in Los Angeles, led by UFW Vice 
President Arturo Rodriguez, and in 
San Diego, led by Anthony Chavez, 
public action director in the San Diego 
area. 

Leaders of the Soviet Union’s In- 
dependent Miners Union, the NPG, 
sent a letter of support to striking Mine 
Workers in Colorado. Comparing the 
tactics of Cyprus Minerals Co. to the 
practices of Soviet coal industry of- 
ficials, P. Shumkin and other NPG 
leaders wrote, “We understand that the 
primary goal of the Cyprus manage- 
ment is exactly the same — to eliminate 
your trade union.” The letter was sent 
to Donnie Samms, Tony Grajeda and 
Floyd Gutierrez, three officers of 
UMW Local 1799, which is entering 
the fifth month of a strike against the 
Englewood, Colo., outfit. 

Postmaster General Anthony M. 
Frank reportedly is not amused by the 
“Wanted” posters bearing his photo 
put up in some of the nation’s post of- 
fices by the Postal Workers, who are 
irked by Frank’s continued efforts to 
contract out some mail operations. 
Frank’s crime, the union explains, is 
“privatizing the Postal Service.” 

Arleen Gilliam, assistant to AFL- 
CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. 
Donahue, has been appointed to a seat 
on the nine-member Park Authority 
Board by the board of supervisors in 
Fairfax County, Virginia, in which she 
resides. Gilliam was named as an at- 
large member to fill out an unexpired 
term. 

AWARDS 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue received the 
Pacem in Terris award from the Peace 
Institute of Manhattan College Oct. 3. 
The award, marking the 100th anniver- 
sary of the landmark Papal Encyclical 
Rerum Novarum, was presented to 
Donahue by U.S. District Judge John 
F. Keenan. Honored with Donahue 
were Alice Gallin, executive director 
of the Association of Catholic Colleges 
and Dr. Louis M. Brown, professor of 
law emeritus at the University of 
Southern California. 

The Black Trade Unionists Leader- 
ship Committee honored two retired 
labor union officials at a dinner in New 
York Oct. 5. Charles Faulding, former 
secretary -treasurer of the Transport 
Workers, and Frederick O’Neal, 
former president of the Actors and Ar- 
tistes, were the honorees of the group’s 
20th Annual Awards Dinner-Dance. 

Ken Young, executive assistant to 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, 
was among 10 men who received a Na- 
tional Women’s Political Caucus “Good 
Guys” award Oct. 10 at a dinner in 
Washington. Young was honored for 
his work on legislation to improve the 
lives of working women, including the 
Family and Medical Leave Act, the 
Civil Rights and child care measures. 

DEATH 

William Brim Allen, who served in 
a variety of positions with the Rubber 
Workers from 1947 to 1961, died Sept. 
2 in Washington. 

Allen was a staff assistant to three top 
officers, including assistant to the late 
URW President L.S. Buckmaster. He 
served as URW legislative director 
from 1957-61 before ending his career 
as an official of a Washington hospital. 

A native of East Orange, N. J. , Allen 
received a bachelor’s degree from Har- 
vard and also attended Yale before join- 
ing URW Local 2 in Akron, Ohio. 


By Michael Byrne 

F or five Polish union members, the 
Solidarity Day march in Washington 
was just the beginning of an extensive 
education in the American labor move- 
ment. 

The visitors from Plack, Poland, ac- 
companied trade unionists from Ft. 
Wayne, Ind. back home to the Hoosier 
state, where they spent nearly three 
weeks, from Sept. 1 to Sept. 20, tour- 
ing plants and offices, attending union 
meetings and learning about bargaining 
and organizing from American workers 
and educators. 

It was a clear case of “people work- 
ing together — that’s how solidarity 
develops,” said Tom Lewandowski, 
president of the Northeast Three Rivers 
Central Labor Council, who came up 
with the idea for the exchange after pay- 
ing a visit to Plack under the Sister 
Cities program last year. 

“I got a sense of how electric this 
kind of grass-roots, worker-to-worker 
contact is when they let me work in a 
combine factory there,” said Lewan- 
dowski, who was made an honorary 
member of Solidarity. “There really 
wasn’t much of a need for the inter- 
preters — I could see how people were 
acting. It was a great time for me, but 
also good for them because of all the 
questions, all the excitement of two-way 
education.” 

The trip by the Solidarity unionists 
was worked out through the Free Trade 
Union Institute and the U.S. Informa- 
tion Agency. “It started out as an ex- 
periment, but it clearly developed into 
what could be a model for a central 
labor council in helping develop labor 
solidarity,” said Rob Lovelace, who 
coordinated the program for FTUI. 

Besides daily academic programs, the 
Polish unionists met with UAW work- 
ers at a General Motors truck plant and 
Electronic Workers at a General Elec- 
tric plant, learned how laid off Food 
and Commercial Workers were dealing 


with unemployment during a visit to a 
cheese plant that had closed, worked 
with Paperworkers at a box factory, 
discussed health and safety and com- 
munity services with Rubber Workers 
and shadowed a grievance negotiator 
with the Allied Industrial Workers, 
among many other stops. 

The reaction in Ft. Wayne was spec- 
tacular, Lewandowski said. Local news 
coverage was intense, with 10 separate 
television news reports, nine newspaper 
articles and two radio spots. 

Television coverage at the GE plant 
was a particular coup, Lewandowski 
said, since the company had never let 
TV cameras in. “The ABC affiliate, the 
No. 1 news program, told us GE 
wouldn’t open up for them, but we 
delivered. They not only got their shots, 
they ended up doing a whole collage at 
the end of one of their news shows. 

“GE was caught in a dilemma,” he 
said. “Like everyone else, they want to 
celebrate that the Poles are free of com- 
munism, but they sure didn’t want to 
be seen as being for unionism.” 

In addition, the local AFL-CIO at- 
tracted new interest among groups not 
previously in close touch, like a newly 
organized local of the Glass, Molders 
and Pottery Workers at the Pontiac 
Foundry, which expressed interest in 
affiliation after the plant was included 
in the tour. 

“This program of communication 
and education was designed with the in- 
tent to build the central labor council, 
as well as to build Plack solidarity and 
labor solidarity,” Lewandowski said. 
“This was a way to work with local 
unions so they could understand what 
being a part of the greater labor move- 
ment is all about. 

“We demonstrated that we could do 
things without depending on the 
employer, where control was in hands 
of union workers and not in the hands 
of the company,” he said. “It usually 
meant the company just watched.” 




Actors unions say curtain 
falling on health benefits 


Pressure builds 
for health care 
reform action 

Continued from Page 1 

and decreasing access to services have 
become a fact of life for a majority of 
Americans, according to the poll. 

Approximately 50 percent of the 
1,430 adults interviewed by telephone 
in mid-August said fundamental 
changes to the U.S. health care system 
were necessary, with another 40 percent 
calling for the system to be completely 
rebuilt. 

The impending crisis is apparent to 
79 percent of respondents, while 54 
percent said they favored national health 
insurance. The poll had a margin of er- 
ror of 3 percent. 

Indicative of what the newspaper 
characterized as “job lock,” 26 percent 
of respondents said they or someone in 
their household had chosen one job over 
another because of better health cover- 
age, while three in 10 respondents — 
30 percent — said they or someone in 
their household stayed in a job they 
wanted to leave to avoid the loss of 
health coverage. 

With a rash of varying proposals in- 
troduced in Congress, lawmakers are 
seeking to find a common ground for 
change. 

Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D- 
Mich.), chairman of the Senate Finance 
subcommittee on health for families and 
the uninsured and co-sponsor of the 
Senate Democratic leadership package 
(S. 1227), said Sept. 30 he would seek 
negotiation to craft a package accept- 
able on both sides of the aisle, along 
with organized labor, the Bush admin- 
istration, business and health care pro- 
viders. His committee has held several 
hearings on the health care crisis in re- 
cent weeks. 

Two Democratic presidential can- 
didates also have proposals. Sen 
Robert Kerrey, (D-Neb.) has introduced 
a far-reaching national health care plan 
that would relv on new taxes, and Paul 



AFL-CI0 Employee Benefits Director 
Karen Ignagni urges Congress to 
heal health care system. 


Tsongas, a former Massachusetts sena- 
tor, has proposed a more modest plan 
to ensure universal access to care. 

But President Bush for the most part 
has failed to address the issue, prefer- 
ring instead for administration officials 
to make periodic promises to study the 
problem. 

Secretary of Health and Human Ser- 
vices Louis W. Sullivan on Sept. 23 
said he would convene a meeting of ma- 
jor insurers and agency officials within 
a month to seek ways to control un- 
necessary administrative costs and 
reduce paperwork. 

The new figures on U.S. expen- 
ditures for health care point up the 
AFL-CIO contention that any reform 
plan must include strong provisions for 
cost containment. 

A 1990 study by Lewin-ICF Inc. 
estimated that a 2 percent reduction in 
the projected rate of growth in health 
inflation engendered by a single cost- 
containment program for all payers 
would save $165 billion by the year 
2000. To that end, the federation main- 
tains its call for a national commission 
to administer that program through the 
establishment of growth limits, payment 
rates and controls on capital costs, 
Ignagni said. 


By James B. Parks 

A ctors, despite their glamorous im- 
age, are suffering as much as other 
workers from high medical care costs, 
union leaders told Congress. 

“Health coverage for a professional 
actor has become an ‘elitist’ benefit and 
may soon not exist for any of us, ” Ron 
Silver, president of Actors’ Equity, told 
the House Ways and Means Commit- 
tee. 

Barry Gordon, president of the 
Screen Actors Guild, said if health in- 
surance costs continue to rise unabated, 
the union will have no choice but to in- 
crease the share of costs, or decrease 
benefits, or both, for its 75,000 
members. 

As health care costs “skyrocketed in 
a seemingly exponential pattern,” 
Equity found itself giving up raises in 
salaries in order to gain health benefits, 
Silver said. 

“Producers are currently con- 
tributing up to $78 per week per actor 
to the Health Fund,” he said. “While 
this represents only 9 percent of 
minimum salary on Broadway, it comes 
to 16 percent of the average regional 
theater salary, 24 percent of a typical 
dinner theater salary and as much as 50 
percent of salary in a small developing 
theater.” 

To keep the health plan solvent — it 
was losing $300,000 per month in 
January — the union has increased 
eligibility requirements and reduced 
benefits. As of December 1991, the 
eligibility requirement will increase to 
$5,000 in annual earnings or 12 work- 
weeks of employment a year. That will 
cut the number of eligible members 
from 15,000 to 8,000, Silver said. 

The Screen Actors also have had to 
increase eligibility requirements, Gor- 
don said. Through 1989, the union’s 
jointly administered plan provided care 
to nearly half the membership. Then the 
insurance carrier raised premiums by 
48 percent in one year, forcing the 


trustees to raise the minimum earnings 
level for coverage by 56 percent. That 
caused over 20 percent of the then- 
eligible members — over 10,000 peo- 
ple — to be dropped from the plan, he 
said. 

The cost of Equity’s health care 
package “has nearly crippled our ability 
to organize non-union theaters, sacrific- 
ing new job opportunities for our 
members,” Silver said. 

Silver emphasized the urgent need for 
health care reform. “It is not just folks 
in my union that need relief, but all the 
people in this country of ours need 
relief. We’re in trouble.” 

“Health care is too important to be 
a commodity available only to those for- 
tunate enough to afford it,” Gordon 
said. “It is too important to be a col- 
lective bargaining ‘perk’ to be nego- 
tiated,” Gordon said. “We are here to 
say that in the greatest country in the 
world, health care must no longer be a 
privilege, but the right of every man, 
woman, and child in this country.” 

Actors are hit hard by health care 
costs because of the cyclical nature of 
their employment. At any one time less 
than 15 percent of the 39,000 actors and 
stage managers that belong to Equity 
are actually working in theater jobs, 
Silver said. In a year, about 14,500 will 
have worked under an Equity contract. 

Most of those jobs are sporadic and 
short-term, he said, with an average 
Equity member working only 16.5 
weeks a year. 

The situation is much the same for the 
Screen Actors, Gordon said. “We 
represent members that run the gamut 
from the ‘working poor’ to the ‘ex- 
tremely wealthy.’ And, frankly, we 
have far more in the ‘working poor’ 
category,” he said. 

Both unions have created national 
health care committees and endorsed 
H.R. 1300, the Universal Health Care 
Act of 1991, introduced by Rep. Marty 
Russo (D-Ill.). 


INSIDE 


Bush says no again 
to the unemployed 

Labor is building grass-roots support 
for a congressional override of Presi- 
dent Bush’s veto of the bill that would 
extend unemployment compensation 
up to 20 weeks. 

ATU seeks review 
of Greyhound safety 

The Amalgamated Transit Union called 
for a federal safety investigation into the 
growing number of accidents and com- 
plaints involving Greyhound Lines Inc. 
scab drivers. 


VOLUME 36, NUMBER 22 
OCTOBER 14, 1991 





Senate adopts 
family leave hill 

In the face of a veto threat from Presi- 
dent Bush, the Senate passed a family 
and medical leave bill that would give 
working families up to 12 weeks of un- 
paid leave for family emergencies. 

Supreme Court backs 
ALPA’s Eastern pilots 

In a big victory for the Air Line Pilots, 
the Supreme Court let stand a lower 
court decision that Eastern Airlines 
wrongly refused to reinstate pilots after 
they ended their strike. 





\FL-CI0 

NEWS 




AFL-CIO seeks end 
to trade benefits 

The AFL-CIO called for the withdrawal 
of trade benefits under the Generalized 
System of Preferences from six coun- 
tries because of worker rights abuses 
and violations. 

Workers face poison 
on and off the job 

Workers in the maquiladoras are ex- 
posed to dangerous chemicals and other 
hazards at work in their food and water 
at home while the Bush administration 
presses its free trade pact. 



The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1 1 85) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


10/14/91 






Solidarity works at S. Lichtenberg 


By Sharolyn Rosier 

P erseverence and solidarity through three difficult 
years won a first contract for some 500 workers 
at a Georgia drapery manufacturer. 

The workers, employed at S. Lichtenberg and 
Co. plants in Waynesboro and Louisville, danced 
and shouted in jubilation after the ratification and 
settlement of unfair labor practices, which resulted 
in the reinstatement, with $1 million in back pay, 
of nearly 200 workers illegally fired by the 
company. 

More than 90 percent of the employees turned 
out for the ratification vote, which came more than 
three years after the Lichtenberg workers voted for 
representation by the Clothing and Textile 
Workers. 



“It’s hard to believe I’m going back to work,” 
said Renia Bractley Cuyler, a member of the 
bargaining committee who was illegally fired in 
May 1990 for her union activity. “It shows what 
people can do when they stick together.” 

The breakthrough agreement came Oct. 16, with 
the company consenting to reinstatement with back 
pay. 

The bargaining committee was successful in 
gaining medical insurance, child care and medical 
leave, and the creation of a union-management 
health and safety committee. 

The agreement provides for more than 14 per- 
cent in wage increases over the life of the three- 
year contract. A $375 bonus, totaling nearly 

Continued on Page 8 


Michael Barrett 

Joy for a first contract after three years. 



Labor appeals 
for action now 
on health care 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

A FL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
and several Executive Council 
members stressed the urgent need for 
national health care reform in congres- 
sional testimony and were assured by 
lawmakers that Congress is aware of the 
problem. 

But this awareness does not seem to 
translate into solid action to solve the 
problem, Kirkland said. 

“The easiest thing in the world, I 
suppose, is to sit around and tell peo- 
ple what they ought to do,” he told 
members of the House Ways and Means 
Committee. “I guess the hardest thing 
to do is to get them to do it when you 
haven’t got a gun.” 

Testifying in addition to Kirkland 
were Owen Bieber, president of the 
UAW; Jay Mazur, president of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers; Gerald W. 
McEntee, president of AFSCME; Bar- 
bara J. Easterling, executive vice presi- 
dent of the Communications Workers; 
and Nolan W. Hancock, legislative 
director of the Oil, Chemical and 
Atomic Workers. 

Kirkland reiterated his call for Con- 
gress to act before the health care crisis 
does any more damage to American 
families and businesses. 

While Ways and Means Chairman 
Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) has repeat- 
edly stated that Congress does not have 
a mandate and is unlikely to act on a na- 
tional reform plan this year, the costs 
for American working families continue 
to mount. 

Under the current patchwork U.S. 
system, health care programs now ac- 
count for 22 percent of domestic spend- 
ing. On a per-capita basis, the United 
States spends 40 percent more than 
Continued on Page 4 


OSHA asserts 
jurisdiction 
in N.Carolina 


AFL-CIO sought US. 
intervention after fire 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he U.S. Department of Labor an- 
nounced Oct. 23 it would assert con- 
current jurisdiction over the North 
Carolina occupational safety and health 
plan. 

The AFL-CIO petitioned Sept. 11 to 
withdraw the state’s authority to run its 
plan, with concurrent jurisdiction an in- 
terim step. The request came eight days 
after a fire at the Imperial Foods proc- 
essing plant in Hamlet, N.C., claimed 
the lives of 25 workers trapped behind 
locked doors in an uninspected 
building. 

“OSHA has at last taken the right 
step to help protect workers in North 
Carolina,” AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland said. Organized labor called 
for that action “trusting it would help 
avert tragedies similar to the one that 
occurred at Hamlet.” 

Kirkland said the state’s abysmal 
record on inspections, coupled with 
understaffing of inspector slots, 
necessitated the request. 

In a letter Sept. 11 to OSHA chief 
Gerard F. Scannell, AFL-CIO Safety 
and Health Director Peg Seminario said 
North Carolina had only 16 safety in- 
spectors and six health inspectors who 
were fully trained and qualified. As a 
consequence of such understaffing, the 
state had conducted only 100 general 
schedule safety inspections in manufac- 
turing establishments in 1990, and only 
five general schedule health inspections. 

Seminario cited other deficiencies of 
the North Carolina plan, including the 
failure to classify violations correctly 


Federal employees urge Labor Secretary Lynn Martin to support legislation 
to enforce safety standards in government workplaces. 


and the failure to protect workers who 
bring discrimination complaints. 

Scannell said in a prepared statement 
Oct. 23 that the federal OSHA assis- 
tance under the concurrent jurisdiction 
arrangement should free the North 
Carolina staff to devote its efforts to 
pending complaints, the Hamlet in- 


vestigation and other recent fatalities 
and the resumption of high hazard 
safety and health inspections. 

The action marks the first time in 
OSHA’s 21-year history that the federal 
government has taken over part of a 
state’s responsibility. Prior to the an- 
Continued on Page 9 








Replaced workers ‘make do’ a year after lockout 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

O ne year after 1,700 Steelworkers 
were locked out and “permanently 
replaced” by Ravens wood Aluminum 
Corp. , little has changed but the degree 
of suffering for those workers. 

RAC is still operating with a scab 
work force. The plant is ringed by 
barbed wire fences and video cameras 
remain positioned on the roof. Steel 
barricades cover parts of the plant. 

Ravenswood, W.Va., remains a town 
divided, as the bitterness of the dispute 
has pitted some family members against 
one another and has trickled into 
churches and businesses. As lockout 
victims, some workers were eligible for 
unemployment compensation — but 
that has run out now for most of them, 
so they subsist as best they can on strike 
benefits. 

“We’ve had to learn to adjust and 
make do,” said USWA Local 5668 
President Dan Stidham. “I’ve heard 
some of the businesses are hurting. 
Some of them are supporting us and 
some are not. If they don’t support us, 
we don’t intend to patronize them. It’s 
still a divided town.” 

The workers have kept people on the 
picket line, and they’re helping at the 
assistance center and just being neigh- 
borly. “It’s like the old story on the 
frontier. If someone needs a roof on 
their house there is a lot of volunteer 
labor,” said Dewey Taylor, one of the 
locked-out Steelworkers. 

“I’ve been repairing my car, work- 


ing around the house and helping my 
neighbors,” said A1 Price. “But, I’d 
rather be working.” 

Work ended on Oct. 31, 1990, when 
workers clocking in for the second shift 
at RAC were told to leave the plant — 
they were locked out. As they walked 
away, many from lifetime jobs, they 
passed by busloads of “permanent 


“We’re determined to 
stay out there one day 
longer than the company, 
no matter what the 
consequences 

— USWA’s Dan Stidham 


replacement” workers, hired in ad- 
vance by the company. 

Although their contract had expired, 
the employees were willing to work 
while negotiations were going on. But 
management had a different game plan. 

“Management brought in ‘goon 
guards,’” said Stidham. “They hired 
a cook and made a cafeteria. They 
brought in railroad cars full of food. We 
went back five times to negotiate and 
reduced our proposals. We knew we 
had a problem when they walked away. 
They failed to bargain in good faith. 

“If you look in the parking lot today 
you see cars with Florida, Ohio, New 
York and Kentucky tags,” Stidham 


said. “They got the scabs in there for 
$12 an hour and then, from what I 
understand, reduced their pay to $9. 
Once they got the scabs in the plant and 
got a foothold, they figured they didn’t 
need us.” 

The National Labor Relations Board 
has issued a complaint of unfair labor 
practices against the company but the 
NLRB notoriously functions in slow 
motion. If an administrative law judge 
rules in their favor, and the ruling 
stands up at the higher levels of the 
NLRB, then the workers can expect 
another delay in the federal court 
system. 

The workers know that their legal 
case is strong and the right finding 
could return them to their jobs and evict 
the scabs. But when you have a family 
to feed, the question is not what but 
when. 

“We know there is a rainbow out 
there somewhere,” said Stidham. 
“What would be best is if the NLRB 
goes back and seeks an injunction that 
orders the scabs out and our member- 
ship back in to work. That’s the hope 
we look forward to. If not, we’re deter- 
mined to stay out there one day longer 
than the company, no matter what the 
consequences.” 

Meanwhile, the workers say nothing 
can be settled until the scabs are out of 
the plant. “They gotta go before we can 
get anything settled,” Price said. 

Ravenswood workers also are hold- 
ing out hope that Congress will pass 


Workplace Fairness legislation, which 
would ban the use of “permanent re- 
placement” workers. 

“If H.R. 5 and S. 55 were in effect 
last October, we wouldn’t be where we 
are today,” said Taylor. The House of 
Representatives overwhelmingly passed 
H.R. 5 on a 247-182 vote in July, while 
the Senate version of the bill is expected 
to be voted on early next year. The 
Bush administration has continued to 
maintain that the president will veto the 
strikebreaker measure if it is passed. 

Meanwhile, the workers are contin- 
uing their corporate campaign, which 
has included an agreement by Stroh’s 
and Old Milwaukee brewers to boycott 
the aluminum produced in the plant. 
They also have been joined by interna- 
tional trade unionists in a campaign 
against absentee owner Marc Rich, who 
is a fugitive from a 65-count U.S. 
indictment. 

The local has received moral and 
financial support from sympathetic 
unionists nationwide. Several locals 
from the Cleveland area delivered a 
check for $26,000. A car caravan of 
unionists from Detroit will bring addi- 
tional funds. 

“This is what keeps our spirits up and 
hope alive, ’ ’ said Taylor of the outpour- 
ing of support. “The international has 
been so supportive to see that justice is 
done. It takes something like this to 
bring out the best in people. I feel like 
I have really gotten to know the mem- 
bership.” 


Unions offer the best defense against sexual harassment 


By Candice Johnson 

T he issue of sexual harassment in the 
workplace was cast abruptly into the 
national spotlight during the Senate con- 
firmation hearing of Supreme Court 
nominee Clarence Thomas. 

For millions of working women — 
especially those who have suffered 
harassment from supervisors or co- 
workers — and for many men as well, 
the discussion is long overdue. 

But nearly 8 million women have the 
backing of their unions, through con- 
tract language, grievance procedures 
and other support, when they come up 
against the ugly face of sexual harass- 
ment on the job. 

The U.S. Equal Employment Oppor- 
tunity Commission has said sexual 
harassment can include verbal abuse, 
pressure for sexual activity, sexual 
remarks, leering or displays of sexually 
explicit materials intended to humiliate 
another person and requests or demands 
for sexual favors accompanied by 
threats to one’s job. 

In 1986, a unanimous Supreme Court 
made clear that sexual harassment 


equals sexual discrimination and, 
therefore, violates Title VII of the 1964 
Civil Rights Act. That same decision 
established a “hostile environment” as 
a form of sexual harassment. 

But unless Congress acts to include 
stiffer penalties for sexual harassment 
in civil rights legislation, non-union 
women do not have adequate protection 
against harassment, said Joyce Miller, 
who heads the Coalition of Labor Union 
Women. 

Despite existing laws, “investigation 
of complaints is inadequate, enforce- 
ment often is extremely slow and many 
cases are difficult or impossible to 
prove,” Miller said. 

“It remains an unfortunate fact of life 
that speaking out and filing complaints 
still leaves the non-union woman to fend 
for herself, risking ridicule, more 
harassment or even loss of her job,” 
she noted. 

Union workers have the added help 
of full representation, a grievance 
system and legal protection, she noted. 

Charges of sex, race, age and other 
discrimination can be addressed through 


the union grievance procedure, with 
workers gaining further protection 
against employer retaliation. The union 
“gives power to the powerless,” Miller 
said. 

The AFL-CIO and affiliates have 
developed materials to help workers 
take a stand against sexual harassment 
on the job. Publications such as the 
federation’s “Working in the USA” 
and the UAW’s “When I Say No, I 
Mean No,” spell out what constitutes 
sexual harassment and how that be- 
havior can be stopped. 

AFSCME recommends several meas- 
ures local unions can take to combat and 
discourage sexual harassment in “Stop- 
ping Sexual Harassment, An AFSCME 
Guide.” These include: shop steward 
training on how to handle sexual harass- 
ment grievances; a specific negotiated 
anti-harassment policy in the contract; 
and membership surveys and education 
efforts. 

AFSCME also outlines the duty of 
union representatives to handle sexual 
harassment complaints promptly and to 
put management on notice immediately 


about the problem. “Management is 
resopnsible for providing a harassment- 
free work environment,” it said. 

A Teachers’ pamphlet cites studies 
finding that three of every four work- 
ing women have been sexually harassed 
and 25 percent of all victims are fired 
as part of the harassment. 

The AFT also suggests that unions 
can negotiate special grievance provi- 
sions to “handle the unusual cir- 
cumstances of sexual harassment 
cases . . . which can require unusual con- 
fidentiality and promptness.” 

If the problem cannot be resolved at 
the workplace, a worker injured by sex- 
ual harassment should file a complaint 
with the state fair employment practices 
agency or the EEOC and then, with the 
union’s help, consult an attorney and 
file criminal charges if appropriate, 
AFSCME said. 

But for further support, the EEOC 
and state and local human rights com- 
missions must be made more effective, 
said Miller, who called for additional 
funding to increase EEOC investigative 
and legal staff. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 23 MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1991 


..ftORCOMM UHlCAr. 





The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 





i 


IMSLfflON 


Jobs-creating highway bill approved 


By Mike Hall 

M ore than 2 million jobs could be 
created under the highway and 
mass transit legislation passed by the 
House of Representatives. The $151 
billion, six-year reauthorization bill, 
which the AFL-CIO strongly backed, 
passed by a 343-83 vote on Oct. 23. 

The bill authorizes $119 billion for 
highways and $32 billion for transit 
projects. A conference committee will 
try to iron out major differences be- 
tween the House bill, H.R. 2950, and 
the Senate version, S. 965. The Senate 
bill authorized about $121 billion over 
a five-year period for surface transpor- 
tation projects. 

“Now that the national goal of the 
creation of the interstate highway sys- 
tem, established in 1956, is virtually 
complete, H.R. 2950 wisely charts the 
new directions in policy and procedures 
that 1991 conditions demand,” AFL- 
CIO Legislative Director Robert M. 
McGlotten wrote in a letter to House 
members. “Future transportation needs 
demand new and innovative ap- 
proaches.” 

The House in September rejected a 
$153 billion, five-year authorization 
because it contained a 5 cents-a-gallon 
gas tax increase to fund part of the bill. 
The bill’s sponsors dropped the tax in- 
crease and extended the existing tax, 
which includes 2.5 cents for transpor- 
tation through 1999. 

The AFL-CIO will work to preserve 
the Davis-Bacon and Section 13C labor 
protections for transport workers con- 
tained in the House version when the 
legislation goes to conference with the 
Senate, McGlotten said. 


By James B. Parks 

T he AFL-CIO was carefully watching 
the development in the Senate of a 
compromise version of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1991, which passed the House 
in June. 

The federation supports the bill as “a 
step in the right direction” towards 
equal opportunity for all Americans, 
said AFL-CIO Legislative Director 
Robert M. McGlotten. The bill would 
reverse several 1989 Supreme Court 
decisions that narrowed the remedies 
available to victims of discrimination. 

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. John C. 
Danforth (R-Mo.), reportedly was ne- 
gotiating with the White House to 
fashion a bill the president would sign. 
If the bill is weakened through that pro- 
cess or by amendment, the AFL-CIO 
could withdraw its support after 
evaluating the changes, McGlotten said. 
The White House has sabotaged all 
previous efforts for a compromise. 

As Bush met late last week with a 
group of Republican senators on the 
bill, White House officials denounced 
Danforth’s bill as a “quota bill” and 
said that it would create a “lawyer’s 
bonanza.” 

The AFL-CIO does back an amend- 
ment offered by Sens. Barbara Mikulski 
(D-Md.), Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.) 
and David Durenberger (R-Minn.) to 
remove limits on the amount of dam- 


The House version also gives “labor 
a voice in the new metropolitan plan- 
ning organizations, which will deter- 
mine how two-thirds of a state’s trans- 
portation money is spent,” he said. 

Local officials will play a strong role 
in the MPOs, which will direct author- 
ity over urban mobility funds. Work- 
ing with state governments, they also 
will help develop and implement the 


The AFL-CIO will work 
to preserve House-passed 
labor protections, 
including labor’s <( voice 
in the new metropolitan 
planning organizations, 
which will determine how 
two-thirds of a state’s 
transportation money is 
spent. Future 
transportation needs 
demand new and 
innovative approaches.” 


state’s transportation improvement 
plan. 

House Public Works and Transpor- 
tation Committee Chairman Robert A. 
Roe (D-N.J.) said that the bill’s “com- 
mitment to a national highway system, 
increased funding for urban areas for 
mass transit and flexibility for state and 
local officials meets the needs of our en- 
tire nation.” 


ages women can receive in cases of sex- 
ual discrimination. Under current law, 
victims of racial discrimination have no 
limit on the amount of damages they can 
receive, but women are limited to back 
pay. 

Danforth’s bill would allow jury 
awards of punitive and compensatory 
damages in cases of intentional discrim- 
ination, but sets award limits depending 
on the size of the employer. The awards 
range from a limit of $50,000 for em- 
ployers with 15-100 workers to 
$300,000 for those with 500 or more 
employees. The Bush administration’s 
bill would give a judge, not a jury, the 
authority to make awards up to 
$150,000. 

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy CD- 
Mass. ), who has endorsed the Danforth 
bill, introduced a stronger version of the 
bill last year that the Senate passed but 
failed to override President Bush’s veto. 

Bush also has threatened to veto this 
bill, even though it incorporates 
language from the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, which he praised as a 
“historic new civil rights act.” 

The major points of contention be- 
tween Congress and the White House 
are the limits on damages and how best 
to restore a 1971 Supreme Court rul- 
ing in Griggs vs. Duke Power, which 
stated that job requirements exceeding 
those needed to perform the job are 


The legislation will go a long way to 
fulfilling a major labor goal of rebuild- 
ing the nation’s crumbling trans- 
portation infrastructure, McGlotten 
said. 

“Study after study throughout the last 
decade has documented the frightening 
decline in America’s highways, bridges 
and transit infrastructure,” he said. 
“The need for this legislation is sim- 
ply overwhelming in every region of 
our nation, especially as the recession 
continues to worsen literally on a week- 
by-week basis.” 

The legislation also creates a $76.7 
billion flexible highway program that 
gives state and local officials discretion 
to transfer up to two-thirds of the funds 
to mass transit. States with significant 
portions of the population living in 
clean air non-attainment areas can trans- 
fer all of the highway funds to mass 
transit. 

The program includes $37.6 billion 
for a 155,000 mile national highway 
system consisting of the interstate 
highways and major primary roads. 

The bill establishes a federal-state 
match of 80/20 percent for all programs 
except interstate construction and 
repairs, which will remain at 90/10. 
The legislation also increases from 85 
to 90 percent of the guaranteed mini- 
mum the allocation for each state’s 
share of Highway Trust Fund contribu- 
tions. 

Finally, the bill authorizes $9.8 
billion for new transit starts and rail 
modernization projects; $14.9 billion to 
rehabilitate and replace obsolete and 
deficient bridges and $8 billion for com- 
pletion of the interstate highway 
system. 


unlawful if they screen out a dispropor- 
tionate number of minorities. The 
Supreme Court also weakened that rule 
in 1989 in Wards Cove vs. Antonio. 

Under Danforth’s bill, such re- 
quirements must be related to the job 
in question. It would ban such practices 
as height and weight requirements that 
exclude women, high school diplomas 
for a janitor’s job or suburban residency 
requirements that deny opportunities to 
minorities in the city. 

The labor-backed civil rights bill 
passed by the House in June has not 
been introduced in the Senate. If the 
Senate passes another version, the dif- 
ferences would have to be worked out 
in conference committee. 

Meanwhile, in a letter to the White 
House, the U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights called for an end to the ‘ ‘tortuous 
negotiations” on the various proposals 
and for quick passage of a bill to 
demonstrate that “discrimination in all 
forms — whether by intentional acts or 
the disparate impact of seemingly 
neutral decisions that nevertheless keep 
women and minorities out of the 
workplace — will not be tolerated. 

“All sides must strive, without reser- 
vation,” the letter said, “to achieve 
agreement on a bill that sends a clear 
unequivocal message: the barriers to 
equal employment opportunity for all 
Americans must come down!” 


Capitol Digest 


I n the closest such vote in more than 
100 years, the Senate confirmed 
Clarence Thomas as a justice of the 
U.S. Supreme Court by a 52-48 
margin. The AFL-CIO Executive 
Council voted Aug. 1 to oppose 
Thomas’s confirmation. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
told the Senate Judiciary Committee 
that Thomas had been “unwilling to en- 
force the nation’s anti-discrimination 
laws” during his tenure as chairman of 
the Equal Employment Opportunities 
Commission and has held that such 
worker protection measures as a ban on 
child labor are an “infringement on 
freedom.” 

The vote was delayed to hear charges 
of sexual misconduct against Thomas. 
In other action on Capitol Hill: 
FAMILY LEAVE - The House is 
expected to vote by the end of the month 
on the family and medical leave legisla- 
tion, H.R. 2. The bill’s backers hope 
to convince enough lawmakers to pro- 
duce a veto-proof margin for a Senate- 
passed compromise. The AFL-CIO- 
supported legislation would provide up 
to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year 
for serious family emergencies or 
medical problems. It also would protect 
the worker’s job while on leave and 
continue benefits during the leave. 

MARITIME — Foreign-flag ships 
operating mainly out of American ports 
should be required to follow U.S. labor 
laws, representatives from several 
maritime unions told the House Educa- 
tion and Labor subcommittee. Crew 
members on many of these “flag of 
convenience” ships are paid low wages, 
work in unsafe and dangerous condi- 
tions and are blackballed from future 
employment if they complain, said 
witnesses representing the Seafarers and 
Marine Engineers. H.R. 1126, in- 
troduced by Rep. William Clay (D- 
Mo.), would place the “flag of con- 
venience” ships under the National 
Labor Relations and Fair Labor Stan- 
dards acts. The AFL-CIO Maritime 
Trades Department also urged the 
House to approve H.R. 3282, which 
would allow U.S. -flag passenger ships 
to provide the same gambling services 
as foreign carriers operating out of U.S. 
ports. 

UTILITIES - The Mine Workers 
and Electrical Workers urged the Senate 
to defeat provisions in the National 
Energy Security Act, S. 1220, that 
would move the electric utility industry 
toward deregulation, increase power 
rates for consumers and possibly cost 
the jobs of thousands of coal miners and 
utility workers. 


To contact a member of Con- 
gress, write to: The Honorable 
(Senator or Representative's 
name), United States Senate (or 
House of Representatives), 
Washington, D.C. 20510 (Senate) 
or 20515 (House). 


Senate weighs in on civil rights compromise 

AFL-CIO backs amendment lifting caps on sexual bias awards 





Congress tries again to get UI bill past Bush 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith the failure of the Senate to 
overcome a hard-core minority of 
Republicans in upholding another 
presidential veto, the AFL-CIO is prod- 
ding Congress for swift legislative ac- 
tion to provide extended jobless benefits 
to the long-term unemployed. 

Less than a week after the Senate fell 
two votes short of overriding President 
Bush’s veto on a 65-35 vote, the House 
Ways and Means Committee shaped a 
bill that would extend benefits up to 13 
weeks for workers who exhaust their in- 
itial 26 weeks of unemployment in- 
surance compensation. 

However, even the new pared-down 
Democratic measure has been targeted 
for another veto by Bush’s advisers. 

In rejecting the earlier measure, Bush 
contended that 20 additional weeks of 
benefits for the jobless would bust the 
federal budget. 

But AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland said, “With $8 billion sitting 
idly in a federal trust fund earmarked 
for the jobless, the Senate’s failure to 
override the president’s veto is playing 
with the lives of millions of Americans 
caught in the continuing recession.” 


Bush and the Senate Republican lead- 
ership favors a bill introduced by Sen. 
Robert S. Dole (R-Kan.) to extend 
benefits only six to 10 weeks, which 
would exclude 80 percent of the jobless 
who have exhausted their initial com- 
pensation. 

The vetoed bill would have covered 
more than 1 million workers who have 
exhausted their benefits since March. 
With jobs harder to find in the linger- 
ing Bush recession, more than 3 million 
unemployed workers have used up their 
UI benefits. 

Before vetoing the benefits extension, 
Bush branded the measure “garbage,” 
insisting that the economy is on the 
upswing and the jobless would not need 
the additional assistance. 

Bush signed a similar UI bill in 
August providing seven to 20 more 
weeks of benefits to the long-term 
jobless, but he refused to declare an 
emergency to implement financing by 
releasing money from the $8 billion 
surplus in the UI trust fund. 

The new Democratic measure, co- 
sponsored by Ways and Means Chair- 
man Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) 
and Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.), 


was approved in committee by a 22-14 
vote and is expected on the House floor 
the week of Oct. 28. 

The $5. 2-billion package would be 
financed partly by a modest increase in 
a payroll tax employers pay into the 
federal-state UI system. Coverage 
would reach back to March 1 for 
workers who have exhausted benefits 
and would run through next July 4. 

A triggering formula is based on the 
labor-backed total unemployment rate 
(TUR) rather than on the insured 
unemployment rate (IUR), which is the 
trigger in the existing UI law but cur- 
rently provides no extension of benefits. 

The Republican-backed Dole bill is 
keyed to the weaker IUR trigger. In a 
letter to Rostenkowski, Labor Secretary 
Lynn Martin said senior advisers to 
Bush are pressing for a veto because of 
the TUR formula, as well as the longer 
extension of benefits to ex-military per- 
sonnel who served in the Persian Gulf 
war. 

Many Democrats in the House are 
opposed to the revenue-raising provi- 
sions of the Rostenkowski-Downey bill, 
including the proposed $700 increase in 
the UI payroll tax to $7,700 a year 


beginning in 1993. But on a 17-17 vote, 
the Ways and Means Committee de- 
feated a move by Rep. Jim Moody (D- 
Wis.) to eliminate the tax increase. 

Under the new Democratic bill, 
(H.R. 3575), a maximum of 13 weeks 
of extended benefits would be provid- 
ed in states with higher jobless rates. 
Currently, 21 states would qualify. All 
other states would get an additional 
seven weeks of benefits. 

Only seven states would qualify for 
the maximum 10 weeks of benefits 
under the Dole bill. A study by the 
Center on Budget and Policy found that 
the Republican plan would cover just 

135,000 workers who have exhausted 
benefits between March 1 and early 
October. 

To focus attention of the plight of the 
unemployed, Democrats held an over- 
night vigil on the House floor Oct. 
23-24 to point up the nation’s growing 
jobless rate with the continuing spread 
of worker layoffs. 

New claims for jobless benefits have 
exceeded 400,000 a week throughout 
the recession and hit 452,000 the week 
of Oct. 12, the highest level in five 
months. 


United labor urges Congress 
to act now on health care 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland testifies before the House Ways and Means 
Committee on health care reform. He is joined by Karen Ignagni, AFL-CIO 
employee benefits director, and Robert M. McGlotten, legislative direc- 
tor. UAW President Owen Bieber, in background, also testified. 


Continued from Page 1 

Canada, 90 percent more than Germany 
and 125 percent more than Japan. In 
1990, that meant Americans spent $700 
billion — or 12.2 percent of the 
GNP — on health care. 

A national health care plan that in- 
cludes cost containment measures and 
access for all Americans — key reform 
goals of the AFL-CIO — could save the 
United States between $1 trillion and 
$5.6 trillion over 10 years, according 
to a study released Oct. 17. 

The Economic and Social Research 
Institute said a single national plan 
could bring “potentially staggering” 
savings for the government and the na- 
tion’s businesses. Even though taxes 
would be increased to pay for the 
reform, the group’s report said, savings 
would be achieved by the end of a 
decade. 

On the subject of increased taxes, 
Kirkland told Rep. Byron L. Dorgan 
(D-N.D.) workers would pay their fair 
share. 

“They’re paying for it now They 

are conscious of the enormous costs that 
they’re bearing today, and are quite 
prepared to see those costs translated in- 
to social insurance . . . spread more 
equitably across the population.” 

Kirkland pressed panel members for 
real reform, telling them “labor is 


united in its belief that a single-payer 
approach would be the best mechanism 
for this restructuring. We also are 
united in our belief that the urgency of 
the crisis requires us to seek relief 
now.” 

Congress should not be satisfied that 
minor alterations of the system would 
provide significant reform, Kirkland 
said. 

“We’re open to practical approaches 
in light of the current political situa- 
tion,” he assured Rostenkowski. But 
the situation “is so urgent, Congress 
can’t step aside and wait for the White 
House.” 

“We can no longer afford to continue 
to patch our deteriorating system piece- 
meal with Band- Aids and aspirin,” 
Mazur said. “We can no longer afford 
not to be bold.” 

UAW’s Bieber echoed Mazur’s sup- 
port for sweeping reform, saying that 
U.S. competitiveness depends on it. 
“The UAW believes that employers 
should not have to compete on the basis 
of their health care costs. There should 
be a ‘level playing field,’ with all 
employers sharing equally in the costs 
of providing a basic level of health care 
protection to all Americans. 

“All employers currently pay the 
same contribution to Social Security in 
order to provide a basic level of retire- 


ment and disability income to 
workers,” he said. “The same princi- 
ple should be applied to the financing 
of health insurance coverage for 
workers and their families.” 

McEntee said the political popularity 
of Social Security reflects an American 
consensus for a national program on 
health care. “A universal social in- 
surance plan would be more beneficial 
than a regulatory approach because peo- 
ple would get value back for their 
taxes,” he said. 

Easterling noted that the current 
system allows “employers to use our 
medical benefits as a club to keep 
workers in line. In bargaining, employ- 


ers link our standard of living to our 
standard of health, telling us to choose 
between decent health plans and decent 
wages, or child care benefits or 
pensions. 

“A national social insurance system 
is the most effective way of addressing 
the major problems of the national 
health care crisis — rising costs and the 
growing numbers of uninsured and 
underinsured Americans,” Easterling 
said. 

The representatives of the affiliated 
unions all testified of their support for 
H.R. 1300, the Universal Health Care 
Act of 1991, sponsored by Rep. Marty 
Russo (D-Ill.). 


Unions mull USAir’s call for wage, benefit concessions 


By Candice Johnson 

U S Air is seeking pay and benefit con- 
cessions from workers to shore up 
its financial outlook. 

The Flight Attendants, Air Line 
Pilots and Machinists, representing 

20,000 USAir employees, currently are 
negotiating new contracts with the car- 
rier and are meeting over the com- 
pany’s proposals to cut operating costs. 

Contracts for all three unions now are 
open for negotiation, with the I AM and 
AFA involved in talks mediated by the 
National Mediation Board. Under the 
Railway Labor Act, the company can- 
not change existing contract terms while 
negotiations or mediation continues. 


In an interview last month, AFA 
President Dee Maki said the trend in the 
industry ‘ ‘that companies need to be big 
to survive” has hurt USAir. With little 
room left for domestic expansion, more 
international investment is needed and 
that can be very costly, she said. 

Maki also pointed out that some work 
rules that boost productivity at medium- 
sized firms don’t always work as well 
when carriers expand. 

The number of flight attendants at 
USAir jumped from 3,000 to 9,000 
over a short period, the AFA noted. 

AFA’s master executive council for 
USAir has been meeting with company 
officials and the AFA is analyzing 


financial reports from the company, 
which projects continued losses in the 
next two years. Company “road 
shows” began Oct. 14, outlining the 
details of the carrier’s proposal. Talks 
also are continuing with IAM and 
ALPA. 

USAir is seeking pay and benefit cuts 
of up to 20 percent from both union 
workers and those not represented by 
unions. Under the company plan, sal- 
aries below $20,000 a year would not 
be cut; wages between $20,000 and 
$50,000 would be cut by 10 percent; 
between $50,000 and $100,000 by 15 
percent; and above $100,000 by 20 
percent. 


USAir would offer some profit- 
sharing and stock plans to workers in 
lieu of the lost wages. The company 
said it would cut corporate salaries 
beginning in January. 

Maki noted that labor costs at USAir 
are lower than Delta Airlines and about 
equal to those at American and United 
airlines. Flight attendants can fly up to 
105 hours per month at USAir, com- 
pared with a maximum of 85 hours per 
month at most other major carriers, she 
pointed out. 

At USAir, AFA represents about 

9.000 attendants, the IAM some 8,000 
mechanics and clerks and ALPA about 

3.000 pilots. 





Pennsylvania race may be harbinger of ’92 


By Arlee C. Green 

I n a U.S. Senate race that could serve 
as a harbinger of the 1992 elections, 
Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls 
Nov. 5 to choose between Democratic 
Sen. Harris Wofford and Republican 
challenger Richard Thornburgh. 

Election Day 1991 also will decide 
scores of other elections at the state and 
local levels, while a special runoff elec- 
tion will be held Nov. 16 between 
former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards 
and his Republican challenger, former 
Ku Klux IGan leader David Duke. 

Wofford was appointed to the Senate 
post last spring following the death of 
Sen. John Heinz (R). Thornburgh re- 
signed as President Bush’s attorney 
general to challenge Wofford. 

Wofford, who is endorsed by the 
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, has a 100-per- 
cent right COPE voting record and a 
career of commitment to workers and 
education. He served as a special assis- 
tant to President John F. Kennedy and 
helped to found the Peace Corps. He 
served as president of the State Univer- 
sity of New York in Westbury and of 
Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. 

For four years, Wofford effectively 
represented workers as Pennsylvania’s 
Secretary of labor and industry. He 
worked with educators in creating and 


Matamoros, Mexico 

A labor and congressional delegation 
on a weekend tour of U.S. -owned 
manufacturing facilities and their 
neighboring shanty towns on the Mex- 
ican side of the border found a squalid 
and depressing scene. 

Workers at maquiladora plants are 
living in makeshift villages of cardboard 
and plywood shacks. Some have run- 
ning water, but only from a communal 
garden hose on a singular tap. There are 
no sewers. Polluted streams and open 
toxic pits are nearby 
Far from the American dream, Mex- 
ican workers are paid wages as low as 
63 cents an hour by their American 
employers and exist in the only kind of 
community they can afford to raise their 
children in. Many are undernourished 
and sick with dysentery. 

The delegation, including House 
Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt 
(D-Mo.) and AF1-CIO Secretary - 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, got a 
close look at the working and living 
conditions that Mexico’s maquiladora 
workers encounter daily. 

The excursion confirmed their earlier 
concerns that a U.S. free-trade agree- 
ment with Mexico must fully address 
labor, environmental and social issues. 

While Gephardt rejected labor’s 
argument against the fast-track ap- 
proach to a trade agreement, he told the 


guiding the Schools Cooperative Com- 
mittee, set up 90 one-stop job centers 
to aid workers throughout the state, and 
helped establish business-school part- 
nerships to aid students in the transition 
to the working world. 

Since becoming senator, Wofford 
voted against fast-track legislation for 
the job-killing U.S. -Mexico trade pact, 
co-sponsored anti-strikebreaker legisla- 
tion, worked for family and medical 
leave, health care reform and extended 
benefits for the long-term unemployed. 

Thornburgh, whose close alliance 
with administration policies has earned 
him the nickname “Thombush,” has 
come under increasing scrutiny for a 
perceived reluctance to fully investigate 
the current savings and loan scandal and 
Bank of Credit and Commerce Interna- 
tional’s wide-ranging illegal activities. 

Wofford is rolling on a groundswell of 
support, according to a recent poll com- 
missioned by the Wofford campaign. 
After trailing by a large margin in July, 
Wofford has narrowed the margin to 
single digits. Among those who said 
they will “definitely vote’’ in the elec- 
tion, the gap is even closer. 

Wofford holds a wide lead when 
voters are asked which candidate will 
“do a better job on health care’’ and 
who will ‘ ‘fight for working families. ’ ’ 


St. Louis Post-Dispatch he is convinced 
that some U.S. companies that have 
moved to Mexico are exploiting the 
country’s poor people and ravaging the 
environment. 

“Why should we let our corporations 
go there to exploit cheap labor and 
avoid our environmental laws?’’ he 
asked. 

Gephardt told the St. Louis news- 
paper he plans to draft an agenda of 
specific criteria for U.S. trade 
negotiators to include in any agreement 
that comes back to Congress for 
approval. 

In discussions with touring labor 
representatives , including Missouri 
AFL-CIO President Daniel J. McVey, 
Gephardt pledged to oppose any trade 
proposal that does not provide adequate 
protections for U.S. workers and the 
environment. 

Even before the advent of the pro- 
posed free-trade pact, major American 
corporations — die likes of General 
Motors, Ford, Chrysler, DuPont, 
Zenith, General Electric and others — 
have transferred hundreds of thousands 
of U.S. jobs to the Mexican maquila- 
doras. 

It’s essential that all of the concerns 
affecting workers and the environment 
be resolved in the North American Free 
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), said AFL- 
CIO economist Mark A. Anderson. 


In one of three governorships up for 
grabs, Kentucky Lt. Gov. Brereton 
Jones (D), endorsed by the state AFL- 
CIO, faces Republican challenger Rep. 
Larry Hopkins, who has only a 26-per- 
cent right COPE voting record and is 
campaigning for a state right-to-work 
law that would lower Kentucky wage 
scales. 

In Mississippi, Gov. Ray Mabus (D) 
will face challenger Kirk Fordice (R), 
a businessman. Mabus is labor- 
endorsed and has been named by For- 
tune magazine as one of the top 10 
“education” governors in the nation. 
In addition to education, he has em- 
phasized health care and the economy 
and his efforts to expand Medicaid 
eligibility that contributed to a lower- 
ing of the infant death rate. 

The Mabus administration also cre- 
ated 61,000 new jobs, reduced 
unemployment and boosted the state’s 
growth in per capita income to the 1 1th 
fastest in the nation for the 1987-90 
period, up from a sluggish 33rd for the 
preceding four years. 

In Louisiana, Gov. Buddy Roemer 
(R) was ousted from the race in an Oct. 
19 primary, losing out to Democrat Ed- 
wards and Republican Duke. 

Edwards, a former three-term gover- 
nor of the state, has labor’s endorse- 


“The problems are still there and the 
situation has been disaster thus far,” 
Anderson said. 

“For us, the tour of the Matamoros 
maquiladora communities verified that 
disturbing situation,” he said. 

Armed with the findings from the 
Matamoros tour, Gephardt and four 
other House members challenged the 
Bush administration to make labor 
issues an integral element of NAFTA 
negotiations. 

Focusing on worker health and safe- 
ty, child labor violations and labor rela- 
tions, the congressmen stresed in a let- 
ter to U.S. Trade Representative Carla 
Hills that the issues “be addressed 
directly by any trade measures.” 

They pointed out that many members 
of Congress would not support a NAF- 
TA accord “without the strengthening 
of standards and enforcement of these 
crucial matters.” 

Joining Gephardt in the pressing the 
administration to uphold its pledged 
commitment on trade negotiations were 
Democratic Reps. Sander M. Levin 
(Mich.), Jim Moody (Wis.), Donald J. 
Pease (Ohio) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). 

They raised similar concerns on 
worker rights and U.S. worker 
displacement for the continuing 
Uruguay Round of talks on the 
Generalized Agreement on Tariffs and 
Trade. 


ment for the Nov. 16 election. Edwards 
also was endorsed by the Baton Rouge 
Morning Advocate, which said Ed- 
wards “has the master politician’s abil- 
ity to pull people together. He is com- 
fortable with labor and business, with 
black and white, with rich and 
poor. . . .We have never endorsed Ed- 
win Edwards — until now. But the 
choice is clear.” 

Duke, a state legislator with a 
lackluster record, is being disavowed by 
the Republican party because of his 
longtime white supremacy activities. A 
former grand wizard of the Ku Klux 
Klan, Duke has drawn what has been 
attributed as a “protest” vote, which 
will likely disappear when voters must 
decide who can best lead the state for- 
ward for the next four years. 

In Virginia, Democrat Kay Slaughter 
is running for the House seat vacated 
by her cousin, Republican French 
Slaughter Jr. She will face Republican 
George Allen, a member of the state 
legislature. 

Slaughter is a lawyer and Charlot- 
tesville city council member. Endorsed 
by the Virginia AFL-CIO, she has vow- 
ed to work for affordable housing, im- 
provements in education and health 
care, protection of the environment and 
an end to drug abuse. 

Boston hotel 
pact reached 

H otel and Restaurant Employees 
Local 26 reached an agreement on 
a new five-year contract covering more 
than 2,000 workers in nine Boston 
hotels. 

The agreement, reached two months 
before the Nov. 30 expiration of the old 
contract, was approved by the union 
negotiating committee by a vote of 
30-6. Member ratification is pending. 

Local 26 President Domenic Bozzoto 
hailed as innovative a provision that 
links bonus payments to hotel occupan- 
cy rates. The union agreed to help as the 
industry suffers through the current 
economic slump, with the promise of 
sharing in an economic upturn as the oc- 
cupancy rate moves up from the current 
68 percent. 

Wages will be frozen for the first year 
of the new agreement, with employees 
receiving first-year lump sum bonuses 
of $250 if they have three or more years 
of service, or $100 if they have at least 
one year of service. 

Hourly wage increases of 25 cents are 
payable in the second through fifth years 
of the pact, which will expire Nov. 30, 
1996. The current average hourly wage 
is $8.50, according to the union. 

The agreement also calls for a 
restructuring of the health care plan, 
with management agreeing to pay 20 
cents per employee hour, retroactive to 
Aug. 1. Subsequent increases each 
August will be 15 cents, 8 cents, 10 cents 
and 10 cents. The employer contribution 
previously was a flat 93 cents per day, 
regardless of hours worked. 

The employers also agreed to increase 
contributions from 5 to 7 cents an hour 
for the workers’ housing assistance 
fund, an innovated program negotiated 
three years ago after an amendment to 
the Taft-Hartley Act permitted jointly 
administered trust funds to provide 
housing assistance. 

The fund provides money for apart- 
ment rental security deposits, down 
payments and closing costs. According 
to the union, the fund has made 
payments to more than 200 Local 26 
workers in the past year. 



Lillian M. Salcido 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue and House listen to a colonias resident explain the environmen- 
Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), at right, tal hazards he lives with each day. 

Tour exposes menace of maquiladoras 




Pension reform bills a mixed bag for labor 


By James B. Parks 

A lthough organized labor supports 
some of the pension reform provi- 
sions now winding their way through 
Capitol Hill, it strongly opposes certain 
key changes. 

AFL-CIO support is mixed for the 
pension reform bills currently being 
considered, said Meredith Miller, assis- 
tant director of the federation’s 
Employee Benefits Department. The 
federation backs provisions in the 
various bills on pension rollovers, 
changes to public employee pension 
funds that lift one set of limits on 
distributions and on exempting multi- 
employer plans from full funding limits, 
she said. 

The liberalization of rollovers is 
welcome, Miller said, but the federa- 
tion objects to proposals that prohibit 
the rollover of after-tax employee con- 
tributions and limit public sector 
participation. 

On the other hand, the AFL-CIO op- 
poses provisions that change the defini- 
tion of leased employees, repeal the 
death benefit tax exclusion, repeal the 
unrealized appreciation of employer 
securities exclusion and repeal multi- 
employer 10-year vesting, she said. 

The bills being considered are 
S. 1364, introduced by Sens. David 
Pryor (D-Ark.) and Lloyd Bentsen (D- 
Texas); H.R. 2730, sponsored by Rep. 
Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), which in- 
corporates many of the Bush admin- 
istration’s POWER proposals; H.R. 
2742, from Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.); 
and H.R. 2641, from Rep. Rod 
Chandler (R-Wash.). 

Proposed changes in the test to deter- 


mine who is a “leased employee’’ for 
pension purposes is a major labor con- 
cern. The change would be “a wider 
opening of the door for employers to 
move people further outside the labor 
laws,’’ said Tim Scully, a legislative 
representative for the Teamsters. 

Under current law, leased employees 
such as janitors and security guards 
must receive the same benefits as a 
company’s regular employees if the job 
was “historically performed’’ by a per- 


manent employee. The bills would 
change the test to whether or not the 
company receiving the service “con- 
trols” the employee. 

This change, Scully said, would give 
employers an attractive economic in- 
centive to switch permanent workers to 
leased status and to avoid tax liabilities 
and pension and health benefits. It also 
would make it difficult to organize those 
workers, he said. 

Another major concern is the vesting 
issue. AFL-CIO Vice President Robert 
A. Georgine told a House Ways and 
Means subcommittee that there is no 
need to require multiemployer plans to 
switch from 10-year vesting to five 
years. 

Employees who work for several 
companies already can get vested, 


which is what the change was designed 
to do, Georgine said. Multiemployer 
plans are required by law to combine 
workers’ periods of service with dif- 
ferent contributing employers for 
vesting purposes. 

Georgine heads the AFL-CIO ’s 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department and chairs the National 
Coordinating Committee for Multi- 
employer Plans, a group representing 
about 240 pension and welfare plans. 


Many multiemployer plan trustees 
have provided five- and seven-year 
vesting, Miller told the Senate Finance 
Committee. “Those that have not based 
their decision on the needs of the par- 
ticipants and the plan itself. Some plans 
cannot afford to switch . . . because of 
either the demographics of their 
membership, the financial condition of 
the industry or the skyrocketing health 
care costs that are crowding out dollars 
for other benefits,” she said. 

The federation also opposes efforts to 
repeal the $5,000 death benefit exclu- 
sion from taxes. This proposal would 
not simplify the pension rules, Georgine 
said. “It is clearly a short-sighted at- 
tempt to find additional revenue. . . .It 
is outrageous to tax these extremely 
modest death benefits of bereaved sur- 


vivors of deceased workers to fund 
simplification provisions . ’ ’ 

Dropping the special tax treatment of 
net unrealized appreciation of employer 
securities would raise serious problems 
for workers participating in employee 
stock ownership plans, Miller said. This 
exclusion is a major incentive for 
workers to invest in company stock. 

“This provision may have a deleteri- 
ous effect on workers if they are forced 
to liquidate part of their portfolio in 
order to pay for the tax at a time when 
market conditions are unsound,” she 
said. 

“This also makes the cashout of 
employer securities for retirement in- 
come less stable and predictable.” 
The federation also is concerned, 
Miller said, about provisions that repeal 
income averaging for lump sum distri- 
butions, modify simplified employee 
pensions and reduce the incentive to 
market 401(k) plans to lower-paid 
workers. 

The AFL-CIO ’s Public Employee 
Department, at its biennial convention, 
also denounced efforts by state govern- 
ments to unilaterally “raid pension 
funds by diverting contributions or 
withdrawing ‘surplus’ assets.” 

The PED plans to ask the AFL-CIO 
convention next month to support its ef- 
fort to prevent power grabs such as the 
mostly unsuccessful one in California, 
where Republican Gov. Pete Wilson 
tried to use funds from the state pen- 
sion fund to erase a projected deficit. 

At least 18 jurisdictions this year 
alone have tried to use public employee 
pension funds to deal with fiscal prob- 
lems, PED reported. 


The AFL-CIO opposes provisions that change the 
definition of leased employees, repeal the death 
benefit tax exclusion, repeal the unrealized 
appreciation of employer securities exclusion and 
repeal multiemployer 10-year vesting. 


UAW-Deere contract features wage increases, job security 


U AW members overwhelmingly ap- 
proved a new three-year agreement 
with Deere and Co. that provides a 
wage increase, cost-of-living protection 
and 100 percent job security. 

The contract, which covers 12,400 
active and 1 ,400 laid-off workers in six 
states, was approved by an 87.5 percent 
margin. The UAW announced that the 
agreement would be a pattern for the 
industry. 

“The new agreement establishes a 
solid, workable 1991 pattern for 
meeting the needs of UAW members in 
the farm, construction and heavy equip- 
ment industry,” said UAW Secretary- 
Treasurer Bill Casstevens. 

“It achieves new levels of progress 
by strengthening job and income securi- 
ty, providing economic gains, substan- 
tially improving pensions and retire- 
ment opportunities and improving 
health care protections for active and 
retired UAW members,” he said. 

The new agreement includes an up- 
front 3 percent wage increase, plus 
lump-sum payments in November 1992 
and November 1993 equal to 3 percent 
of the qualified workers’ earnings over 
the previous year. 

The agreement also meets a key 


union goal of protecting 100 percent of 
current active Deere workers against 
layoffs for virtually any reason, in- 
cluding market-related declines, for six 
years. The job protection program 
creates incentives for Deere to grow 
and return laid-off employees to work. 

Deere workers also are guaranteed 
income protection if the company 
schedules any of the up to eight weeks 
of temporary inventory adjustment 
shutdowns allowed in a year. 

Laid-off workers also will receive an 
additional 26 weeks of benefits under 
the Supplemental Unemployment Bene- 
fits program. 

Profit-sharing trigger 

A new formula will trigger profit- 
sharing payments on a “first-dollar” of 
earnings basis. At least an 11 percent 
return on earnings had been previously 
required. 

The contract also increases the basic 
retirement pension benefit and the 
“30-and-out” benefits. There were no 
cuts in health benefits. 

Casstevens, who heads the UAW’s 
Agricultural Implements Department, 
praised Deere and the members of the 
UAW-Deere national negotiating com- 


mittee for the “constructive tone” of 
the bargaining. 

Meanwhile, negotiations are continu- 
ing between the UAW and Caterpillar 
over a contract that would cover 16,000 
workers in four states. The company, 
which took out newspaper ads rejecting 
a pattern agreement, has proposed 
major cutbacks in wages and benefits. 

“This looks like a difficult struggle 
to get an agreement with Caterpillar,” 
said UAW spokesman Karl Mantyla. 
The company has proposed eliminating 
all cost-of-living increases until infla- 
tion rises above 4 percent a year. The 
UAW said this proposal would have 
cost each worker $6,000 under the 
1988-91 contract. 

The UAW has rebuffed the com- 
pany’s proposed wage freeze for 3,700 
grade 1 and 2 workers in manufactur- 
ing facilities with only 3 percent to 4 
percent increases for others. 

Caterpillar also has demanded that 
workers pay out-of-pocket for health 
care, but the amount would not be the 
same for all workers. Most active 
workers would pay 1 percent of their 
annual salary for family coverage, 0.8 
percent for two-person coverage and 
0.4 percent for an individual. 


Caterpillar also wants to establish its 
own health care network union ap- 
proval, the UAW said, and reduce 
reimbursements for care outside that 
network by 30 percent. 

The company also has proposed gut- 
ting the central agreement by leaving 
provisions in key sections to local 
negotiations. The sections include pro- 
visions for seniority, job bidding and 
transfer, layoff and recall, job classi- 
fications, representation, health and 
safety, vacation and vacation schedul- 
ing. 

This proposal would subject the 
Caterpillar locals to “whipsawing tac- 
tics,” the UAW said. 

Dayton strike settled 

In other negotiations, members of 
UAW Local 696 in Dayton, Ohio, 
voted to end a three-day strike and ac- 
cept an agreement negotiated with two 
General Motors Corp. brake plants. 

The two Delco Chassis division 
plants supply other GM plants with 
brakes, bearings and suspensions. The 
union ratified a three-year contract last 
year, but had disagreed with the com- 
pany over how the pact should be 
applied. 


TCU comes aboard with new three-year Amtrak agreement 


T he Transportation Communications 
Union reached a new three-year 
agreement with Amtrak, the nation’s 
passenger rail system, covering 6,000 
clerical and reservations workers. 

The settlement, ratified by 81 per- 
cent of voting TCU members in a mail 
ballot, provides for a 15 percent wage 
increase over the contract term, plus 
a $2,000 lump-sum payment and cost- 
of-living increases to take effect in Ju- 


ly 1995. The contract can be amend- 
ed beginning January 1995. 

In a letter to union members, TCU 
President Robert A. Scardelletti and 
top officers pointed out that conces- 
sions sought by Amtrak were beaten 
back. 

“Three years ago, bargaining 
began with Amtrak demanding pay 
cuts, the right to assign TCU work to 
others, sick pay to begin only after 


five days, reduced health care, lower 
pay for vacations and sick leave, abili- 
ty to abolish positions without regard 
to seniority and other insults,” they 
wrote. 

The agreement maintains health and 
welfare coverage, existing seniority 
and sick-pay provisions, and provides 
for family and parental leave, pay dif- 
ferentials, and tax-deferred spending 
accounts for health and child care. 


The agreement calls for the limited 
establishment of part-time positions 
—up to 10 percent of the non-reser- 
vation office work force, with restric- 
tions by region and job category — 
with job protections maintained for 
full-time workers. 

The Sheet Metal Workers are vot- 
ing on a similar agreement with the 
Amtrak system covering 600 shop 
craft workers. 




PON NEWS 


IBEW delegates celebrate 
century of trade unionism 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 
St. Louis 

T he Electrical Workers, meeting in the 
city where the union was born 100 
years ago, celebrated the “union of 
hearts and minds” in its 34th conven- 
tion. 

Delegates approved a measure to 
raise the current $6 national per capita 
by $1 effective Jan. 1, and by $1 effec- 
tive Jan. 1, 1994, and re-elected, by ac- 
clamation, President John J. Barry, 
Secretary Jack F. Moore and Treasurer 
Thomas Van Arsdale. 

“The IBEW offered the illumination 
of hope and dignity and justice” 100 
years ago when its 10 founders gathered 
above Stolley’s Dance Hall, Barry said 
in his keynote address, promising that 
the union would continue its work to 
rebuild America and reclaim the na- 
tion’s manufacturing capacity. 

Barry also urged the delegates to con- 
tinue to step up organizing efforts, 
renew the push for national health care 
reform and seek support for family care 
provisions. 

In addition to Barry, Moore and Van 
Arsdale, IBEW Vice Presidents Ken J. 
Woods, Paul A. Loughran, Donald J. 
Funk, Paul J. Witte, James P. Conway, 
Orville A. Tate Jr., Jon F. Walters, 
S.R. McCann, Edward P. McEntee, 
Ray Edwards and Carl Lansden all were 


returned to office, with H. Wade 
Gurley taking over the 5th District slot. 

Executive Council Chairman Clyde 
Bowden won re-election, with Richard 
D. Acton, Robert Missey, Thomas J. 
Sweeney and James R. McAvoy all re- 
turning to the council. Joining them will 
be Joseph A. McCafferty of the 1st 
District, Frank J. Carroll Jr. of the 2nd, 
Lance Blackstock of the 4th and Allan 
Head of the 6th. 

Delegates celebrated the union’s 
100th anniversary with a parade 
through downtown St. Louis and a party 
on the grounds of the Gateway Arch. 

The 11th District local unions also 
hosted a country and western show dur- 
ing convention week. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
called for passage of S. 55, the 
Workplace Fairness Bill, asking, “If 
our national leaders really believe in 
freedom, why don’t they help us to fight 
for the freedom to join trade unions and 
to engage in collective action without 
getting fired for it?” 

“We say it’s time to take our govern- 
ment back and once again to permit real 
people to have a say in how our society 
is run,” he said. 

Delegates also heard from House Ma- 
jority Leader Rep. Richard A. Gephardt 
(D-Mo.); Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.); 
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio); Robert 



Tom Estrin/Affiiiated Graphics 

Leading the centennial parade are IBEW President John J. Barry, St. Louis mayor 
Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr., AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, 
retired IBEW President Charles Pillard and IBEW Secretary Jack F. Moore. 


A. Georgine, president of the AFL-CIO 
Building and Construction Trades 
Department; and Sen. Thomas Harkin 
(D-Iowa), a candidate for the 1992 
presidential nomination. 

Georgine questioned why the govern- 
ment would support labor unions in 
Eastern Europe and try to destroy labor 
unions in the United States. “When we 
really put our minds to it, when we 
mobilize our forces, we can make a dif- 
ference,” he said. 

Delegates passed resolutions calling 
for national health care reform, 


passage of the Workplace Fairness bill 
and a denial of most-favored-nation 
trade status to China unless conditions 
are met. 

The convention also agreed to ex- 
plore possible mergers with the Utility 
Workers Union of America and with 
the International Union of Elevator 
Constructors and to create a minority 
affairs department. Delegates opposed 
reaffiliation with the Canadian Labour 
Congress and agreed to change from a 
four-year to five-year convention 
schedule. 


Carpenters elect Lucassen, map rebuilding strategy for future 


By Mhiriel H. Cooper 
Atlantic City, N.J. 

D elegates to the Carpenters 36th con- 
vention agreed to hold the line on 
costs and forgo a per capita increase, 
but voted to convene again within the 
next two years in a special convention 
that will be charged with rewriting the 
union’s constitution. 

Delegates also elected Sigurd Lucas- 
sen to his first full five-year term as 
president. Lucassen, who replaced 
Patrick Campbell in 1989, outpolled 
Secretary John S. “Whitey” Rogers, 
1,378 to 878. Another candidate, Jeff 
Brunker, received 23 votes. 

The vote came after a week of hearty 
campaigning that featured political 
rallies, passionate campaign speeches 
and partisan banners throughout the 
convention. 

Dean Sooter was elected first vice 
president over the incumbent Second 
Vice President Jack McMillan, 1,398 
to 865. Paschal McGuinness was 
elected second vice president with 
1,319 votes to 935 for Jim Davis. 

Jim Patterson was elected to succeed 
Rogers as secretary, drawing 1,492 
votes to Tom Hanahan’s 73 1 . Jim Bled- 
soe was elected treasurer with 1,252 
votes to 757 for the incumbent Wayne 
Pierce. Willie Sheperson placed third 
in the treasurer’s race with 242 votes. 

Delegates also elected a new general 
executive board. Eight of the 10 district 
seats were contested. 

“We have to look to our future and 
profit from our mistakes,” Lucassen 
told the delegates, referring to the con- 
vention’s theme “A Tradition of 
Strength, A Vision For The Future.” 
“Let’s pick ourselves up to make this 


organization better because we all have 
the same goal.” 

Union members also share the same 
problems, Lucassen said, pointing to an 
unemployment rate that is the highest 
among construction industry workers 
and an average age of death that is eight 
years earlier than other Americans. 

“We don’t need to talk about jobs for 
our members,” he said. “We need to 

find jobs for our members We need 

to organize. We don’t need to talk about 
what’s wrong with our government. We 
need to change it. Beginning right here. 
Right now.” 

The delegates recommitted the union 
to increasing membership and job op- 
portunities through such programs as 
the Special Programs Department, the 
International Apprenticeship and Train- 
ing Contest and the national health and 
safety program. 

“We’re leading the fight against anti- 
union contractors,” Lucassen said. 
“We’re leading a battle against jobs that 
threaten a worker’s health. We’re 
leading the fight to rebuild America.” 

More than half of the delegates par- 
ticipated in a free, comprehensive 
medical screening co-sponsored by the 
union, the National Institute for Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health, the 
Mount Sinai School of Medicine and 
Harvard University Medical School. 
The medical team performed chest X- 
rays, lab work, a pulmonary function 
test and a scan for lead buildup in 
bones, a problem that can lead to 
premature deaths. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
praised the organization for being “in 
the forefront of the struggle” 
throughout U.S. history. Kirkland told 



Carpenters 

Carpenters President Lucassen says union is leading fight "to rebuild America." 


the delegates that labor is playing a 
critical role in the new democratic 
order, citing the victory of House 
passage of H.R.5, the Workplace 
Fairness Bill, and the leading role taken 
by workers and their unions in the 
emerging democracies of Eastern 
Europe. 

Other convention speakers included 
presidential candidate Sen. Thomas 


Harkin (D-Iowa); the Rev. Jesse 
Jackson; Robert A. Georgine, president 
of the AFL-CIO Building and Construc- 
tion Trades Department; Howard 
Samuel, president of the Industrial 
Union Department; New Jersey AFL- 
CIO President Charles Marciante; Sen. 
Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.); and 
Oregon AFL-CIO President Irving 
Fletcher. 




Workers win 
respect, jobs 
after 3 years 



AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department President Paul J. Bum- 
sky addresses the MTD quadrennial convention in 


Raymond Crowell/Page On© Photography 

Washington and calls for a "people's movement" to 
fight the financial power of large corporations. 


Metal Trades calls for new industrial policy 


C ongressional action is needed to 
restore America’s industrial base and 
equalize the rules of international trade 
in reversing the economic damage sus- 
tained under the Reagan and Bush ad- 
ministrations, the Metal Trades Depart- 
ment convention declared in a series of 
resolutions. 

MTD President Paul J. Bumsky told 
the more than 100 delegates in his 
keynote address that the errant White 
House policies of the 1980s eroded 
thousands of craft and trade jobs in the 
shipbuilding industry, as well as in the 
manufacturing and mining sectors. 

“Inequity, injustice, favoritism, 
greed and domination are intolerable 
whether here or in another country,” 
Bumsky stressed. “The Reagan-Bush 
era has imposed a degree of each that 
we find unacceptable.” 

He underlined the need for legislation 
to reform health care, outlaw the per- 
manent replacement of legally striking 
workers and erase conditions that en- 
tice U.S. companies to transfer opera- 
tions and their workers’ jobs out of the 
country. 

To bolster that legislative agenda, 
Burnsky said the time has come for 
labor to generate a “people power” 
movement directed against “the im- 
mense financial power of corporations 
and the elected officials who are in 
league with them.” 



Kansas expands board, 
approves agency fees 

Topeka, Kan. 

D elegates to the 13th Kansas AFL- 
CIO convention voted to expand its 
executive board from 17 to 18 mem- 
bers, electing Walt Barnhart from the 
Kansas Association of Public Employ- 
ees, AFT, to the new seat. 

The delegates also approved a resolu- 
tion charging a service fee for non- 
unionized employees benefiting from 
union contracts and supported national 
health care reform, workplace fairness 
legislation, community involvement and 
expanded unemployment benefits. 

Joe Velasquez, director of the AFL- 
CIO Community Services Department, 
urged the delegates to continue press- 
ing Congress on the issue of unemploy- 
ment benefits. 

Other speakers included Rep. Dan 
Glickman (D-Kan.). 


Burnsky said the impetus for the 
movement was launched at Solidarity 
Day ’91 . “It is up to us to continue that 
momentum over the course of the next 
year to focus that people power into our 
unique political system.” 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue told delegates he 
could describe the Reagan-Bush 
economic program in two words: “It 
stinks.” 

Five straight years of declining real 
wages and rising unemployment have 
spread economic pain across the mid- 
dle class as well as those on the lowest 
rungs of society, Donahue said. 

Although ‘ ‘a lot of the blame belongs 
squarely on the administrations of 
Ronald Reagan and George Bush,” 
Donahue said the economy began to 
sputter more than 20 years ago and 
“government simply refused to do its 
job.” 

He cited failures to plan for public 
education and job training, civilian 
research and development and manage- 
ment of foreign trade and investment as 
problems which are haunting the nation 
today. 

Resolutions adopted at the two-day 
convention call for Congress to impose 
penalties on the purchase of foreign- 
built ships equivalent to the subsidy pro- 
vided by foreign governments; establish 
programs to assist the more than 


Vermont lambastes 
‘right to work’ moves 

Rutland, Vt. 

D elegates to the Vermont AFL-CIO 
convention blasted the perennial at- 
tempts to impose a “right-to-work” law 
on the state, urged reform of the state 
pension system for municipal 
employees and voiced support for ap- 
prenticeship training. 

The 200 delegates also re-elected 
President Ralph Crippen to a third term 
and Secretary-Treasurer Florence 
Stancliffe to a second term. Newly 
elected to the executive board were: 
Mark Santelli, UAW Local 137; 
Ronald Alman, Ladies’ Garment 
Workers Local 341; Nancy Lawson, 
Steelworkers Local 5518; Donna 
Goodrich, Graphic Communications 
Local 745; Evie Hawkins, Paper- 
workers Local 345; James Crowe, 
Machinists Local 829; Richard 
Kolakoski, UPIU Local 1594; and Lin- 
dol Atkins, AFSCME Local 1343. 

Delivering the keynote address, 
Steelworkers President Lynn Williams 
described how labor’s challenges have 
mounted since President Reagan was 
elected. Not only has the Bush ad- 
ministration been insensitive to 
workers’ issues, he said, but the two 


800,000 workers who are losing 
defense jobs to make the transition into 
the private sector; and strengthen “Buy 
American” provisions to compel the 
Department of Defense and other 
government agencies to meet those 
standards. 

Delegates urged Congress and the 
courts to uphold the Jones Act, which 
mandates the use of U.S. -built vessels 
to carry cargo and passengers between 
American ports. They also called for 
the imposition of duties on maintenance 
and repairs performed on U.S. -flag 
vessels done by foreign shipyards. 

The convention voiced strong opposi- 
tion to White House plans to buy 25 
foreign-built vessels for use in 
America’s Ready Reserve Fleet, urging 
Congress to prohibit the purchase dur- 
ing peacetime. 

In other action, delegates re-elected 
Burnsky and 10 incumbent vice presi- 
dents to new four-year terms. 

Convention speakers included Reps. 
Joseph Gaydos (D-Pa.) and Helen 
Delich Bentley (R-Md.); John Stocker, 
president of the Shipbuilders Council of 
America; Admiral Frank B. Kelso, 
chief of U.S. naval operations; Bernard 
DeLury, director of the Federal Media- 
tion and Conciliation Service, and 
Gerard Scannell, head of the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Adminis- 
tration. 


bodies of Congress remember unions 
only during elections. 

Workshops were held on workers’ 
right to know about occupational 
hazards, the Americans with Disabili- 
ties Act and the state workers’ compen- 
sation law. 

Delaware AFL-CIO urges 
political involvement 

Rehoboth Beach, Del. 

T he Delaware AFL-CIO annual con- 
vention called for stronger political 
participation and encouraged its 
members to continue to buy American. 

Indicating the need for labor to “elect 
our friends and defeat our enemies,” 
the delegates recommended that the 
state federation encourage union mem- 
bers to increase their political involve- 
ment at all levels of government. 

“The election of pro-labor candidates 
is vital if we are to survive in these dif- 
ficult times,” said Delaware AFL-CIO 
President Edward Peterson, who was 
re-elected to his third term. 

Secretary-Treasurer Gary Hilder- 
brand was re-elected to his third term 
and H. James Lynch was elected vice 
president. Lynch currently is regional 
office director for Food and Commer- 
cial Workers Local 27. 


Continued from Page I 

$200,000, was paid to 483 workers who 
were employed as of Jan. 1 , 1991 . The 
agreement also specified that, contrary 
to previous company policy, workers 
would be compensated for machine 
down time. 

The S. Lichtenberg workers, 90 per- 
cent of whom are black women, paid 
a heavy price for their victory, 
ACTWU President Jack Sheinkman 
noted. 

“Unfortunately, they had to go 
through years of harassment which 
denied them their lawful rights,” 
Sheinkman said. “Workers like those 
at S. Lichtenberg are the real freedom 
fighters in our country. As our union 
has learned through struggles at J.P. 
Stevens, Farah, and now Lichtenberg, 
workers’ rights in this country are too 
often denied.” 

The workers voted to join ACTWU 
in April 1988 in an effort to overcome 
management practices that included 
raises and promotions based on favori- 
tism, a lack of sick leave, racial 
discrimination and exorbitant health in- 
surance costs. 

While the company stonewalled at the 
bargaining table, the workers took their 
case into the legal arena. In March, an 
administrative law judge for the NLRB 
found the company guilty of unfair 
labor charges, ordering job reinstate- 
ment and back pay for the workers. 

“This was the largest unfair labor 
practice award in Georgia history and 
only the first ruling on literally hun- 
dreds of charges filed by the union 
against S. Lichtenberg for its continued 
illegal conduct,” said ACTWU Vice 
President Bruce Raynor, southern re- 
gional director. 

Also in March, the Office of Federal 
Contract Compliance Programs found 
S. Lichtenberg, a government contrac- 
tor, violated prohibitions against 
discrimination in employment by 
federal contractors. 

To counter the company’s attacks, 
ACTWU formed the Citizens Commis- 
sion on Justice, a group comprising na- 
tional civil and women rights leaders 
that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson and 
Dr. Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP. 
The company’s customers, K Mart and 
J.C. Penney, also were targeted by the 
workers as potential supporters. 

‘ ‘This was a battle for respect, ’ ’ said 
Joe Miller, a worker at the plant in 
Waynesboro. “We’ve won the respect 
we deserve. Now, all we have to do is 
use it.” 

Meanwhile, ACTWU members at 
Big Yank in Mississippi agreed to 
restructure their contract in order to 
save more than 1,000 jobs. Big Yank, 
an apparel company, announced cost- 
cutting programs in September that 
would have forced the closing of its 
plant in Water Valley on Nov. 1. The 
other plants in Hattiesburg and West 
Point were expected to follow suit. 

The old contract was only a year old 
when company and union officials 
agreed to reopen it, ACTWU Missis- 
sippi Director Frank Brooks said. 

The contract, which went into effect 
Oct. 14, was ratified by 98 percent of 
those voting. Under the new contract, 
workers will receive a 10 percent to 20 
percent increase in wages over three 
years and a 10-hour four-day 
workweek, the union said. 

The company also is getting a boost 
from a state loan. 








Labor presses 
case for OSHA 
reform measure 

Continued from Page 1 

nouncement, North Carolina had been 
among 23 states and two territories that 
had been granted permission by OSHA 
to run their own plans and assume 
responsibility for job safety and health 
if certain conditions are met. 

“This confirms our petition that the 
North Carolina plan is not up to the job 
of protecting the health and safety of the 
state’s workers,” Seminario said. 
“We’ve been saying for years that 
stricter oversight of state programs is 
needed. We hope this action is a sign 
that OSHA will scrutinize state plans 
anew.” 

The Labor Department also an- 
nounced the establishment of a toll-free, 
24-hour telephone hot line — 1-800- 
321 -OSHA — for people to report 
emergency threats to worker safety. 

In addition to pushing for the 
withdrawal of the North Carolina plan, 
the AFL-CIO has been working toward 
overall OSHA reform through passage 
of the Comprehensive Occupational 
Safety and Health Reform Act (S. 1622 
and H.R. 3160), introduced Aug. 1. 

The legislation would give workers 
a voice in their own safety and health 
through the establishment of workplace 
committees in plants with more than 10 
employees. It would strengthen OSHA 
standard-setting and enforcement, ex- 
tend OSHA coverage to federal, state 
and local government employees and 
provide for victims’ rights. 

Federal employee unions rallied in 
front of the Labor Department Oct. 21 
in support of the measure, noting that 
exemption of federal agencies from the 
original 1971 legislation has left work- 
ers exposed to hazardous conditions. 

“Some members (of Congress), like 
the public, think all federal workers do 
is work at desk jobs,” said James E. 
Sommerhauser, president of the Profes- 
sional and Technical Engineers. “But 
we have people working around radia- 
tion, asbestos and every other danger- 
ous position you can think of. ’ ’ 

Scanned told a meeting of the Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health State Plan 
Association he expected enactment of 
reform legislation would occur in 1992. 

“OSHA reform is a reality,” he said, 
and he urged state plan representatives 
to let Congress know their thoughts on 
the legislation. 

Florida AFT unit 
backed by court 

T eachers in Hillsborough County, 
Florida, won a round against censor- 
ship when a district appeals court 
ordered the school superintendent and 
the board of education to stop interfer- 
ing with union materials posted on 
bulletin boards. 

The court upheld a lower ruling that 
the school board committed an unfair 
labor practice by discriminating be- 
tween teachers supporting the AFT and 
those belonging to the rival Hills- 
borough Classroom Teachers 
Association. 

The board had ordered AFT-H 
literature removed from bulletin boards 
in faculty lounges. 

The school board was ordered to post 
an order declaring it will abide by the 
law and to pay attorney’s fees and court 
costs. 

The bills amount to nearly $35,000, 
the AFT support group said. 


This award-winning photograph by Earl Dotter appeared in the Teachers' American Educator. 

ILCA honors profile of AIDS workers 


Z ita Allen won this year’s Max Stein- 
bock award for her series on public 
service workers who care for victims 
of AIDS — acquired immune defici- 
ency syndrome. The article appeared in 
“Public Employee Press,” a publica- 
tion of AFSCME District Council 37. 

The award was among the winners 
announced by the International Labor 
Communications Association in its 
1991 ILCA journalism contest for union 
publications. 

A panel of six judges reviewed 1,215 
entries from 169 publications in deter- 
mining the winners in several cate- 
gories. The awards will be presented 
during the ILCA convention in Detroit, 
Nov. 6-10. 

Allen conducted a series of interviews 
with AFSCME members, observing 
that the service workers showed great 
sensitivity to their patients under trying 
circumstances. 

“Besides family members, loved 
ones and friends, those most directly af- 
fected by the pain and suffering of peo- 
ple with AIDS are the working men and 
women who provide health care, home 
care, housing and a host of services,” 
Allen wrote. 

The judges found that Allen’s work 
exemplified the “humanistic spirit” of 
labor journalism. The award honors the 


late Max Steinbock, longtime Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store Union 
editor and former ILCA president. 

Judges for the Steinbock award and 
general excellence category were 
Elizabeth Walpole, editor of BNA’s 
Employee Relations Weekly; David 
Perlman, retired associate editor, AFL- 
CIO News; and writer and lecturer 
Joseph Foote. Judging the special per- 
formance and non-periodical and 
special publications categories were 
Mary Lord, assistant managing editor, 
U.S. News and World Report; Roger 
Sheldon, retired editor of The 
Carpenter; and Jerry Borstel, retired 
managing editor of the IUE News. 

The 1991 winners are: 

GENERAL EXCELLENCE 

International and national union publications — 

On Campus, Teachers (newspapers of less than 100,000 
circulation); IUE News, Electronic Workers (news- 
papers of 100,000 to 249,000 circulation); The 
Machinist, LAM (250,000 or more circulation). 

Air Line Pilot, ALPA (magazines of less than 100,000 
circulation); United Mine Workers Journal, UMWA 
(magazines of 100,000-249,000 circulation); Public 
Employee, AFSCME (magazines of 250,000 or more 
circulation). 

CWA Sector News, Communications Workers 
(newsletters). 

State AFL-CIO publications — Indiana AFL-CIO 
News (fewer than 13 weeks per year); California AFL- 
CIO News (more than 12 issues per year). 

Local union publications — Engineers News, 
Operating Engineers Local 3, San Francisco; Up Front 
with 1360, Food and Commercial Workers Local 1360, 
Berlin, N.J.; Raw Facts, UAW Local 898, Ypsilanti, 


Mich.; Working People, UAW Local 2031, Adrian, 
Mich.; Summit City Mailbag, Letter Carriers Branch 
116, Wayne, Ind. 

Regional publications — Public Employee Press, 
AFSCME District Council 37, New York City; MFT 
Federation Paper, Massachusetts Teachers, Boston. 

Best original cartoon — The Public Sector, by 
Distin, AFSCME Local 1000, Albany, N.Y.; Colorado 
Labor Advocate, by John McColloch, Denver. 

Best original photo — Utility Reporter, by Russ 
Rylee, Electrical Workers Local 1245, Walnut Creek, 
Calif.; American Educator, by Earl Dotter, Teachers. 

Best editorial or column — United Teacher, by 
Helen Bernstein, Los Angeles; MFT Federation Paper, 
by Peggy Carlin, Massachusetts AFT. 

Best feature story — Engineer News, by Steve 
Moler, IUOE Local 3, San Francisco; Public Employee, 
by Fred J. Solowey, AFSCME. 

Best series — Newsline 1999, UAW Oklahoma City, 
Okla.; Public Employee Press, AFSCME District Coun- 
cil 37, New York City. 

Unique performance — The Public Sector, 
AFSCME Local 1000, Albany, N.Y.; Public Employee 
Press AFSCME, New York City. 

Best use of graphics — UFCW Local 27 Reporter, 
Baltimore; Healthwire, Teachers; 1199 News, Drug, 
Hospital and Health Care Employees, New York; Postal 
Record, Letter Carriers. 

Newsletters — Union Leader, UFCW Local 400, 
Landover, Md.; PED Forum, AFL-CIO Public 
Employee Department; Faculty Focus, Teachers, 
Smithtown, N.Y. 

Best front page (newspapers) — United Teacher, 
Los Angeles; IUE News, Electronic Workers. 

Best cover (magazines) — Newsline 1999, UAW 
Oklahoma City, Okla.; The Laborer, Laborers. 

NON-PERIODICAL AND SPECIAL 
PUBLICATIONS 

Editorial excellence — SUNY’s Future, AFT Local 
2190, Albany, N.Y.; When the Paycheck Stops, AFL- 
CIO Department of Community Services. 

Best use of graphics — On the Cutting Edge, United 
Teachers, Los Angeles; TCU — Handling Grievances, 
Transportation Communications Union. 


Labor film, broadcast entries merit raves 


E ntries in the 1991 film and broadcast 
competition, sponsored by the Inter- 
national Labor Communications 
Association, demonstrated outstanding 
quality in both writing and technical 
development, contest judges said. 

In reviewing the 1 18 film and broad- 
cast entries, the judges assessed whether 
the entry not only created a message, 
but whether that message captured the 
emotion and “heart of the labor move- 
ment.” Judges also looked at whether 
the choice of medium — radio ad, 
video or other program — was the most 
appropriate for the message being 
presented. 

The overall quality of the entries was 
termed “truly amazing” and judges 
noted that the “scholarship, the 
creativity and the depth of feeling were 
breath-taking.” Union officers, on 
camera in many of the productions, had 
“done their homework, (and) come 
across as comfortable with the medium, 


knowledgeable, forthright, often even 
polished,” judges added. 

The six award categories were broad- 
cast or cable television programs; spots 
and promos; all other film or video pro- 
ductions; radio spots; radio programs; 
and film strips and slide shows. 

In making the awards, judges made 
category distinctions between union- 
produced programs and those produced 
with outside paid professional help, and 
for projects with budgets above and 
below $5,000. 

The judges for the 1991 contest were 
Walt Davis, former editor of the Food 
and Commercial Workers publication, 
Action, and Patricia Aufderheide, com- 
munications professor at American 
University. 

The top winners were: 

• “First Tuesday,” by Connecticut Federation of 
Teachers. Broadcast or cable television programs, union 
produced, budget $5,000 or less per show. 

• “CSEA: Through the Years,” by California State 
Employees Association, Service Employees. 


Spots/Promos, produced with outside paid professional 
help, budget $5,000 or more. 

• “Building Our Future,” by Civil Service 
Employees Association, AFSCME Local 1000, Abany, 
N.Y. All other film or video productions, union pro- 
duced, budget $5,000 or less. 

• “Environment,” by United Steelworkers of 
America. All other film or video productions, union pro- 
duced, budget more than $5,000. 

• “Puget Sound Strike Rock Video,” by Food and 
Commercial Workers Local 1 105, Seattle. All other film 
or video productions, produced with outside paid pro- 
fessional help, budget $5,000 or less. 

• “Out of Darkness,” by United Mine Workers of 
America. All other film or video productions, produced 
with outside paid professional help, budget more than 
$5,000. 

• “CWA/Sprint Employee Network,” by Com- 
munications Workers. Radio spots, produced by union 
members/staff. 

• “Unanswered Questions,” by CSEA, AFSCME 
Local 1000, Abany, N.Y. Radio spots, produced with 
outside paid professional help. 

• “Heartland Labor Forum: Sexual Harassment on 
the Job,” by the Institute for Labor Studies, Govern- 
ment Employees Local 1336, Lee’s Summit, Mo. Radio 
programs, produced by union members/staff. 

• “The Best of Our Knowledge,” by United Univer- 
sity Professions, New York State United Teachers, AFT. 
Radio programs, produced with outside paid professional 
help. 




Inflationary burst puts 
new bite in recession 



Source: U.S. Department of Commerce 

Trade deficit up 13 percent; 
biggest rise since January 


By John R. Oravec 

T he cost of living jumped in Septem- 
ber, triggered by sharp hikes in 
energy and shelter costs, cutting deeper 
into the buying power of workers. 

Overall, die consumer price index for 
urban wage earners (CPI-W) advanced 
0.4 percent. The Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics said the rise was the steepest in 
eight months and put the inflation rate 
at 3.1 percent above September 1990. 
The consumer price index for all urban 
consumers (CPI-U) also rose 0.4 per- 
cent from August and was 3.4 percent 
above the year-ago month. 

Over that 12-month span, real weekly 
earnings — wage gains adjusted for 
higher living costs — were down 0.6 
percent for the average worker, despite 
a meager 0.1 -percent pickup over the 
month, the BLS reported. 

But in the longer term, the setback in 
real weekly pay is far deeper, AFL-CIO 
economist Anne Draper pointed out. 
Since September 1979, the buying 
power of workers has declined 10.9 
percent, Draper said. 

With the approach of the colder 
months, heating oil prices rose 1.5 per- 
cent in September while natural gas and 
electric rates advanced 0.9 percent. 
Heating oil prices were down 14.5 per- 
cent over the year while gas and elec- 
tric rates were up 2.8 percent. 

Gas pump prices rose 0.6 percent 
over the month, but still were 10.9 per- 
cent below a year ago. 

Tuitions and other education ex- 
penses rose 0.7 percent over the month 
and were up 8.6 percent over the year. 
Medical care increases slowed to 0.6 
percent last month, although the rise 
was 8.3 percent over the year. 

BLS said clothing prices declined 0.5 
percent in September after posting 
sharp increases in July and August. 
Over the year, clothing prices rose 3.2 
percent. 

Based on the rise in living costs be- 
tween the third quarter of 1990 and 


1991, some 40 million Social Security 
beneficiaries will get a 3.7-percent raise 
in benefits starting next January, the 
Department of Health and Human Serv- 
ices announced. That is the smallest 
cost-of-living adjustment in five years. 

For the retired worker, the adjust- 
ment means the average monthly benefit 
will rise by $22 to $629. For a retired 
couple on Social Security, the average 
benefit will increase by $38 to $1,067. 

The same 3.7-percent increase also 
will apply to nearly 10 million benefi- 
ciaries of other federal programs, HHS 
said. 

In other economic statistics: 

• Housing starts tumbled 2.2 per- 
cent in September to a seasonally ad- 
justed annual rate of 1 .03 million units, 
the Commerce Department reported. 
While the decline was the first since 
March, the pace of new construction of 
houses and apartments has been below 
par. For the first nine months of the 
year, housing starts were 19.4 percent 
below the comparable period of 1990. 

The decline came despite a drop in 
fixed rate 30-year conventional mort- 
gages from 9.15 percent at the start of 
September, to 8.82 percent at the end 
of the month, according to the Federal 
Home Loan Mortgage Corp. 

• Lagging residential, commercial 
and industrial construction throughout 
the lingering Bush recession has taken 
its toll on building trades jobs. The 
unemployment rate in the construction 
industry increased from 15.1 percent to 
15.7 percent in September, according 
to BLS. Over the past 12 months, the 
bureau said the number of jobless con- 
struction workers rose from 751 , (XX) to 
956,000. 

• Industrial production edged up a 
disappointing 0. 1 percent in September 
after holding flat in August, the Federal 
Reserve Board reported. The index 
made modest gains between March and 
July, but is still lagging below the pre- 
recession level. 


A merica’s foreign trade deficit 
widened by more than 13 percent in 
August to $6.8 billion, the worst short- 
fall since January, the Commerce 
Department reported. 

The continuing imbalance in labor- 
intensive manufactured goods ac- 
counted for more than 90 percent of the 
deficit. Before seasonal adjustment, 
$32.9 billion worth of factory goods 
were imported, compared with exports 
of $25.8 billion, for a deficit of $7.1 
billion. The entire merchandise trade 
deficit in August before adjustment was 
$7.7 billion. 

For the first eight months of the year, 
the deficit in manufactured goods was 
$39.5 billion, nearly matching the 
overall foreign trade shortfall of $39.9 
billion. 

Following seasonal adjustment, the 
Commerce Department said exports 
plunged $1.1 billion to $35.2 billion, 
while imports eased by $0.3 billion to 
$41.2 billion. The adjusted deficit for 
the January-August period totaled $42.7 
billion, well below the first eight 
months of 1990 when the overall trade 
deficit hit $66.9 billion. 

The largest country-to-country deficit 


continued with Japan at $3.7 billion, 
followed by China at $1.3 billion, 
Taiwan at $900 million and Canada at 
$700 million. The United States posted 
a surplus of $700 million in trade for 
the month with Western Europe. 

Imports of crude oil and petroleum 
products amounted to $4.6 billion in 
August. The volume of oil imports rose 
by 23 million barrels over the month to 
206 million with an average price of 
$16.79 per barrel. The average price 
rose 71 cents a barrel from July. 

U.S. industrial sectors hardest hit by 
the August deficit in manufactured 
goods included autos, clothing, foot- 
wear and telecommunications equip- 
ment. The sector deficits will take a toll 
in better-paying factory jobs in those in- 
dustries, labor economists point out. 

The shortfall in new autos and trucks 
amounted to nearly $4 billion, with im- 
ports of $4.4 billion and exports of just 
$0.5 billion. 

The best U.S. trading performance in 
the industrial sector remained with 
airplane and airplane parts manufac- 
turers as exports amounted to $2.5 
billion while imports came to about 
$0.7 billion. 


‘Peace dividend’ seen filling public investment needs 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


AFSCME President McEntee assails federal abandonment of cities and states. 


W ith the need for public investment 
greater than ever, the Bush ad- 
ministration and Congress have placed 
America at risk by failing to make hard 
budgetary choices, labor leaders and 
economists said. 

Speaking before an Economic Policy 
Institute conference on public invest- 
ment in Washington, AFSCME Presi- 
dent Gerald W. McEntee said “you 
have to wonder whether the president 
and Congress aren’t working together 
with business and the far right to turn 
back the clock’ ’ to the days of the Great 
Depression. 

‘ The White House and the Congress 
look the other way as banks close, 
bridges collapse, water mains burst and 
state after state and city after city 
scrape the bottom of the barrel,” he 
said. “When our free market economy 
has succeeded it has been because our 
government has succeeded. And it’s 
faltering now because government is 
faltering.” 

An EPI briefing paper prepared for 
the conference pinpoints an “invest- 


ment gap” of from $60 to $125 billion 
annually in human resources, physical 
capital and non-defense research. 

Decreased spending in the human 
resources area, which includes educa- 
tion and training and children’s pro- 
grams, has led to a less prepared and 
less flexible workforce, EPI said. The 
United States ranks 14th out of 16 in- 
dustrialized countries in expenditures 
for grades K-12. Federal investments in 
training and employment were cut 60 
percent between 1977 and 1982 and are 
projected to fall to their lowest level 
ever by 1996, the EPI found. 

In the area of physical capital — 
transportation, infrastructure, water and 
sewage treatment, etc. — federal spen- 
ding has dropped steadily since 1981, 
EPI said, reaching a projected all time 
low of under 0.7 percent of GNP in 
1996. A spending increase of $55 
billion a year is needed to keep 
America’s physical structure from col- 
lapsing, the EPI said. 

In a competitive global economy, re- 
search and development of new technol- 


ogies is critical. But U.S. spending in 
this area is 30 to 35 percent less than 
its major competitors, Japan and Ger- 
many. To catch up, the United States 
needs to spend another $10.8 to $13.5 
billion annually, the EPI said. 

EPI urged Congress and the White 
House to scrap their budget agreement, 


which delays major changes until 1993, 
and to ‘ ‘renegotiate a budget which per- 
mits the reordering of priorities” as 
U.S. defense needs have declined. 

Failure to do so is, “in effect, a deci- 
sion to dramatically reduce American 
competitiveness and living standards in 
the 1990s,” EPI said. 





Miller Photography 


U.S. merchant mariners were memorialized for their efforts over the past 
200 years with an 8-foot statue created by sculptor Marisol Escobar. AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland addressed a crowd of more than 1,000 
dignitaries at the dedication ceremonies in New York. 



Mine Workers President Richard L. 
Trumka and Ande Abbott, director of 
the Boilermakers’ Shipbuilding and 
Marine Division, have joined the 
Maritime Trades Department Executive 
Board. Trumka replaces retired UMW 
Secretary-Treasurer John J. Banovic, 
while Abbott takes the spot of Boiler- 
makers’ President Charles W. Jones. 

Robert T. Buffenbarger, 40, has 
been elected as a vice president of the 
Machinists, effective Dec. 1. He cur- 
rently serves as executive assistant to 
IAM President George J. Kourpias 
and as a co-chair of the IAM Non- 
partisan Political League. He has been 
a union member since 1970. 

Two AFL-CIO assistant department 
directors have been inducted into the 
National Academy of Social Insurance. 
Meredith Miller of the Employee 
Benefits Department and Markley 
Roberts of the Economic Research 
Department join 344 other members of 
the academy, a non-profit, non-partisan 
organization devoted to furthering 
knowledge and understanding of Social 
Security, health care financing and 
related public and private programs. 

AWARDS 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
presented the Fund for an OPEN Socie- 
ty ’s Distinguished Service Award to 
Morris Milgram Sept. 26 during a 
reception at AFL-CIO headquarters in 
Washington. Kirkland lauded 
Milgram’s “ideas and innovations (that) 
opened the door to integrated housing 
for thousands of American families.’’ 

The Carpenters and the Electrical 
Workers were honored by the Federal 
Mediation and Conciliation Service dur- 
ing their recent conventions. Paul 
Stuckenschneider, FMCS assistant 
director, presented Carpenters’ Presi- 
dent Sigurd Lucassen with the Direc- 
tor’s Award for Excellence in Collec- 
tive Bargaining Oct. 7 in Atlantic Ci- 
ty, N.J. In the citation, FMCS Direc- 
tor Bernard DeLury said the union had 
been a “consistent pathfinder in the 
development of responsible collective 
bargaining.” DeLury presented the 
same award to IBEW President John J. 
Barry Oct. 8 in St. Louis, citing the 
unique leadership role of the union in 
maintaining and advancing the standard 
of skills in the electrical and electronic 
trades required by rapid advances in 
technology. 

Jack Otero, president of the Labor 
Council for Latin American Advance- 
ment and vice president of the Trans- 
portation Communications Union, re- 


cently was given the National Urban 
Coalition’s 1991 Distinguished Labor 
Leadership Award at a dinner in 
Houston. The group noted Otero’s ef- 
forts at keeping urban issues at the 
forefront of the nation’s policy agenda. 

Six Marine Engineers Beneficial 
Association/National Maritime Union 
members were honored by Secretary of 
Transportation Samuel Skinner for 
their efforts at rescuing a carrier crew 
in the South China Sea two years ago. 
Second Mate John Codispoti, Third 
Mates Michael Hainen and Stephen 
Sellers, Gemini master Norman Smith 
and seamen Victor Honigsfeld and Jef- 
frey Amendolia were awarded service 
medals; Hainen, swept overboard while 
trying to rescue one of the 18 survivors, 
also received the Distinguished Service 
Medal, the merchant marine’s highest 
honor. 

Gus Tyler, assistant president of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers, and Dr. 
Alice Kessler-Harris, professor of 
history and director of women’s studies 
at Rutgers University, will receive the 
1991 John Commerford Labor Educa- 
tion Award from the New York Labor 
History Association Dec. 6. 

Labor and United Way efforts have 
resulted in the awarding of the “Model 
City in Community Service” sign to the 
Buffalo, N.Y., metropolitan area. The 
sign, in recognition of work in improv- 
ing the well-being of area residents, was 
placed on the wall of the Greater Buf- 
falo International Airport. George L. 
Wessel is president of the Buffalo AFL- 
CIO Council. 

DEATHS 

Everett M. Kassalow, an adjunct 
professor at the George Meany Center 
for Labor Studies-Antioch College 
Degree Program, died Oct. 16 in 
Northern Virginia of complications 
from a stroke. He was 73. 

Kassalow, who previously served as 
research director for the Rubber 
Workers and the AFL-CIO Industrial 


Union Department, also was a visiting 
professor at the University of the 
District of Columbia Labor Studies 
Center and was a consultant for the In- 
ternational Labour Organization. 

He was bom in New York City, 
graduated from the City College of New 
York and received his master’s degree 
from The American University in 
Washington. He was professor of 
economics and industrial relations at the 
University of Wisconsin and Carnegie 
Mellon University; had worked as a 
senior labor specialist for the U.S. 
Library of Congress; served as an 
economist with the U.S. Department of 
Labor; worked as labor archivist at the 
National Archives; and had served as 
national president of the Industrial Rela- 
tions Research Association. 

He was survived by his wife, Sylvia 
Dicker Kassalow; one daughter, Lynn 
Kassalow Prosten of Washington; two 
sons, Gerald of Annandale, Va., and 
Laurent of Livingston, N.J.; and six 
grandchildren. 

George K. Daitsman, 66, education 
director for the Allied Industrial 
Workers since 1972, died of heart 
failure Oct. 12 at his home in 
Milwaukee. 

Daitsman graduated from City Col- 
lege of New York and received a 
master’s degree from Columbia Univer- 
sity. He became local union editor and 
education director while he worked as 
an assembler at a General Motors plant 
in Linden, N.J. 

He also taught labor education at 
Ohio State University, taught and 
directed the former Teamsters Institute 
in Miami and served as education direc- 
tor for the Brewery Workers Union. He 
had recently been elected president of 
the Wisconsin Labor History Society. 

Surviving are his wife, Rose; two 
sons, Billy of Chicago and Andy of 
Milwaukee; one daughter, Judi, of New 
York City; one brother, Frank, of 
Brooklyn, N.Y.; and two grandchil- 
dren. 


HIT helps finance model apartment project 


T he AFL-CIO ’s Housing Invest- 
ment Trust has joined with the 
Federal National Mortgage Associa- 
tion (Fannie Mae) in a $50 million 
financing plan that could provide af- 
fordable rental housing to 2,000 low- 
and moderate-income families. 

Under the initiative, developers 
using all-union labor will secure con- 
struction loans from Fannie Mae- 
approved lenders to build and re- 
habilitate low- and moderate-income 
apartments. 

Once the construction is completed 
and certain criteria are met, Fannie 


Mae will purchase the mortgages. 
HIT agrees to purchase a Fannie Mae 
security backed by the mortgage at a 
rate determined before construction. 
Should the developer default on the 
loan, Fannie Mae, not HIT, would 
absorb the loss. 

The first project under the initiative 
is the renovation of Detroit’s 104-unit 
Historic New Center Apartments. 
The loan and corresponding security 
for this model project totaled $2 
million. 

“While this project marks the com- 
pletion of the multifamily rehabilita- 


tion in the neighborhood, it also 
marks the beginning of a new part- 
nership that will assist communities 
nationwide,” said Floyd Hyde, HIT’S 
chief executive officer. 

“The Historic New Center 
rehabilitation exemplifies just the type 
of project we are looking for in our 
new partnership with Fannie Mae,” 
Hyde said. “It strengthens a 
neighborhood, creates union jobs and 
brings good investment returns to our 
investors.” 

For more information, call HIT at 
202/331-8055. 



Civilian workers laid off as a result 
of U.S. military base closings and 
realignments can now use a computer- 
ized job referral service called the 
Defense Outplacement Referral 
System set up by the Defense Depart- 
ment and the Office of Personnel 
Management. Military and civilian per- 
sonnel, as well as their spouses, can call 
1-900-990-9200 to request an applica- 
tion. The cost is 40 cents a minute. The 
applications also are available at local 
Family Support Centers for military 
personnel and at local personnel offices 
for civilians. 

The President’s Committee on Em- 
ployment of People with Disabilities 

is soliciting proposals for concurrent 
sessions that reflect its 1992 conference 
theme, “The Best of ADA.” Approx- 
imately 40 concurrent sessions will be 
selected for presentation, each lasting 
about an hour and a half. The deadline 
for submission of proposals is Friday, 
Nov. 8. To obtain an application form, 
contact the President’s Committee on 
Employment of People with Disabili- 
ties, 1331 F Street N.W., Washington, 
D.C. 

PUBLICATIONS 

How to Do Leaflets, Newsletters 
and Newspapers has been updated, ex- 
panded and rewritten by UAW’s Nancy 
Bingham to help anyone produce a 
publication on any budget. It also has 
information on computers, color use, 
legal rights, photography, graphs and 
artwork, the media, fact-finding and 
mailing rates. The book is available in 
bookstores or by mail for $14.95. To 
order send check or money order to 
PEP Publishers, P.O. Box 24888, 
Detroit, Mich. 48224. 

The following issue papers are 
available in the AFL-CIO Pamphlets 
Division, 815 16th Street N.W., Wash- 
ington, D.C 20006. 

Government and Economic Devel- 
opment describes how state govern- 
ments have tried to use gimmicks rather 
than depending upon a solid develop- 
ment approach. Order No. 52. 

Workers’ Rights: EC 92 describes 
the new social charter being developed 
for the European Community to go with 
the removal of trade and other barriers 
among 12 European countries. Order 
No. 54. 

Trade Adjustment Assistance: 
Time for Action, Not False Promises 

desribes how Trade Adjustment Assis- 
tance needs to be revised to provide real 
help to workers displaced by trade and 
by the North American Free Trade 
Agreement. Order No. 53. 

European Worker Benefits de- 
scribes how American workers lag be- 
hind European workers, not only in 
wages, but in benefits as well. Order 
No. 55. 

VIDEO 

We Do The Work, a national public 
television series on workplace issues, 
will feature Solidarity Day II during 
October. The show will take an in-depth 
look at the people in the crowd and the 
concerns that brought them from across 
the nation. The show airs in late Oc- 
tober on Oregon’s KOPB; in San Fran- 
cisco on KQED; in Washington, D.C. 
on WETA; on Nebraska’s KUON; in 
New York City on WNET; and in 
Denver on KBDI. 





Unions bargain changes in workers’ comp 


By Candice Johnson 

U nions and employers are looking to 
the collective bargaining process to 
bring about some needed changes in 
state workers’ compensation programs. 

In Boston, for example, the Carpen- 
ters are working with Massachusetts 
contractors and builders groups to study 
the feasibility of a self-insured program 
and the use of collective bargaining pro- 
cedures to establish a list of indepen- 
dent medical examiners to resolve 
medical disputes in occupational injury 
cases. Those proposals would require 
changes in Massachusetts law. 

The effort reflects the level of unhap- 
piness nationally among unions and 
unionized employers with existing 
workers’ compensation programs, said 
James Ellenberger, AFL-CIO compen- 
sation specialist. 

Because premiums are calculated on 
the basis of total payroll in every state 
except Washington, union employ- 
ers — especially in construction — are 
at a competitive disadvantage, Ellen- 
berger said. 

Since union labor provides safer and 
more productive work, basing pre- 
miums on hours worked or hours of ex- 
posure — as occurs in Washington 
state — is a more accurate measure of 
risk, Ellenberger said. It also eliminates 
an unfair advantage exploited by low- 
wage, non-union contractors. 

The Boston provisions are part of a 
package of model contract language 
developed by the UBC Health and 
Safety Fund, established by Carpenters 
President Sigurd Lucassen, to initiate 
reform within the workers’ compensa- 
tion system. 

The task force considers self-insur- 


ance to be “one of the best means 
within most current workers’ compen- 
sation systems to resolve inequities” 
because such plans emphasize preven- 
tion programs, said Edward Gorman, 
executive director of the fund. 

The Boston Council of Carpenters 
reached agreement with the state 
Associated General Contractors, the 
Building Trades Employers’ Associa- 
tion of Boston and Eastern Massa- 
chusetts and Construction Industries of 
Massachusetts. 

Group self-insurance plans, in which 
large companies do not have to “buy” 
insurance, often offer significant advan- 
tages over commercial workers’ comp 
insurance. 

As a result of work done by the late 
Harry Van Arsdale Jr., Electrical 
Workers Local 3 in New York City has 
had a self-insurance plan with 
employers in the electrical industry 
since 1967. 

Workers’ comp benefits provided by 
the Electrical Employers Self-Insurance 
Safety Plan exceed those set by state 
statute by at least one-third, while costs 
to employers using the plan have been 
reduced. 

Another concern now being ad- 
dressed at the collective bargaining 
table is the availability of work for an 
injured person who has just returned to 
the job and needs a period of “light 
duty,” Ellenberger noted. 

Some unions, including the IBEW, 
Machinists and the Teamsters, outline 
wages to be paid to workers returning 
from a disability leave. 

Unions also have negotiated agree- 
ments that require employers to supple- 
ment workers’ comp benefits — replac- 


ing a higher percentage of workers’ pre- 
injury earnings. 

In negotiations with the Professional 
and Technical Engineers, Teamsters, 
Fire Fighters and IBEW, the city of 
Seattle has agreed to pay the difference 
between compensation levels and the 
pre-injury wage for the first five missed 
workdays, and the difference between 
the benefit level and 80 percent of the 
pre-injury wage for another 255 days. 

The Flight Attendants have bargained 
benefit levels tied to the federal or state 
program that provides the higher bene- 
fits. 

Some states are encouraging parties 
to address the issue of choice of physi- 
cian at the bargaining table. Currently, 
about half the states give either the 
employer or the employer’s insurer the 
right to choose the treating physician. 

“This can lead to ill feelings on the 
part of workers and fear that the physi- 
cian is acting in the interest of die in- 
surer or the employer,” Ellenberger 
said. 

The Labor Management Discussion 
Group on Workers’ Compensation, a 
newly formed effort, is stressing that 
workers’ compensation coverage re- 
main mandatory, with neither employ- 
ers nor workers allowed to “opt out” 
of the program. 

The group, comprising 16 labor, 
business and insurer organizations, 
recommended other improvements for 
state programs, including prompt pay- 
ment of benefits, informal dispute 
resolution, establishment of a panel of 
independent medical experts and the 
creation of a labor-management ad- 
visory council to review each state’s 
system. 


Unionists help 
Oakland relief 

Oakland 

U nion volunteers are assisting 
families whose homes were 
destroyed in the raging wildfire 
that engulfed the hills overlook- 
ing this California city. 

Authorities are picking through 
the hazardous area and “many 
people still don’t know if their 
homes have been destroyed or 
not,” said Beth Curley, AFL-CIO 
community services liaison. 

The fire destroyed more than 
2,000 homes and some 400 apart- 
ments. The number of fatalities 
had reached 29 by week’s end and 
six persons still were missing. 

On the front lines battling the 
blaze were members of Fire 
Fighters Local 55 while the Oak- 
land police, members of the 
affiliated Police Associations, 
manned the barricades. Workers 
from AFSCME Councils 57 and 
10 and Service Employees 
Local 790 also assisted. 

Union volunteers continued 
escorting families to areas 
where their homes once stood. 

Among those who lost their 
homes is Kathleen Kinnick, 
women’s director for the Califor- 
nia AFL-CIO and Vice President 
of the Office and Professional 
Employees, Curley said. 

Persons who wish to help in the 
relief efforts should contact Beth 
Curley at 800/879-1870 ext. 236, 
or call their local American Red 
Cross Disaster Center. 


INSIDE 

Long ACTWU struggle 
wins back pay ; pact 

After a three-year fight, Clothing and 
Textile Workers at a Georgia drapery 
maker won a first contract, plus $1 
million in back pay for workers who 
were illegally fired. 

OSHA asserts authority 
in North Carolina plan 

The Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration will assert concurrent 
jurisdiction over North Carolina’s 
health and safety plan following the 
tragic fire at a chicken processing plant. 





Workers hang tough 
at Ravenswood plant 

A community remains divided and 
union families are still suffering one 
year after 1,700 Steelworkers were 
locked out and “permanently replaced” 
by Ravenswood Aluminum Corp. 

Union best protection 
against sex harassment 

Millions of working women rely on 
their unions for help in stopping sexual 
harassment at the workplace, with con- 
tracts and grievance procedures helping 
workers keep their jobs and dignity. 


0 



Labor allies face 
tough election fights 

Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls 
in November to choose between Demo- 
cratic Sen. Harris Wofford and Repub- 
lican challenger Richard Thornburgh; 
three states have governors’ races. 

Living standard falls 
with big CPL increase 

Workers’ pocketbooks took a steep hit 
in September, with a 0.4 percent jump 
in the consumer price index marking the 
biggest rise in the cost of living in eight 
months. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two wooks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 por 
yoar. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Street, 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


10/28/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 





Convention to address worker concerns 



Roger Bybee/Racine Labor 

Unionists rally in support of members of Ladies' Garment Workers Local 187 , 
who were "permanently replaced" by Rainfair in Racine, Wis. 


‘Replacements ’ 
issue stokes 
labor’s fire 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

T he battle for workplace fairness, be- 
ing waged around the country in 
plants where workers have been “per- 
manently replaced,” will take center 
stage on opening day at the AFL-CIO’s 
19th biennial convention in Detroit 
Nov. 11. 

Delegates will survey the extent of 
the damage done by employers who ex- 
ploit a loophole in labor law that allows 
them to “permanently replace” strik- 
ing workers and will recommit the fed- 
eration to the drive to pass S. 55, the 
Workplace Fairness Bill. 

Among workers who are struggling 
to dramatize the unfairness of the prac- 
tice are 136 members of Ladies’ Gar- 
ment Workers Local 187, who were 
“permanently replaced” five months 
ago by Rainfair Inc., a protective gar- 
ment maker in Racine, Wis. 

Two ILGWU members and one 
spouse have been on a hunger strike for 
nearly a month to call attention to the 
situation. Worker concerns over health 
benefits and job security caused the first 
strike at the plant in almost 60 years. 

But the main issue in the labor dispute 
centers on the practice of hiring “per- 
manent replacements” despite a na- 
tional labor law that says it’s illegal to 
fire strikers. The legal loophole was 
created by the Supreme Court’s Mackay 
decision, which has been used exten- 
sively by employers since the start of 
the 1980s. 

The AFL-CIO campaign for S. 55 
follows on the heels of a successful 
grass-roots campaign to pass the com- 
panion House legislation, H.R. 5. That 
measure passed 247-182 in June, a 
margin enhanced by support from 


labor’s allies among religious and com- 
munity coalitions. 

The federation has called on sup- 
porters to redouble their efforts to pass 
S. 55, which looms as a much tougher 
fight because of the Senate’s filibuster 
rule. It will take 60 votes to invoke 


cloture (shut off debate) and put the bill 
before senators. 

Workplace fairness is so vital to Rain- 
fair employees Bernice Wilson and 
Norma Vela, along with her husband, 
Ramon, that they have demonstrated 

Continued on Page 12 


Candidates face 
tough questions 
during forum 

By James B. Parks 

T he concerns of working Ameri- 
cans — ranging from striker replace- 
ment, health care and the economy to 
union organizing and workplace safe- 
ty — will be aired at the AFL-CIO’s 
19th biennial convention Nov. 11-14. 

These and other worker issues will be 
explored with major announced Demo- 
cratic presidential candidates, who will 
participate in a forum on Tuesday, 
Nov. 12. 

Expected to attend the forum are 
former California Gov. Edmund G. 
(Jerry) Brown, Arkansas Gov. William 
Clinton, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, 
Nebraska Sen. Robert Kerrey, former 
Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas and 
Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. 

A triumphant Democrat, Sen. Harris 
Wofford of Pennsylvania, also will at- 
tend the convention and address the 
delegates Wednesday morning. Wof- 
ford, whose campaign revolved around 
national health care reform and his vote 
against “fast-track” authority for the 
proposed trade pact with Mexico, 
demonstrated the power of labor issues 
when he overcame a 44-point deficit in 
public opinion polls to beat former Bush 
Attorney General Richard Thornburgh 
in a special Senate race. See story, 
Page 11. 

A videotape from the presidential 
candidates’ forum will be sent, along 
with a transcript, to all affiliated unions 
and state and local central bodies for use 
in membership and COPE meetings. As 
in previous years, unions will use their 
own procedures to sample membership 
preference and decide which, if any, 
candidate to support. 

Continued on Page 10 


After two-year political battle, civil rights victory near 


O rganized labor praised passage of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1991 as a 
step in the right direction for equal op- 
portunity and for adding new protec- 
tions for federal workers. 

The bill marks “progress in clarify- 
ing the nation’s civil rights laws after 
Supreme Court rulings narrowed the 
rights of victims of discrimination,” 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland de- 
clared after the Senate passed the bill 
Oct. 30. 

“We will be pleased when this 
lengthy political battle is over and the 
focus is returned to advancing the rights 
of all Americans. House approval and 


a presidential signature will achieve this 
goal,” Kirkland added. 

The passage “marks a forward step 
in the ongoing process to guarantee 
equality to all people,” said AFL-CIO 
Vice President Lenore Miller. “The 
struggle for equal rights and social 
justice has a long way to go and trade 
unions will continue to play a leader- 
ship role,” said Miller, who is presi- 
dent of the Retail, Wholesale and De- 
partment Store Union and chair of the 
federation’s civil rights committee. 

The bill contains a provision long 
sought by the Government Employees 
that allows federal workers to collect 


compensatory damages for discrimina- 
tion and sexual harassment. 

“Federal workers, who are not per- 
mitted to seek punitive damages like 
workers in the private sector, must be 
afforded increased protections and 
penalties if we are to eliminate 
discrimination in the federal work- 
place,” said AFGE President John N. 
Sturdivant. 

After two years of bitter political 
debate and presidential vetoes, the 
Senate on Oct. 30 passed by 93-5 a bill 
that makes it easier for workers to win 
discrimination suits. The Senate passed 
a technical correction to the bill on Nov. 


5 to exempt Wards Cove Packing in 
Washington, site of one of the original 
suits that prompted the Senate to pass 
the bill. 

The Senate also voted to extend the 
bill’s protections to its own 7,200 
employees, along with political ap- 
pointees in the executive branch, 
including the White House. Senators 
and the president must reimburse the 
Treasury within 60 days for any dam- 
ages the government pays for their 
discriminatory practices. 

The House passed the bill 381-38 on 
Nov. 7 as a substitute for a separate bill, 
Continued on Page 4 




Health care reform push gains momentum 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 


Delay worsens health care problems, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland tells 
Congress. At right is Karen Ignagni, employee benefits director. 


Kirkland calls for 
full-scale reform 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he AFL-CIO ’s continued push for 
national health care reform is being 
met with heightened interest on Capitol 
Hill as the nation’s attention turns 
toward the domestic agenda and more 
lawmakers put forth proposals. 

In fact, a survey by two Harvard 
University researchers based on more 
than 50,000 interviews concluded that 
a broad consensus on the need for 
reform exists. However, Robert J. 
Blendon and Jennifer N. Edwards 
predicted that reform still is three to five 
years away. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Majority Leader 
George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) and six 
Democratic governors — Roy Roemer 
of Colorado, Booth Gardner of Wash- 
ington, Howard Dean of Vermont, John 
Waihee of Hawaii, Lawton Chiles of 
Florida and Michael Sullivan of Wyom- 
ing — announced agreement Oct. 29 on 
a set of health care reform principles 
and challenged President Bush to en- 
dorse their goals. 

Their principles call for cost contain- 
ment, universal access and elimination 
of administrative waste, and for a 
system that emphasizes wellness, pre- 
vention and primary care. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
returned to Capitol Hill Oct. 31 to 
testify on legislative initiatives to the 
House Energy and Commerce subcom- 
mittee on health and the environment. 

“Our health care problems are 
urgent — and they are being exacer- 
bated by our delay in acting on them,” 
Kirkland told panel members. “The 
AFL-CIO believes that Congress now 
has before it all of the essential elements 
for comprehensive health care reform 
legislation. 

“Nothing short of full-scale reform 


will solve our problems,” he said. 

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Henry 
A. Waxman (D-Calif.) agreed with 
Kirkland on the urgency of the situ- 
ation. 

“Every day we delay, more Ameri- 
cans go without needed care and the 
costs of services push insurance 
coverage beyond the means of more 
working people and their families,” he 
said. 

“Waiting will not make these pro- 
blems easier or cheaper to solve.” 

Waxman also pointed out the Con- 
gressional Budget Office estimate 
that — without effective cost contain- 
ment — health care spending will in- 
crease at a rate of 12 percent to 15 per- 
cent each year over the next five years. 

State and local governments could 
save billions of dollars under a single- 
payer health care plan, according to a 
report issued Nov. 4 by AFSCME, 
Public Citizen and Physicians for a Na- 
tional Health Program. 

Rapidly rising health care costs, 
along with the Bush recession, have led 
to huge deficits for many state and local 
governments. 

“This report demonstrates that health 
care reform can play a major positive 
role in the financial condition of state 
and local governments,” said Karen 
Ignagni, AFL-CIO director of em- 
ployee benefits. 

“Reform can help ease the fiscal 
crisis governments are facing — and 
we ought to pass legislation in this Con- 
gress,” she said. 

Approximately one-third of all Amer- 
icans have no health insurance or are 
underinsured — one illness away from 
ruin. Health care programs account for 
22 percent of domestic spending. 

On a per capita basis, the United 
States spends 40 percent more than 
Canada, 90 percent more than Germany 
and 125 percent more than Japan. In 
1990, that meant Americans spent $700 


billion —or 12.2 percent of the 
GNP — on health care. 

“I wouldn’t particularly object to 12 
percent” if the country had a good 
health care system and got value for 
their dollars, Kirkland said. “The prob- 
lem is today what we’re getting for it 
is a ruinous system.” 

A study by the health care consulting 
firm Milliman and Robertson Inc. re- 
leased Oct. 28 concluded that approx- 
imately 24 percent of all hospital stays 
and 15 percent of office visits are 
unwarranted. 

A team of doctors reviewed the 


medical charts of more than 2,500 pa- 
tients under the age of 65 over a two- 
year period. An American Medical 
Association spokesman cautioned 
against that type of methodology, say- 
ing it could “lead to totally erroneous 
conclusions regarding what is appro- 
priate care.” 

Responding from questioning by 
Waxman about paying for care for those 
currently uninsured, Kirkland assured 
him that union members “are prepared 
to bear their share of the costs — 
they’re bearing them now, in an in- 
equitable, unfair and ruinous way.” 


UAW puts pressure on Caterpillar with limited strike 


A pproximately 2,400 UAW workers 
went out on a limited strike against 
two Caterpillar Inc. facilities in an ef- 
fort to prevent “massive takeaways” of 
their wages and health care benefits. 

The strike by Local 751 in Decatur, 
111., and a unit of Local 974 in East 
Peoria, 111., began at midnight Nov. 3. 
The strike “is an effort on the union’s 
part to convince the management of 
Caterpillar that it must abandon its at- 
tempts at takeaways and return to tradi- 
tional pattern bargaining, while limiting 
the economic and social impact of a 
shutdown on workers and on the 
communities in which Caterpillar 


facilities are located,” said UAW 
Secretary-Treasurer Bill Casstevens. 

The two sites are key assembly plants 
for Caterpillar’s tractors, graders and 
trucks. Their closing could create a 
backlog of parts at other company 
plants. UAW workers at other Cater- 
pillar plants will continue to work pend- 
ing further decisions, said Casstevens, 
who heads UAW’s Agricultural Imple- 
ments Department. 

“We are also requesting all UAW 
members who will continue working to 
produce the highest quality Caterpillar 
parts, components and equipment possi- 
ble, and to maintain a goal of zero 


defects at each and every step of the 
operation,” he said. 

The UAW and Caterpillar opened 
contract negotiations Sept. 28 and 
agreed to extend the contract, which ex- 
pired Sept. 30. The union gave Cater- 
pillar five days’ notice that it intended 
to strike if no agreement was reached 
before Nov. 3. The contract covers 
16,000 active and 2,400 laid-off 
members of seven locals in four states. 

The company has rejected the pattern 
agreement UAW signed with Deere and 
Co. and has proposed massive take- 
aways, said UAW spokesman Karl 
Mantyla. “This proposal doesn’t come 


close to addressing the Deere pattern,” 
he said. 

Caterpillar has proposed pay raises 
for some manufacturing employees and 
only for the first year, Mantyla said, 
while the Deere agreement contains a 
3 percent pay increase for all employees 
plus 3 percent lump-sum payments in 
1992 and 1993. 

Caterpillar also has demanded that 
workers begin paying part of their 
health care costs and is still calling for 
a provision that guts the central agree- 
ment by leaving key sections to local 
negotiations, a move the union strong- 
ly opposes. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 24 



MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1991 


®s 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 


of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Richard I. Kilroy 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Susan Bianchi-Sand 
John N. Sturdivant 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 

Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Milan Stone 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 






New UI bill shaped; jobless rate rises 


By John R. Oravec 

W hile Congress worked on new leg- 
islation to extend jobless benefits 
to the long-term unemployed — mea- 
sures twice trashed by President Bush 
in the past three months — job losses 
continued to mount. 

Losses in the manufacturing, con- 
struction and merchandizing sectors 
pushed the nation’s unemployment rate 
to 6.8 percent in October as prospects 
dimmed for the economy to pull out of 
the Bush recession. 

Unemployment rolls swelled by 
140,000 to 8.6 million, according to the 
household survey conducted by the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the 
jobless rate rose one-tenth of a point 
over the month to reach the 6.8 percent 
figure. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
noted that of the 8.6 million jobless in 
October, 1.1 million had been unem- 
ployed for at least six months, nearly 
double the number of a year ago. They 
are the long-term jobless whose regular 
unemployment insurance coverage runs 
out after 26 weeks and who would bene- 
fit from the extension of UI compen- 
sation. 

“The victims of this recession need 
help, not more vetoes of extended job- 
less benefits by an indifferent presi- 
dent,” Kirkland said. “The economy 
can have no more direct stimulus than 
aid to the unemployed, who need and 
will spend every cent they can get their 
hands on in this crisis.” 

About 300,000 jobless workers have 


been exhausting their regular 26 weeks 
of benefits every month as the recession 
cut deeper into the nation’s work force. 

Current measures being drafted in 
Congress — in and out of the House 
Ways and Mean Committee — would 
provide up to 20 additional weeks of 
benefits for workers whose initial 
coverage expired. The extended cover- 
age would reach back to March 1 for 
the long-term jobless. 

Under the $5.7 billion proposal, 
workers in 32 states with lower jobless 
rates would get an additional seven 
weeks of benefits. Workers in states 
with higher rates would get 13 more 
weeks, and seven states with the highest 
rates would get 20 additional weeks. 

The benefits would be based on the 
actual, or total unemployment rates 
(TUR) in the states, rather than insured 
unemployment rates (IUR) that run well 
below the actual rates. 

The funding of the benefits extension 
has yet to be pinned down, but pro- 
posals include raising employer payroll 
taxes 0.2 percent for a short term, 
higher withholdings on income taxes 
and refunds from unpaid student loans. 

The proposals also call for providing 
benefits to military service veterans 
with the same duration of coverage as 
civilian workers. 

Workers in key sectors were hit hard 
by layoffs last month: 

• In construction, the jobless rate 
surged from 15.7 percent to 16.2 per- 
cent with the loss of 29,000 more jobs. 

• Manufacturing unemployment in- 


creased from 6.6 percent to 7 percent 
as payrolls shrank by 32,000. 

• In retail and wholesale trade, 
payrolls dropped by 53,000 although 
the jobless rate remained stuck at 7.8 
percent, the BLS data showed. 

However, there was a pickup of about 
100,000 jobs in the lower-paying serv- 
ices sector. 

AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy 
Oswald noted that only 2.7 million 
‘ workers — or one of three of the 8.6 
million officially unemployed — were 
drawing benefits in October. 

Overall, about 16 million were either 
unemployed or underemployed last 
month, Oswald pointed out. They in- 
clude 1 . 1 million discouraged workers 
who dropped out of the labor force and 
6.3 million others who were holding 
onto part-time jobs because they could 
not get full-time work. 

Eight major states recorded jobless 
rates at or above the national average 
in October, BLS reported. They are 
California, 7.8 percent; Florida, 7.2 
percent; Illinois, 7.7 percent; Massa- 
chusetts, 8.9 percent; Michigan, 8.8 
percent; New Jersey, 6.8 percent; New 
York, 7.2 percent; and Texas, 7.9 per- 
cent. North Carolina, Ohio and Penn- 
sylvania posted rates below the national 
mean. 

The average workweek, a key indi- 
cator of the economy’s performance, 
slipped 0.2 hours in October to 34.3 
hours. At the same time, average 
weekly earnings fell 0.7 percent to 
$359.48, BLS reported. 


Senate readies challenge on 'fast-track’ deal 


By Mike Hall 

T he Bush administration’s refusal to 
include labor, environmental and 
food safety standards in its “fast track” 
trade talks with Mexico has revived a 
Senate effort to give lawmakers a 
greater say in any final agreement. 

While Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D- 
Mich.) urged his colleagues to sign on 
as co-sponsors to a bill that would give 
Congress the power to amend any 
agreement in five areas critical to the 
AFL-CIO, there were these 
developments on the Mexican trade 
front: 

• The Inter-American Regional 
Organization of Workers (ORIT), a 
branch of the International Confedera- 
tion of Free Trade Unions that 
represents unions in 22 nations in the 
Western Hemisphere, backed the AFL- 
CIO ’s concerns about the pending trade 
deal. 

• Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), one 
of the Senate’s most vocal backers of 
a U.S. -Mexico “free trade” agree- 
ment, warned a pro-business group that 
deal could be voted down if brought to 
the Congress while the U.S. economy 
is still sputtering. 

• Zenith Corp. announced it would 
shut its plant in Springfield, Mo., and 
ship 1,200 jobs to Mexico when its con- 
tract with the Electrical Workers 
expires. 

Under fast-track authority, any trade 
deal negotiated is submitted to Congress 
with only a “yes” or “no” vote possi- 
ble. The treaty may not be amended, no 
matter how flawed certain provisions 
might be. 


The Riegle resolution would allow 
amendments in the following areas: 

• Monitoring and assurance of en- 
forcement of environmental standards, 
including food safety standards. 

• Monitoring and assurance of en- 
forcement of fair labor standards, in- 
cluding those related to farm workers. 

• Rule of origin (a standard that sets 
the amount or percentage of an item that 
must be manufactured in North 
America before it receives duty free 
treatment), including the transhipment 
of agricultural products. 

• Dispute settlement procedures. 

• Adjustment assistance for U.S. 
workers, firms and communities. 

During the height of the fight over 
fast-track authority in May, the ad- 
ministration swayed many worried 
lawmakers by presenting an “action 
plan” it said would address their con- 
cerns about labor and environmental 
standards, including food safety. 

But the so-called action plan offered 
only “vague promises” and “lacked 
any concrete commitment” on how 
those issues would be included in any 
trade talks, the AFL-CIO said. 

“This cavalier response gave the im- 
pression that the administration would 
not take these concerns seriously,” 
Riegle wrote to other senators. “The 
administration’s actions in the early 
stages of negotiations have confirmed 
these impressions. 

“It is no wonder that American 
workers in many industries fear Mex- 
ico’s failure to enforce labor stan- 
dards — to permit independent unions 
to bargain freely — will create an extra 


unfair incentive for businesses to Mex- 
ico by artificially suppressing Mexico’s 
already very low wages,” Riegle said. 

Union representatives raised those 
issues at the ORIT conference on In- 
tegration, Development and Democracy 
in San Jose, Costa Rica, in early 
November. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treas- 
urer Thomas R. Donahue argued that 
worker and environmental concerns are 
too important to be “shunted aside to 
false promise and studies and commis- 
sions that disappear into oblivion.” 

“Workers’ rights and environmental 
protection should be given the same 
consideration in these (regional free 
trade) agreements that the interests of 
the multinational corporations and in- 
ternational capital are getting,” 
Donahue said. 

The ORIT report said, “Given the 
strongly conservative ideological con- 
text and the exclusion of trade unions, 
the initiative could constitute a signifi- 
cant step backwards for social policy 
and trade unions in the countries of 
Latin America and the Caribbean . . . 
worsening the level of unemployment 
and working conditions.” 

Gramm, the staunch backer of a 
Mexican agreement, told the Border 
Trade Alliance that a vote on any deal 
would be closer than the fast-track bat- 
tle. A showdown during the recession 
“would be a prescription for disaster,” 
he said. He suggested delaying the vote 
until the economy is “humming” or at 
least until after the 1992 elections. 

The Zenith plant closure is the latest 
in its decadelong transfer of jobs to ma- 
quiladora plants in Mexico. 



! 


Capitol Digest 


T he House of Representatives this 
week will consider a compromise 
version of family and medical leave 
legislation, designed to draw a veto- 
proof majority. 

The bill, sponsored by Reps. 
Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.) and John 
J. LaFalce (D-N.Y.), reduces leave 
time but guarantees a worker’s job and 
benefits during the leave. Under the 
bill, a worker could take up to 12 weeks 
unpaid leave for the birth or adoption 
of a child and up to six weeks for his 
or her own illness or that of a child, 
spouse or parent. The provisions would 
be phased in over a two-year period. 

The Penny-LaFalce substitute “meets 
the test of good public policy — a 
workable and reasonable solution to the 
growing need in the workplace for an 
accommodation between job and fam- 
ily responsibilities,” AFL-CIO Legis- 
lative Director Robert M. McGlotten 
said in a letter to House members urg- 
ing their support for the bill. 

In other action on Capitol Hill: 
ALASKAN OIL — The House ex- 
tended the AFL-CIO-backed ban on the 
export of Alaskan oil for another five 
years as part of the reauthorization of 
the Export Administration Act. “Given 
our dependence on foreign oil, it makes 
little sense to sell our domestic reserves 
overseas,” McGlotten said. The legisla- 
tion is now awaiting Senate action. 

GAG RULE — By a veto-proof 
75-25 vote, the Senate followed the 
House and approved the conference 
report on the $205 billion labor, health 
and human services and education ap- 
propriations. Attached to the bill was 
a one-year suspension of the Bush ad- 
ministration’s ban on federally funded 
abortion counseling. The AFL-CIO op- 
poses the “gag rule” because “a patient 
whose visit to a physician is financed 
by the government should receive the 
same medical information and advice” 
as one whose visit is paid for by in- 
surance or out of pocket. 

HIGHWAY BILL -House and 
Senate conferees began ironing out dif- 
ferences in the highway and mass tran- 
sit reauthorizations. The House passed 
a six-year, $151 billion package, while 
the Senate passed a five-year, $123 
billion reauthorization. The House bill 
also contains stronger Davis-Bacon and 
Section 13c labor protections. 

PENSIONS - About 40,000 
retirees and surviving spouses lost their 
benefits before Congress passed the 
Employee Retirement Income Security 
Act (ERISA) in 1974. The AFL-CIO is 
backing a Senate bill that would provide 
these survivors with partial pension 
payments to correct “the longtime in- 
justice for the surviving pension 
losers,” McGlotten wrote the Senate. 
“It was the pension losers’ plight, and 
in many cases, personal testimony be- 
fore Congress that provided the impetus 
for the passage of ERISA. It would be 
ironic if these individuals should now 
be denied the small measure of justice 
provided by this legislation.” 








Workers seek voice 
in workplace safety 


Union blasts OSHA settlement for cutting out workers 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T wenty years after the passage of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act, 
the promise of a safe and healthful 
workplace for all American workers has 
not been fulfilled, AFL-CIO Secretary- 
Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue told the 
Senate Labor Committee Oct. 29. 

As the committee opened hearings on 
S. 1622, legislation introduced by 
Chairman Edward M. Kennedy CD- 
Mass.) and Sen. Howard M. Metzen- 
baum (D-Ohio), lawmakers also heard 
workers describe how the failings of the 
system had put them at risk and how 
safety would be improved if workers 
were given a voice in workplace safety 
and health. 

“As a nation, we continue to pay for 
the goods we consume with the health 
and lives of the workers who produce 
them,” Kennedy concluded. “Now is 
the time for comprehensive OSHA re- 
form, to fulfill the promise we made 20 
years ago.” 

Workers are without adequate protec- 
tion, Donahue testified, because of poor 
administration of the program, limited 
resources and lack of political commit- 
ment, coupled with limited OSHA en- 
forcement authority and a small inspec- 
tion force. 

“We need a new approach at the 
workplace itself,” Donahue said. “We 
need to expand the OSHA law to de- 
velop programs and initiatives to 
resolve safety and health problems 
before deaths, injuries and illnesses 
occur.” 

The reform proposal, including com- 
panion legislation in the House, would 
give workers a voice in such preventive 
action by establishing workplace com- 
mittees in plants with more than 10 
employees. 

If such legislation were in place, one 
worker testified, he might still have a 
job. 

“I lost my job at Bay State Smelting 
Company because I told the truth about 
unsafe conditions at work to an OSHA 
inspector, because I caught the com- 
pany lying to workers about health and 
safety and because I spoke out about un- 


“If there had been a 
way for us to be more 
involved, (without) 
risking our jobs, we 
could have all told this 
inspector what was 
really going on.” 

— Gabriel Garcia 


safe conditions,” Gabriel Garcia told 
senators. 

An OSHA inspector visited the plant 
in May 1991 , Garcia said, after he had 
called the agency, but the inspector said 
he saw no violations. However, a su- 
pervisor had intruded on a conversation 
Garcia was having with the inspector, 
who subsequently spoke only to super- 
visors. 

“If there had been a way for us to be 
more involved, in a way that we were 
not risking our jobs, we could have all 
told this inspector what was really go- 
ing on,” he said. 

“We could have told him how, when 
we did certain jobs, the air became 
black with smoke and fumes and dust; 
how we were never given respirators or 
other protective equipment; how we had 


Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Thomas R. Donahue: "We need a new approach at the workplace." 


no lunchroom and had to eat in the 
bathroom — a bathroom that had no hot 
water to wash the toxic materials off of 
our hands; what a joke our ‘training’ 
program was; how sick we are all 
becoming from our work; how we work 
with certain machines that the boss told 
OSHA they don’t use anymore. 

“But every worker there would have 
been risking their job, and their ability 
to get another job, if they did that,” 
Garcia said. 

Ed McCormick knows the value of 
workplace safety committees. At the 
Monsanto Chemical plant in Sauget, 
111., where he is president of Chemical 
Workers Local 12, injuries have been 
cut from 216 per 1 million man-hours 
in 1981 to just 72 per 1 million man- 
hours in 1991. 

It is the policy that “there should be 
no job done an employee thinks is un- 
safe,” he said. 

The union has stressed education of 
the employees instead of disciplinary 
measures; as a result, safety concerns 


have lessened at the Monsanto plant. 

“We’ve dealt with some of the worst 
chemicals there are,” McCormick said. 
“We need to be very careful. Getting 
active union people involved has made 
a difference.” 

The situation is much the same at the 
Teepak, Inc., plant in Atlanta. Quality 
inspector Wanda Hatcher and plant 
manager Clarence Estepp described for 
lawmakers the worker-driven safety 
plan in place at the facility. 

“We’re all accountable to each 
other,” Hatcher said. “We hold sur- 
prise drills that are a surprise even to 
management.” 

She explained that management’s 
reaction in a crisis was as important to 
employee safety as the employees’ own 
actions. 

In addition to workplace committees, 
the legislation would strengthen OSHA 
standard-setting and enforcement, ex- 
tend OSHA coverage to federal, state 
and local government employees and 
provide for victims’ rights. 


T he Oil, Chemical and Atomic Work- 
ers have criticized a $10 million Oc- 
cupational Safety and Health Admin- 
istration settlement with the owners of 
a Louisiana fertilizer plant, site of a 
fatal blast in May. 

OCAW President Robert Wages 
called the terms of the settlement be- 
tween OSHA and Angus Chemical 
Co./IMC Fertilizer Inc. “sleazy (and) 
scandalous.” The agreement was reach- 
ed before OSHA issued any citations, 
which Wages said was a “sweetheart 
deal” that cut out worker participation 
in the process. 


The 421 workers at the Sterlington, 
La., plant are OCAW members. Eight 
were killed and 150 workers and towns- 
people injured in the May 1 explosion 
in the nitroparaffins division. Many 
town residents had to be evacuated for 
a short time after toxic gas was releas- 
ed, damaging homes, schools and 
businesses. 

As a result of its investigation, OSHA 
had alleged that IMCF had exposed 223 
employees to the risk of fire and explo- 
sion because of problems in the nitro- 
paraffins plant. The agency also had 
alleged 24 additional violations of 


various rules on emergency response, 
fire brigades, powered industrial trucks 
and electrical hazards. 

But as a part of the settlement, OSHA 
did not cite the company for any “seri- 
ous” or “willful” safety violations. 

“The government seems more anx- 
ious to hit companies with big fines than 
in getting them to abate hazards in a 
timely and comprehensive manner,” 
said Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO director 
of occupational safety and health. 

Byproducts of OSHA investigations 
typically include lawsuits and questions 
of liability on the part of insurers. 


Without citations that characterize 
violations, following up on those ques- 
tions will be difficult, she said. 

The settlement requires the company 
to provide a thorough safety analysis of 
its chemical processes at the Sterlington 
plant, two surrounding plants and an 
IMC phosphate plant in Lake Wales, 
Fla., to address the adequacy of train- 
ing at the Louisiana plant and its start- 
up and shutdown processes. 

An extensive review of the com- 
pany’s response to emergency condi- 
tions and training of emergency re- 
sponse personnel also is required. 


Civil rights bill gives legal recourse for job discrimination 


Continued from Page 1 

H.R. 1, which it passed early this year. 

The bill, sponsored by Sen. John C. 
Danforth (R-Mo.), mandates that job 
requirements be related to the job in 
question and be consistent with business 
necessity. This would ban such prac- 
tices as height and weight requirements 
that exclude women, high school di- 
plomas for a janitor’s job or suburban 
residency requirements that deny op- 


portunities to minorities in the city. The 
business necessity phrase was added 
after negotiations with the White 
House. 

The bill also allows limited jury 
awards of punitive and compensatory 
damages in cases of intentional dis- 
crimination of women, religious mi- 
norities and the disabled. 

Under current law, victims of racial 
discrimination have no limit on the 


amount of damages they can collect, but 
women and the disabled were limited 
to back pay. 

The limits were set depending on the 
employers’ size and range from a limit 
of $50,000 for employers with 15-100 
employees up to $300,000 for those 
with 500 or more workers. 

In 1990, Congress passed a labor- 
endorsed civil rights measure, spon- 
sored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy CD- 


Mass.), which President Bush vetoed. 

The Senate failed to override the veto 
by two votes, which made it un- 
necessary for the House to take up the 
override. 

Kennedy, who endorsed the Danforth 
bill, said “People ask who won, who 
lost. . .People who set up red herrings 
lost,” he said referring to those who 
had charged the bill would lead to 
quotas. 






KXffi 


AFL-C/O 19th Constitutional Convention > Detroit , Michigan 


Labor’s mission: new direction for nation 


In its report to the 1991 AFL-CIO convention , the 
Executive Council details advances made by unions 
since the last convention and provides a basis for ac- 
tion on workers 9 concerns in the years to come. The 
following are highlights from that report. 


Union bargaining provides broad gains 


U nions hammered out wage and benefit gains over 
the past two years despite difficult collective 
bargaining situations caused by the slumping econ- 
omy and the corrosive threat of striker replacements. 

Wage increases in major settlements averaged 4 
percent in both 1989 and 1990. In the first quarter 
of 1991, first-year gains rose to 4.5 percent, but the 
rate slipped to 3.4 percent in the second quarter as 
the recession lingered on. 

Some contracts with cost-of-living provisions 
brought additional wage adjustments with the rise in 
the government’s consumer price index. But wage 
gains for many workers failed to keep pace with in- 
flation as the CPI-W rose 6. 1 percent in 1990 before 
easing in the first half of 1991. 

Still, unionized workers were drawing 36 percent 
more in pay and benefits than non-union employees. 
In March 1991, the Labor Department reported that 
total compensation of union workers was $19.76 an 
hour, while non-union workers averaged $14.56 an 
hour. 

Among major contract settlements, a 14-union 


coordinated bargaining strategy paid off for workers 
at General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Corp. with 
improved COLAs and health care coverage. 

Similar gains were made by the Postal Workers, 
Letter Carriers and Mail Handlers for some 560,000 
employees of the U.S. Postal Service. 

Change of heart at NYNEX 

In the telephone industry, a four-year accord 
reached nearly a year before the old contract expired 
brought pay gains of 16 percent for members of the 
Communications Workers and Electrical Workers at 
NYNEX. It includes pension improvements and a 
new managed health care plan. 

After a brief railroad walkout, President Bush 
signed legislation ordering strikers back to work and 
authorizing an emergency panel to impose a settle- 
ment for 235,000 workers represented by a dozen 
unions. The Air Line Pilots, Machinists and Flight 
Attendants reached an agreement with United Airlines 
after three years of talks. 

Bargaining issues changed significantiy since 1989. 


With the increasing globalized economy, drastic in- 
dustrial shifts and corporate restructuring as well as 
the sluggish economy, unions bargained over job and 
income security, health care reforms, family needs 
and out-sourcing. 

In talks with the Big Three automakers, the UAW 
made job and income security a top priority. New 
contracts limit layoffs to 36 weeks over the three-year 
term. 

Escalating health care costs compounded bargain- 
ing issues as employers tried to shift insurance costs 
to workers by increasing deductibles and co-payment 
formulas, or sought to decrease coverage. But recent 
union settlements — including those by the Clothing 
and Textile Workers, UAW and Rubber Workers — 
maintained health benefits and called for joint union- 
company measures to battle increased costs and to 
support national health care reforms. 

Meanwhile, the Food and Commercial Workers 
won health care improvements with Campbell Soup 
Co. The Teamsters retained “first dollar” health care 
coverage at Honeywell and brought members under 
the IBT Central States plan at Stroh’s Brewing Co. 
The Service Employees won increased health in- 
surance contributions in Philadelphia. 


Solidarity Day ’91 
defines unionism 

O rganized labor showed its strength, unity and con- 
viction on Solidarity Day 1991, when more than 
325,000 union members and their allies marched on 
Washington to protest the misguided policies of the 
Bush administration and the milquetoast opposition 
on Capitol Hill. 

Solidarity Day was the defining campaign among 
two years of campaigns conducted by the AFL-CIO 
to promote the cause of workers. Under the Solidarity 
Day banner, labor made a convincing case for its 
campaigns for workplace fairness and freedom of 
association, for health care reform, for workplace 
safety and health and for fair trade. 

The huge success of Solidarity Day ’91 was a trib- 
ute to months of extensive planning and the strong 
support of trade unionists in the United States and 
around the world. 

Call for workplace fairness 

A primary message of Solidarity Day was the need 
for the Workplace Fairness bills, H.R. 5 and S. 55, 
which would prevent employers from exploiting a 
loophole in labor laws that allows them to “per- 
manently replace” striking workers — basically, to 
fire them. 

Beginning with a educational campaign during the 
100th Congress, the AFL-CIO mounted a massive 
grass-roots push to persuade the 101st Congress to 
pass the bills. Workers who had been replaced were 
brought to Washington to testify before Congress and 
explain their plight to the nation. 

A highly visible outreach program garnered sup- 
port from religious, community and civic groups. The 
federation also sponsored a national media campaign 
and a massive mail campaign that flooded Capitol Hill 
with postcards and mailgrams in support of the 
strikebreaker bills. 

National health care reform, which emerged as a 
major priority from the 1989 convention, became a 
national political issue as the AFL-CIO pressed its 
campaign through congressional testimony, grass- 
roots lobbying and political demonstrations. 

As part of that effort, in the fall of 1990, the AFL- 


Health care reform, workplace fairness and fair 
trade were among the issues taken forcefully to 

CIO held regional hearings on the health care system, 
chaired by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue. A national 
advertising campaign ran concurrently with the hear- 
ings. Also in the fall of 1990, a 30-minute AFL-CIO- 
produced special began running on public television 
stations. 

Workers Memorial Day 1991 built on the experi- 
ences of previous observances and was a great suc- 
cess, drawing national media coverage through 
unique local demonstrations of the need for reform 
of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. 

At a news media conference via satellite television, 
Kirkland, Donahue and members of Congress 
stressed the need for reform of the 20-year-old law. 
Bills introduced in the House and Senate in 1991 got 
added attention after a tragic fire swept through a 
chicken processing plant in Hamlet, N.C., trapping 
workers behind locked doors. 

Those doors would have been open if workers had 
a voice in a safety committee, as the OSH A reform 
bill provides. 

The AFL-CIO strongly opposed the effort to limit 


AFL-CIO file photo 

Washington by union members and their allies 
on Solidarity Day '91. 

Congress’ role in the U.S. -Mexico Free Trade Agree- 
ment via “fast-track” legislative approval. 

The “no fast track” campaign included an indepen- 
dent public opinion poll, a series of print ads, a 
videotape and appearances by Donahue and other top 
federation officials on national television shows. 

Despite the approval of “fast track,” the closeness 
of the vote demonstrated concern in Congress about 
the issues labor raised about the treaty. The 
Democratic leadership in Congress sided with the 
White House on the issue, but almost twice as many 
Democrats in the House broke with their leadership 
and voted with workers and environmentalists on the 
issue. 

The AFL-CIO said the damage from the North 
American “free trade” agreement — U.S. job loss, 
degradation of the environment and exploitation of 
workers on both sides of the border — is previewed 
in the current conditions in the maquiladoras. These 
thousands of U.S. -owned plants, which exploit Mex- 
ican workers, are but a microcosm of the abuse that 
would spread if the treaty is approved without the 
guarantees, the AFL-CIO has said. 



Organizing builds 
with new inroads 

U nions have overcome tremendous odds to organ- 
ize new members in workplaces as diverse as col- 
lege campuses, hospitals, factories and commuter 
airlines. 

In the face of labor laws that allow almost inter- 
minable election delays or force workers to wait years 
for an employer to bargain in good faith on a first 
contract, unions are using innovative approaches and 
long-term commitment to succeed in a number of ma- 
jor organizing drives. 

The AFL-CIO Department of Organization and 
Field Services, through its cooperative campaigns and 
the new Organizing Institute, is seeking to create a 
new “culture of organizing” throughout the labor 
movement. 

Cooperative programs are under way in Texas, 
California, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and 
Illinois. A South Florida program is focusing on 
Hispanic workers in the Dade County area. 

With the assistance of the California Immigrant 
Workers Association (CIWA), the Machinists won 
an organizing campaign — and a first contract — 
covering nearly 1,200 mostly Hispanic workers at 
American Racing Corp. near Los Angeles. The Ser- 
vice Employees’ “Justice for Janitors” campaign, also 
aided by CIWA, won union representation for 2,500 
janitors in Los Angeles. And the Food and Commer- 
cial Workers won an organizing victory among 1 ,800 
Southeast Asian and Hispanic immigrants at National 
Beef Packing Co. in Liberal, Kan. 

The AFL-CIO ’s other associate membership pro- 
grams — Montana Family Union, the National 
Association of Working Americans in Cincinnati, and 
the newest program in El Paso, Texas — are gener- 
ating organizing leads and demonstrating the value 
of unions to working families by offering help on 
workplace problems, standing up to right-wing 
groups and offering Union Privilege benefits. 

AFL-CIO unions also are involved in or planning 
hospital organizing campaigns since the Supreme 
Court ruling that affirmed the National Labor Rela- 
tions Board’s eight-unit rule. 

The Communications Workers won the right to 
represent nearly 2,000 registered nurses and other 

Using and proving 

U nion Privilege — the name says it all. These 
unique membership benefit programs not only 
better the lives of union members, but also give 
unions a way to attract new members. 

The latest Union Privilege entry, introduced in May 
1991 , is a mortgage program that helps union mem- 
bers and their immediate family to buy a home. The 
program offers competitive rates, low down pay- 
ments, “no-points loans,” a first-time home buyers 
program and strike protection. In the first four months 
of the program, union members received almost $70 
million in mortgage commitments. 

The most popular Union Privilege benefit remains 
the no-annual-fee, low-rate credit card, now carried 
by more than 2 million union members. 

At 13 percent in October 1991, the card had an in- 
terest rate 5.5 percent lower than the average rate 


AFL-CIO membership 
grows by 3 77, 000 

A FL-CIO membership has increased by 377,000, 
to 13,933,000 from the 13,556,000 reported to 
the 1989 convention. 

At 13.93 million, the total membership of the 89 
unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO ranks with its all- 
time high figure of 14.07 million in 1975. Affiliated 
unions also report an additional 270,020 associate 
members, a category that did not exist in 1975. 

AFL-CIO figures on per capita payments from its 
affiliates are computed for each biennial convention 
on the basis of the average per month for the previous 
two-year period — in this case from June 30, 1989, 
through June 30, 1991. 

For AFL-CIO unions, membership grew in the 
segments of the economy where the jobs were grow- 
ing in that two-year period. For example, the Serv- 
ice Employees membership climbed by 119,000 to 




Michael Barrett 

Organized by ACTWU in 1988, workers at S. 
Lichtenberg celebrated a first contract this year. 


workers at Buffalo’s Mercy Hospital in two separate 
elections, and is involved in campaigns in Florida, 
Oregon, Washington state and other areas. 

Other unions developing campaigns include the 
Operating Engineers, Teachers, AFSCME, SEIU, 
Teamsters, UFCW, Steelworkers, UAW, Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store Union, and others. 

On college campuses, clerical, support, profes- 
sional and technical workers are joining the union 
ranks. AFSCME followed its organizing win at Har- 
vard University with victories among clerical workers 
at several midwestern universities, including Min- 
nesota and Illinois. Several unions, including the 
UAW, AFT and others, are seeking to organize 
graduate assistants at campuses from Temple Univer- 
sity to the University of California system. 

The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute now has eight 
unions participating in the program to recruit and train 
new organizers and assist affiliates in organizing 
campaigns. 

Since opening its doors in October 1989, the in- 
stitute has accepted more than 300 individuals into 
the program, with 100 expected to graduate and take 
organizing positions with affiliated unions. Many of 
the 300 trainees are union members, more than half 
are women and nearly a third African-American, 
Asian or Latino. 


the Union Privilege 


charged by the largest credit card issuers. That has 
saved $250 million for union members, which is a 
savings for each that far exceeds the $4.20 per 
member annual cost of affiliation with the AFL-CIO. 

Other Union Privilege programs include: a sup- 
plemental life insurance program; a legal service that 
offers free and discounted legal services from any of 
nearly 800 participating law offices across the coun- 
try; a loan program that provides unsecured personal 
loans in larger amounts and for longer terms than 
generally available from credit unions or banks; a 
mail service discount pharmacy; a travel club that 
provides a 5 percent rebate on all airfare, hotels, 
motels and car rentals booked through the club; and 
a Union RATE Savings Program that offers a money 
market deposit account with the backing of the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. 


■■■ 


881,000 total, AFSCME by 101,000 to 1.19 million 
and the Teachers by 29,000 to 513,000. That 
24-month period was a bad time for the U.S. econ- 
omy, with the overall number of jobs in the nation 
dropping 516,000. 


The following table shows the total paid membership of the 
AFL-CIO for the year 1955 and subsequent two-year periods. 

The 1991 figures are based on 

the two-year period ending 

June 30, 1991. 
members. 

The totals are 

expressed 

in thousands of 

Period 

Membership 

Period 

Membership 

1955 

12,622 

1975 

14,070 

1957 

13,020 

1977 

13,542 

1959 

12,779 

1979 

13,621 

1961 

12,553 

1981 

13,602 

1963 

12,496 

1983 

13,758 

1965 

12,919 

1985 

13,109 

1967 

13,781 

1987 

12,702 

1969 

13,005 

1989 

13,556 

1971 

13,177 

1991 

13,933 

1973 

13,407 



Eighteen affiliated organizations paid a reduced monthly per 
capita tax on 270,200 additional associate members during 

the two-year period ending June 30, 1991. 



Slumping economy 
weighs on workers 

A merica’s workers are bearing the brunt of the 
slumping economy that plunged into recession in 
mid- 1990 under fiscal problems compounded by 
errant government policies. Millions of workers lost 
their jobs and work hours were slashed for millions 
of others. 

The buying power of workers continues to dwin- 
dle as the long-term trend of widening income dispar- 
ity threatens to turn the country into a low-wage 
economy. At the same time, U.S. corporations per- 
sist in divesting America’s industrial base and export- 
ing the jobs of their workers. 

Sluggish economic growth and Reagan-era tax cuts 
for the wealthy robbed the government of needed 
resources for adequate investment in the nation’s 
future. In a cynical scheme to shrink government, 
the Reagan and Bush administrations ran up huge 
federal deficits that were used as a club to hold down 
spending for essential federal programs. 

The unprecedented Reagan-Bush deficits crippled 
the government’s ability to use its potent tool of ex- 
pansionary fiscal policy to ease the pain of recession. 
The onus of combatting the recession has shifted to 
the monetary policy fostered by central bankers who 
show more concern about inflation than unemploy- 
ment. 

The nation’s jobless rate shot up to 7 percent in 
June 1991, the highest level since the 1981-82 reces- 
sion. Nearly 9 million workers were counted as of- 
ficially unemployed, an increase of 2.2 million —or 
33 percent — from a year earlier. 

High unemployment will plague the economy for 
years to come even after recovery, as had been the 
worsening pattern after past recessions. Hundreds of 
thousands of workers left the work force as the job 
market deteriorated and nearly 6 million were in part- 
time jobs because they could not find full-time work. 
As a result, 15.4 million workers were unemployed 
or underemployed in June. 

But only 37 percent of the officially unemployed 
were drawing jobless benefits in June, far below the 
level of coverage in previous recessions. In the 1975 
recession, more than 75 percent of the jobless re- 
ceived benefits, dropping to 43 percent in 1981-82. 

More than a decade of neglect has left the federal- 
state unemployment system so frayed that it no longer 
functions as a safety net for the jobless. 

President Bush aggravated the dilemma by twice 
blocking legislation extending benefits for the long- 
term jobless who exhausted their initial coverage. 

Moreover, benefits are woefully inadequate for 
those who do receive them. In 1990, the average pay- 
ment was only $131 per week, barely one-third of 
the average weekly wage in covered employment. 
That level is far below labor’s goal of a 65 percent 
rate. 

The income gap between the rich and poor reached 
an all-time high in 1989 since the government started 
first tracking the data in 1947. In 1990, the richest 
fifth of U.S. families received 44.3 percent of the 
income pie; the poorest fifth got only 4.6 percent. 

Trade unionists help 
others in communities 

W hile government support decreases and the 
treasuries of philanthropic organizations dwin- 
dle, trade unionists have expanded their efforts to aid 
their communities in a variety of ways. 

The AFL-CIO Department of Community Services 
and trade unionists across the country provide ser- 
vices ranging from pre-retirement and retirement 
counseling, blood drives for the American Red Cross, 
sponsorship of Boy Scouts of America units and food 
drives. 

And when disaster has struck — such as the earth- 
quake in San Francisco, the fire in a Hamlet, N.C., 
chicken processing plant, or Hurricane Hugo along 
the South Carolina coast — workers did not let calls 
for help go unanswered. Aid in these disasters in- 
cluded financial support, food and temporary 
housing. 

The AFL-CIO has placed special emphasis on help- 
ing local unions deal with the effects of unemploy- 
ment in their communities. Step-by-step action plans 
and materials were developed to assist unions and 
their members deal with job loss. 





AFL-CIO file photo 


ILGWU members donned colorful costumes of dif- States lags behind the rest of the world in pro- 
ferent countries to dramatize how the United viding adequate health care. 

Health care campaign picks up steam 


Forum will begin 
presidential process 

T he AFL-CIO will begin its process for the 1992 
presidential election with a Nov. 12 convention 
forum featuring the major announced Democratic 
candidates. 

A videotape will be sent, along with a transcript, 
to all affiliated unions and state and local central 
bodies for use in membership and COPE meetings. 

As in previous years, the affiliated unions will use 
their own procedures to sample membership pref- 
erence and decide which, if any, candidate to support. 

The AFL-CIO presidential preference process was 
used in the two previous presidential elections. For 
the 1984 election, unions voted by the required two- 
thirds majority to endorse Walter Mondale before the 
primaries. In 1988 no early consensus was reached, 
but Michael Dukakis was endorsed after the political 
parties completed their summer conventions. 

The 1991 convention will adopt a process for the 
1992 presidential election. 

The AFL-CIO Executive Council has issued volun- 
tary 1992 guidelines, similar to those adopted in 
1987. The guidelines ask affiliated unions to refrain 
from endorsing any presidential candidates on their 
own until the unions learn if they can act in concert. 

If, as in 1983, such a consensus seems possible, 
the AFL-CIO ’s General Board can be called by Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland at any time to consider an en- 
dorsement. A two-thirds vote is required for 
endorsement. 

In the 1990 election, efforts by the AFL-CIO Com- 
mittee on Political Education produced gains by pro- 
gressive candidates. 

Democrats netted nine seats in the House and one 
in the Senate. That number grew when a Democrat 
was appointed to fill the seat vacated by the death 
of Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.). 

According to an election night poll, 50 percent of 
eligible union members and families voted. And they 
voted overwhelmingly for labor-backed candidates, 
a testimonial to the work of the thousands of COPE 
volunteers who generated the maximum union mem- 
ber turnout. 

Working families 
need more support 

T he traditional family structure has been trans- 
formed by the tremendous growth in the number 
of women participating in the labor force and the 
number of single-parent families and families in 
which both parents work. But the nation has been 
slow to assist parents to meet family needs and fulfill 
work responsibilities. 

To address the need for workplace- and commun- 
ity-based support, as well as legislative solutions to 
the problems of working families, the AFL-CIO Ex- 
ecutive Council in February 1989 established the 
Work and Family Committee. 

A staff advisory group has since been formed to 
promote sharing of information among unions on key 
issues and the development of legislative, bargain- 
ing and community strategies. 

In the 101st Congress, with strong AFL-CIO sup- 
port, lawmakers enacted comprehensive child-care 
legislation to provide assistance to low- and moder- 
ate-income workers for child care and expand the 
earned income tax credit. 

Since then, the AFL-CIO has published a pam- 
phlet explaining and providing guidance on the new 
laws. 

Family and medical leave legislation that would 
provide time off from work to meet family respon- 
sibilities was passed by Congress in 1990 but vetoed 
by President Bush. The legislation, which would re- 
quire employers to grant employees up to 12 weeks 
of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child 
or the serious illness of either the employee or an im- 
mediate family member, is vigorously supported by 
the AFL-CIO. 

Organized labor believes that working Americans 
should not have to choose between their jobs and their 
families when a crisis occurs. 

The legislation again is making its way through 
Congress and the AFLrCIO and its friends are seek- 
ing enough support to render the legislation veto- 
proof. 


S ince the 1989 convention, when the AFL-CIO 
launched its health care campaign with the theme, 
“Now Is The Time,” the federation has made the 
case for reform in every forum. 

By convention time, more than a dozen health care 
proposals had been submitted by members of the 
House and Senate and the AFL-CIO was pushing in 
committee hearings for national action. 

The AFL-CIO campaign included a series of re- 
gional hearings in the fall of 1990, run in concert with 
two national television commercials and a 30-minute 
documentary on the severity of the problem. 

The hearings — in Providence, R.I.; Austin, 
Texas; New Brunswick, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala.; 
Chicago; Detroit; San Francisco; and Louisville, 
Ky. — found workers, union and business represen- 
tatives, elected officials, medical providers and in- 
surers all grappling with the issues of cost, access 
and quality of health care. 

The United States now spends more than $700 bil- 
lion on health care — or 12.2 percent of the gross 
national product. Nevertheless, nearly one-third of 
all Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and the 
numbers are growing. On a per capita basis, the 
United States spends 40 percent more than Canada, 
90 percent more than Germany and 125 percent more 
than Japan. 

Meanwhile, studies have pointed out high rates of 
unnecessary surgical and medical procedures, the 
minor attention paid to preventive care and the 
duplication of equipment. 

In conjunction with the hearings, the AFL-CIO 


Job safety reform 

T he AFL-CIO is pressing Congress to reform the 
outdated 20-year-old Occupational Safety and 
Health Act, which has been weakened substantially 
by a decade of Republican administrations. 

Legislation now before Congress would give 
workers a voice in their own safety and health through 
the establishment of workplace committees in plants 
with more than 10 employees. 

It would strengthen standard-setting and enforce- 
ment, extend OSHA coverage to federal, state and 
local government employees and provide for victims’ 
rights. 

The AFL-CIO has testified that, if such legislation 
had been in place in September 1991 , 25 workers may 
not have been killed in the tragic fire in Hamlet, 
N.C., where fire exits were locked. 

For building and construction trades unions, whose 
members suffer the highest casualty rate, separate 
legislation would establish a system of safety manage- 
ment on construction sites, improve OSHA’s ability 
to address construction safety hazards and expand 
worker safety training. 

Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions 
have pressed the Occupational Safety and Health Ad- 
ministration for stronger standards, gaining final stan- 


launched a broad educational effort aimed at AFL- 
CIO regional staff, state federations and local cen- 
tral bodies, which now are forming health care com- 
mittees. Joint labor-management activity is also under 
way in a variety of industries. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland presented the 
findings of the regional hearings to Congress in 
January 1991, and urged prompt action. Congres- 
sional hearings began almost immediately and the 
AFL-CIO has testified many times on the need for 
reform and the form it should take. 

As spelled out by the Executive Council in Feb- 
ruary, 1991, unions believe — as they have ad- 
vocated for many years — that a unified national 
health care system with a single payer should be the 
ultimate goal. But unions also believe that the urgency 
of the current crisis demands action now. 

The council urged Congress to enact legislation to 
provide universal access; to develop one national 
system for those not in the work force; and to reduce 
the eligibility age for Medicare to age 60. Strong cost 
containment and the elimination of administrative 
waste also were called for. 

The federation also has urged Congress to establish 
a national commission of consumers, labor, manage- 
ment, government and providers to administer a 
single national cost-containment program, establish 
a target for annual health spending increases and a 
capital budgeting system. Labor also backs a core 
benefit package to which all Americans are entitled, 
and believes that any program must contain equitable 
and progressive financing. 


bills introduced 

dards on excavations, concrete construction, electrical 
hazards and welding. 

Standards have been proposed on petrochemicals, 
bloodbome disease, butadiene, confined space entry, 
vehicle safety, cadmium and asbestos. Standards are 
needed on ergonomic hazards, video display ter- 
minals, methylene chloride, lead in construction, en- 
vironmental monitoring and medical surveillance. 

Unions have successfully stopped most of the Mine 
Safety and Health Administration’s deregulatory pro- 
posals and are pushing forward new regulations on 
air contaminants, diesel exhaust and other hazards. 
In 1991 , MSHA uncovered major fraud by scores of 
coal operators who were tampering with the dust col- 
lection cassettes used to determine coal dust levels. 

Pressure from organized labor also has brought 
about stepped-up enforcement of mine safety viola- 
tions and new regulations to shut down mines that 
have a pattern of significant and substantial violations. 

Organized labor continues to focus on workplace 
safety problems each April 28, when Workers 
Memorial Day is held. The AFL-CIO will continue 
the observance to call attention to job hazards and 
to build support for improvements in workplace safety 
and health. 




Labor seeks fairness in legislation 


D uring the 101st Congress, President Bush has 
vetoed several legislative programs that would 
have helped working families. Despite these setbacks, 
the AFL-CIO is pressing ahead on a number of 
legislative initiatives, including: 

Workplace fairness — To close the loophole in 
labor law that says workers cannot be fired for join- 
ing in a lawful economic strike, but they can be “per- 
manently replaced.” 

National health care reform — An overhaul of 
the nation’s failing health care system built on the 
principles of cost control, access and quality. 

Trade — Several bills dealing with problems of 
U.S. workers losing jobs, worker rights abuses in 
China and other nations, an unchecked flood of tex- 
tile and other imports and the North American Free 
Trade Agreement. 

Family and medical leave — To allow workers 
up to 12 weeks’ unpaid leave for family emergen- 
cies, without the threat of job loss. 

Unemployment compensation — To extend 
benefits to workers who have exhausted their jobless 


A determined commitment to the Civil Rights Act 
finally paid off for the AFL-CIO and its allies with 
President Bush soon to receive a bill he said he would 
sign. The new law clarifies several 1989 Supreme 
Court rulings that denied justice to victims of 
discrimination. 

Unions addressed issues and concerns of its fastest 
growing segment — working women — through col- 
lective bargaining, legislation and the courts. While 
calling on affiliates to involve women at all levels of 
union activity, the federation included in its legislative 
agenda such issues as family and medical leave, child 
care and pay equity. 

The AFL-CIO also urged reversal of the Supreme 
Court’s Rust vs. Sullivan ruling, which denied 
women the right to information about reproductive 
choice if the government pays for the physician visit. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act, which the 
AFL-CIO backed, assured equal access and oppor- 
tunities for disabled citizens. Top federation officials 


A s the federal government shifts responsibility for 
federal programs to state and local governments, 
public employees are bearing the brunt of budget 
cutting. 

Revenue provided by the federal government has 
decreased from 17.7 percent of city budgets in 1980 
to 6.4 percent in 1990. This decrease in funding, 
combined with the sluggish economy, prompted 34 
of 50 major cities to reduce staff over the past decade, 
the National Conference of Mayors found. 

Thus, many workers are facing layoffs, furloughs, 
wage freezes, reduced pay and the use of consultants 
in their city and state agencies. Additionally, to raise 
revenue to combat budget shortfalls, many state gov- 
ernments also have decreased services or borrowed 
from employee pension funds. 

These changes worsen the trend toward wider in- 
come distribution, a study by Citizens for Tax Justice 
found, since virtually every state and local tax is less 
progressive than the federal income tax. Only four 
states — California, Delaware, Maine and Ver- 
mont — require the richest families to pay a higher 


I n the nation’s changing economy, educational op- 
portunity has become more important than ever, 
and often makes the difference between a good or 
a meager standard of living, or between a challeng- 
ing or dead-end job. 

Education reform in elementary and secondary 
schools, expanded support for vocational programs, 
training and apprenticeship, grants for students pur- 
suing higher education, workplace training and 
literacy and adult education programs are key 
elements in the AFL-CIO’s effort to boost education. 
Many public officials and organizations agree on 


benefits and are unable to find work, as well as com- 
prehensive reform of the unemployment insurance 
system. 

OSHA reform — An overhaul of workplace safety 
and health requirements, along with expanded pro- 
tection for construction workers, increased penalties 
and tighter hazardous and toxic waste controls. 

Hatch Act — To allow federal and postal workers 
broader participation in the political process. 

Civil rights — Restoration of the legal remedies 
available to victims of sexual or racial job discrimina- 
tion that were severely weakened by several 1989 
Supreme Court rulings. 

Economic conversion — To aid workers and com- 
munities affected by defense budget cuts and base 
closings through planning and development of alter- 
native industries. 

Campaign finance reform — To maintain an op- 
portunity for working people, through political action 
committee contributions, to have some voice in the 
political arena, as do the wealthy and corporate 
officials. 


work closely with groups seeking equity for the 
disabled. 

The federation opposed Clarence Thomas’s nomi- 
nation to the Supreme Court in an Aug. 1 Executive 
Council vote that cited his extreme anti-government 
views and his failure to enforce civil rights laws as 
head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis- 
sion. Testifying against confirmation, AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland cited a third reason for op- 
position: the attempt by Thomas and his “handlers” 
to manipulate the confirmation process. 

The AFL-CIO noted with alarm the activity by 
racist groups and reiterated its support for legisla- 
tion banning discrimination based on sexual orienta- 
tion and for enforcement of the bilingual ballot pro- 
visions of the Voting Rights Act. 

Through various support groups and coalitons, the 
AFL-CIO also continues its involvement in efforts to 
bring equality and equal opportunity for all Ameri- 
cans. 


share of their incomes in taxes than middle-income 
families. 

At a time when human needs are great and national 
investments in education, roads, bridges and mass 
transit are sorely needed, statehouses and city halls 
are unable to provide for these vital services. They 
have resorted to firing workers, cutting back on pro- 
grams and levying unfair taxes, all of which prolong 
the recession in many areas. 

Some local governments have contracted out public 
services, hoping they can privatize their way out of 
a budget squeeze. Such privatizations result in the 
loss of work for public employees to private contrac- 
tors, who often pay workers less and offer fewer 
benefits and less job security. 

The AFL-CIO has called for the federal govern- 
ment to accept responsibility for federal programs and 
quit dumping the problems on already overburdened 
states and cities. 

And it appeals to state and local governments to 
strike a fair balance between budget cuts and pro- 
gressive tax increases. 


the need for education reform, yet plans put forward 
by the Bush administration — including supplying 
“vouchers” for some school services — serve only 
to undermine proven federal programs and set up an 
unnecessary conflict between public and private 
schools. 

Instead, such proven programs as Head Start and 
bilingual education should be expanded. The AFL- 
CIO also supports the further professionalization of 
teaching, the trend toward greater school-based 
management and shared decision making and ex- 
panded community involvement. 



AFL-CIO file photo 


Li Lu, a 24-year-old Chinese dissident who par- 
ticipated in the Tiananmen demonstrations, ap- 
peals for the release of imprisoned activists dur- 
ing the Solidarity Day '91 rally. 

Workers unite amid 
world revolutions 

S weeping changes in political, economic and social 
systems throughout the world in the past two years 
have brought new challenges as well as some jubila- 
tion for the trade union movement. 

In response, AFL-CIO affiliates are stepping up 
international activities. They also are addressing the 
expanded impact that multinational corporations have 
on their members and the need to enforce interna- 
tionally recognized workers rights standards. 

Much of the union focus on transnational activities 
has been channeled through international trade 
secretariats, bilateral relations with counterpart 
organizations abroad and in union-to-union programs 
supported by the AFL-CIO’s four international insti- 
tutes. 

Vast transformations are leading to the emergence 
of democratic governments in Central and Eastern 
Europe as well in the Soviet republics, including the 
Baltic states. While the political landscape has been 
fundamentally changed in Poland, Hungary and 
Czechoslovakia — now the Czech and Slovak Fed- 
erative Republic — the growth of democracy is 
dubious in Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and 
Yugoslavia. 

People in many of the new governments are fear- 
ful of what political and economic reforms will do 
to their jobs, living conditions and social programs. 
In some states, old communist unions continue to 
dominate, with the new democratic unions shoulder- 
ing heavy burdens. 

Activities of the new democratic unions extend 
beyond the workplace, as was illustrated by the sup- 
port of Soviet workers who rallied behind Russian 
President Boris Yeltsin to repulse the Aug. 19 at- 
tempted coup by old line communist leaders. 

Over the last two years, the AFL-CIO has estab- 
lished special panels to address the new world order. 
They include the Subcommittee on Perestroika to deal 
with changes in the Soviet Union; the Subcommittee 
on China, which was formed before the 1989 
Tiananmen Square massacre; the Labor Committee 
for a Free Cuba to help combat worker rights abuses 
under the Castro regime; and the Committee on 
Defense to provide labor’s perspective on the deploy- 
ment of troops in the Persian Gulf War. 

Among major international developments was the 
release from prison of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela 
and his historic visit to the AFL-CIO headquarters. 

Fang Lizhi, a leader in the Chinese struggle for 
democracy and worker rights, received the 1990 
George Meany Human Rights Award. The 1991 
Meany award will be presented at the AFL-CIO con- 
vention to Kazimieras Uoka, chairman of the Lithua- 
nian Workers Union who sits on the USSR parlia- 
ment, the Supreme Soviet. 

During the last two years, the federation continued 
efforts to block special trade benefits to countries that 
violate basic worker rights in filing petitions under 
the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) with 
U.S. trade officials. Efforts also continued to get the 
United Nations to adopt the code of transnational cor- 
porate conduct pending before that body. 


Legislation strikes a blow for rights 


U. S. federal system is in disarray 


Education should be a right for all 




UAW members ratify 4-year McDonnell Douglas pact 


By James B. Parks 

M embers of UAW Local 148 over- 
whelmingly approved a new four- 
year contract with McDonnell Douglas 
Corp. that includes an 18 percent pay 
raise and about $3 million in back pay 
for some workers. 

Members voted 7,61 1-1 ,758 to ratify 
the contract, which covers 23,000 
workers at the aircraft maker’s plants 
in Long Beach, Calif., Tulsa, Okla., 
and Melbourne, Ark. The old contract 
expired March 17 and members were 
working under a day-to-day extension. 

The contract calls for a 3 percent 
wage increase retroactive to March 18, 
1991 , and another 3 percent increase in 
the second year. Workers will receive 


a 4 percent increase in the third and 
fourth years with a 4 percent lump-sum 
bonus on Dec. 20, 1991. 

Employees will receive a $6 increase 
in monthly pension benefits retroactive 
to April 1, raising the rate to $29 a 
month per year of service, said Floyd 
Sparks, a Local 148 benefits represen- 
tative. That will be increased to $32 in 
December 1992. 

Two major issues for the local were 
the formula used to determine the 
retiree portion of health care premiums 
and guaranteed overtime for weekend 
work. The union rejected an earlier 
company proposal to eliminate the over- 
time, Sparks said. 

Under a new health care system to go 


into effect in 1996, workers who ac- 
cumulate a combined age and service 
of 75 before the end of 1993 or anyone 
who retires with 30 years seniority will 
pay the current rate of $20.80 per 
month for family coverage. Persons 
who have less than the 75 points at the 
end of 1993 will pay from 15 percent 
to 60 percent of the total health care 
premium based on their'experience. 

For example, a person with 10 years 
service by the end of 1993 who retires 
after the new formula begins will 
receive $320 a month pension. But he 
or she would pay 60 percent of the 
monthly health premium of $535 for a 
total of $321 a month. 

Another key provision of the contract 


is about $3 million in back pay for per- 
sons who formerly were team leaders, 
Sparks said. Team leaders are elected 
by workers and receive the top pay 
scale plus 50 cents an hour. 

Previously, team leaders who were 
not re-elected returned to the regular 
scale based on their seniority, Sparks 
said. Now they will continue to receive 
the top scale minus the 50 cents pre- 
mium. The company will make whole 
some 800 persons who lost the wages 
after losing their team leader jobs. 

The contract also requires that work- 
ers approve recommendations from 
management committees dealing with 
job classifications and problem solving, 
he said. 



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ACTWU wins 
again in Earle 

Earle, Ark. 

F or the second time in seven months, 
employees of Earle Industries voted 
in the Clothing and Textile Workers as 
its union representative. The vote, on 
Oct. 25, was 165-131 with 14 chal- 
lenged votes, all for the employer. 

The vote marks a 15-year effort to 
unionize the closet accessory plant. In 
March 1991, the workers voted 
177-1 12 for ACTWU, but the National 
Labor Relations Board called for a new 
election after upholding a company con- 
tention that union videotaping on elec- 
tion day affected the outcome. 

The workers voted for the union 
despite a vicious anti-union campaign 
by the employer. 

The ACTWU organizers were 
assisted by apprentices from the AFL- 
CIO Organizing Institute, including 
Megan Parks, who helped to direct the 
campaign. 

The union also got an assist from the 
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke to the 
workers prior to each vote, urging them 
to continue to fight for respect and de- 
cent wages. 

The story of Earle Industries is 
typical of many small, but profitable 
Southern plants. Most of its work force 
is composed of African-American 
women, many of whom have worked 
there for years and barely make more 
than minimum wage. 

Key issues in the campaign were 
complaints of repetitive motion injuries, 
unaffordable health insurance and rest- 
room sign-outs. 

Nebraska changes 
voting procedure 

Grand Island, Neb. 

T he Nebraska AFL-CIO created a 
Labor Leaders Hall of Fame and 
changed its voting procedure at its Sept. 
23-25 convention. 

Previously, one vote was granted for 
each 100 members on whom per capita 
is paid to the state AFL-CIO, said Presi- 
dent Gordon L. McDonald. Now, vot- 
ing will be conducted on a strictly per 
capita basis — if 70 members are paid, 
70 votes are granted. 

The state AFL-CIO Labor Leaders 
Hall of Fame is expected to induct its 
first members in 1993. 


Johnny Knox/Harbor-UCLA Medical Center 

Nurses demonstrate against understaffing before agreeing to a tentative settlement in Los Angeles. 


SEIU gains Miami nurses, new pact in L.A. 


By Candice Johnson 

T he Service Employees gained a unit 
of 1,800 nurses at Miami’s Jackson 
Memorial Hospital and won a tentative 
agreement for nurses at Los Angeles 
county hospitals, ending a two-day 
strike. 

Understaffing was the key issue in 
both campaigns, as it is for nurses na- 
tionwide, the union said. 

In a representation election conducted 
by the Public Employee Relations Com- 
mission, the Miami registered nurses 
voted 832 to 649 for SEIU over the 
Florida Nurses Association. 

The SEIU win indicates “that nurses 
in South Florida are increasingly look- 
ing to unions to help them solve critical 
problems in their workplaces,” said 
Andy Stem, SEIU special assistant for 
organizing and field services. 

Nurses often are saddled with non- 
nursing duties and often must deal with 
abuse from administrators, in addition 
to job stress and the demands of patient 
care, the union said. 

Nurses at Jackson Memorial — Dade 
County’s highly regarded medical facil- 
ity — were already being paid less than 
their counterparts at 15 other county 
hospitals when management demanded, 
and the Florida Nurses Association 
agreed, to give up paid parking. That 
issue became a “flashpoint” for nurses 
already frustrated by short staffing and 
low salaries, SEIU said. 


In Los Angeles, members of SEIU 
Local 660, which includes nurses, 
social workers, librarians, court 
reporters, airport managers, public 
works employees, coroner’s staff, 
security workers and election workers, 
had been working without a contract 
since Oct. 1, with bargaining blocked 
over staffing concerns and health care 
benefits. 

“The county budget includes finan- 
cing for 5,000 registered nurses, but 
more than 1 ,000 positions are vacant, ’ ’ 
SEIU President John Sweeney noted, 
pointing out that the county’s vacancy 
rate was more than twice the national 
rate. 

Salaries for nurses in Los Angeles 
County are about 15 percent less than 
in the private sector, he added. 

As bargaining continued, county ad- 
ministrators offered to upgrade nurses’ 
health care benefits — which lagged 
behind other county workers — in ex- 
change for a quick contract settlement 
and deep cuts in the other local mem- 
bers’ health care coverage. 

But the nearly 4,000 nurses refused 
and set up picket lines at county 
hospitals to spotlight both the county’s 
short staffing at medical facilities and 
their goal of parity in health care 
benefits for all county workers. About 
6,000 social workers held a one-day 
strike as part of the union’s push to con- 
tinue contract negotiations. 


SEIU picks up 
Apple support 

A pple Computer was put on 
notice that organized labor 
worldwide is watching the treat- 
ment of building service workers 
who clean its headquarters and 
facilities in San Jose, Calif. 

FIET, the international labor 
federation representing commer- 
cial, clerical, professional and 
technical employees, condemned 
the computer manufacturer’s cur- 
rent contractor, Shine Building 
Maintenance, for paying employ- 
ees minimum wages and pro- 
viding little or no health cov- 
erage. 

In a letter to Apple chief ex- 
ecutive John Sculley, the FIET 
trade section noted that Apple’s 
policies were being scrutinized 
“and that solidarity from FIET’s 
affiliates in other sectors has been 
requested.” 

Service Employees President 
John Sweeney, attending the 
FIET session in Geneva, noted 
that Apple “global image of 
quality. . .does not apply to the 
workers ... who keep Apple’s 
glistening headquarters clean and 
safe to work in.” 




Fed seeks to boost borrowing 

But rate drop offers little relief for workers 


By John R. Oravec 

W ith the Bush recession continuing to drag on, the 
Federal Reserve lowered the discount rate it 
charges on loans to financial institutions from 5 per- 
cent to 4.5 percent — the lowest level since 1972. 

The reduction was seen as another attempt by the 
Fed to stimulate consumer spending to help bolster 
the sagging economy. 

And while a number of major banks quickly 
lowered the prime rate they charge their top corporate 
borrowers from 8 percent to 7.5 percent, there was 
no signal that bankers would reduce credit rates for 
workers and consumers. 

In efforts to relieve the nation’s economic gridlock, 
the Fed has cut the discount rate four times since 
September 1990. But little, if any, relief has trickled 
down to the consumer level as most credit card rates 
are still at a range of 18 percent to 21 percent. Union 
Privilege, however, lowered its MasterCard rate to 
13 percent in mid-October. 

Home mortgage rates were running around 8.5 per- 
cent for 30-year loans, which also carried a finance 
charge of 1 to 2 points. Loan charges on autos ranged 
from around 7.9 percent with some credit unions to 
above 12 percent with dealerships. 

Consumer confidence in the economy plunged 12.5 
points in October to 60.4, the Conference Board 
reported, as most respondents expressed deep con- 
cerns about the employment outlook. Twenty-six per- 
cent said there would be fewer jobs in the next six 
months and only 15 percent expected a pickup in 
employment. 

In other economic reports: 

• The government’s index of leading indicators, 
a gauge of future economic activity, slipped 0. 1 per- 
cent in September, the Commerce Department re- 
ported. Six of the 11 key components contributed to 
the decline, including declines in orders for plant and 
equipment and a shorter workweek. 

• A preliminary report on the third quarter per- 


Continued from Page 1 

The convention also will move forward organized 
labor’s goal of health care reform, a campaign kick- 
ed off at the 1989 convention. The AFL-CIO push 
for reform has included testimony on multiple health 
proposals brought forward after mid-1991. 

The nation currently spends $700 billion on health 
care, which on a per capita basis is 40 percent more 
than Canada, 90 percent more than Germany and 125 
percent more than Japan. “Rather than become mired 
in esoteric debates about competition versus regula- 
tion, Congress should recognize the most costly solu- 
tion would be to do nothing at all,” AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland has testified. 

On trade, the convention will address the Reagan- 
Bush policies that have encouraged employers to roam 
the world in search of ever cheaper labor to exploit. 
Meanwhile, the U.S. job loss from trade imbalance 
moves into the millions as the United States continues 
to play by rules of “free trade” that other nations ig- 
nore to the advantage of their economies and their 
workers. 

That unemployment is also a symptom of a broader 
economic crisis in this country. Consequently, the 
convention will emphasize the call for strong measures 
to stem unemployment, assure reinvestment in 
America and return purchasing power to workers. 

Wealthy corporations that exploit labor abroad also 
are using sophisticated ways of exploiting a weaken- 
ed labor law system to bust unions and to deny 
workers their right to organize. To combat this trend, 
the AFL-CIO is building an “organizing culture” 
among the rank and file and labor’s allies. 

Organization is an ongoing process that must be in- 
corporated into every aspect of union activity, the Ex- 
ecutive Council reported to the convention. That 
means more cooperation among affiliates and using 
AFL-CIO labor councils to develop organizing com- 
mittees and volunteer organizer programs. 

One of the strengths of organization is the ability 
to assure safe working conditions. Lax enforcement 
and underfunding of the Occupational Safety and 
Health Act have led to numerous tragedies, including 
the Imperial Foods fire in Hamlet, N.C. The con- 
vention will make the point that reform of OSHA is 
literally a matter of life and death. 


formance of the economy showed a rise at an annual 
rate in the gross national product of 2.4 percent, the 
Commerce Department said. The preliminary report 
on the second quarter also had posted a gain of 0.4 
percent, but subsequent revisions showed the GNP 
declined 0.5 percent — the third quarterly drop in 
succession. 

• Sales of new homes plummeted 12.9 percent 
in September, the sharpest drop in more than two 
years. All regions of the country posted double-digit 
declines. Earlier, the Commerce Department reported 
that sales of existing homes fell for the third month 
in a row. 

• New orders for factory goods slipped 1.7 per- 
cent in September after dropping 2 percent in August, 
cutting deeply into the 6.1 percent pickup in July, 
the Commerce Department said. 

• Meanwhile, productivity in non-farm businesses 
rose at an annual rate of 2.4 percent during the third 
quarter, the Labor Department reported. Output in- 
creased 3 percent while hours worked rose 0.6 per- 
cent. Leading the productivity advance, the first in 
a year, was the manufacturing sector with a gain of 
4 percent. 

• Unions negotiated first-year wage gains aver- 
aging 3.4 percent in major contract settlements 
reached during the third quarter, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics reported. The contracts also provide for an- 
nual wage increases averaging 3 percent over the life 
of the agreements. 

The last time the same parties negotiated, two or 
three years earlier, wage increases averaged 2.9 per- 
cent in the first year and annually over the term of 
the contracts. 

Eighty-nine settlements covering at least 1,000 
workers in each agreement brought pay and benefit 
improvements for some 437,000 workers, BLS said. 
More than half of the workers are in the electrical 
products manufacturing, railroad and food store 
industries. 


Wealthy corporations are using 
sophisticated ways of 
exploiting a weakened labor 
law system to bust unions and 
to deny workers their right to 
organize. To combat this trend, 
the AFL-CIO is building an 
“organizing culture ” among 
the rank and file and labor’s 
allies. 


The move toward democracy in Africa and Eastern 
and Central Europe have seen emerging free trade 
unionists serving as major catalysts for change. 
Former trade union leaders such as Poland’s Lech 
Walesa are now among the leaders of newly 
democratic governments. One of them — Zambia’s 
President Frederick Chiluba — will speak to the 
AFL-CIO convention, as will another president, 
Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis. 

The federation will reaffirm its commitment to 
fighting for equal opportunity for all Americans 
regardless of race or sex — a commitment that has 
carried the labor movement through two years of 
fighting against vetoes of the Civil Rights Act. Labor 
and its allies outlasted Bush opposition to the measure. 

Congress finally recognized the needs of working 
families by passing child care legislation. Delegates 
will urge the passage of other bills to allow families 
to carry out family responsibilities such as raising 
newborns and caring for ill parents, spouses, children 
or themselves while fulfilling their job responsi- 
bilities. 

Working families also face problems in finding af- 
fordable housing and getting credit. The convention 
will recognize the Union Privilege program’s inno- 
vative home loan and credit card projects that expand 
the range of services members receive from their 
unions. 


10 unions bargain 
‘revolutionary’ pact 
with Magma Copper 

Tucson, Ariz. 

T en unions bargaining jointly have reached a 
new agreement with Magma Copper Co. 
that boosts wages and profit-sharing and 
broadens a labor-management cooperation pro- 
gram termed “revolutionary” in the nation’s 
copper industry. 

The contract covers about 3,500 copper 
workers at Magma mining, smelting and 
processing operations in San Manuel and 
Miami, Ariz., and could remain in effect 
through June 2007. 

It provides for an hourly wage increase of 
$1 .50 over the first five years of the agreement, 
along with quarterly bonuses, and future wage 
increases tied to copper prices. 

Hourly wages will be increased by 35 cents 
in November of this year and July 1993, 
followed by a 30-cent increase in July 1994 and 
25-cent increases in each of the following two 
years. 

The 1995 and 1996 wage hikes are tied to 
Magma’s earning at least $3.75 million in the 
previous quarter, which the company has done 
consistently over the past four years, the union 
said. 

Labor-management teamwork 

The agreement also establishes work- 
redesign and problem-solving teams, with labor 
and management representatives, which will 
review operations with the goal of improving 
safety, productivity, communications, schedul- 
ing and other areas. 

The teams also will work to develop more 
efficient production, tooling and maintenance 
techniques. 

The economic terms of the agreement can be 
reopened by either party in 1997, with negotia- 
tions conducted by a problem-solving team. 
Those talks, if necessary, can be taken to ar- 
bitration, with a panel setting economic terms 
for the following two years. If no agreement 
on economic issues can be negotiated at the end 
of that two-year period, the contract will be 
terminated. 

“We have brought something new into the 
industrial sector,” said Robert Guadiana, chief 
negotiator for the unions and Steelworkers 
district director. 

Other contract gains include improvements 
in pensions and health care coverage and 
establishment of a 401(k) plan. 

Reversal of positions 

The agreement was a sharp contrast to the 
1989 contract talks that were marked by the 
company hiring security guards and advertis- 
ing for “permanent replacements” in the event 
of a strike, and the unions staging a massive 
demonstration against company tactics, the 
USWA said. 

Following that round of talks, union and 
company officials began meeting to find ways 
to build cooperation and respect at the com- 
pany, and established the Joint Union Manage- 
ment Cooperation Committee. 

Workers and management at Magma’s Kala- 
mazoo operation then began working together 
in teams on development of the underground 
mine project, the third effort since the “K” 
orebody was acquired in 1968. Kalamazoo (K) 
is the top part of the original huge ore deposit 
that split apart. 

“We are working as a team,” said Manny 
Medina, president of USWA Local 937. 

“We want job security and to be able to retire 
with dignity. We still have a lot of work to do, 
but as long as top management and top union 
people stay committed, we will make pro- 
gress.” 

Unions representing the Magma workers, in 
addition to the USWA, are the Boilermakers, 
Carpenters, Electrical Workers, Machinists, 
Operating Engineers, Painters, Plumbers and 
Pipefitters, Teamsters and United Transporta- 
tion Union. 


Convention to address workers’ issues 




Wofford win leads pro-labor election advances 


By James B. Parks 

S ending a message of protest toward 
the anti-worker policies of the Bush 
administration, voters gave major vic- 
tories to labor-backed candidates and 
issues in the Nov. 5 elections. 

The biggest win came in Penn- 
sylvania, where Democratic Sen. Har- 
ris Wofford won a special election to 
complete the unexpired term of the late 
Republican Sen. John Heinz, defeating 
former Bush Attorney General Richard 
Thornburgh by a 55-45 percent margin. 

In a race seen as a harbinger of the 
1992 elections, Wofford openly em- 
braced labor’s agenda of workplace 
fairness, extended unemployment insur- 
ance, national health care reform and 
fair trade. He received strong backing 
from labor, with the Pennsylvania AFL- 
CIO and various unions holding rallies 
and working phone banks to get out the 
vote of union members. 

“November 6 is the first day of the 
last days of George Bush’s administra- 
tion,” said William M. George, presi- 
dent of the state AFL-CIO. “This was 
a primary for next year’s presidential 


election. Labor took its issues to the 
front and the public supported them.” 

Calling Wofford a “great 
humanitarian,” George said “this cam- 
paign was about the things that labor has 
always stood for: fairness, justice and 
dignity.” 

Steelworkers President Lynn R. Wil- 
liams, whose union distributed bro- 


chures saying “He is on our side,” 
detailing Wofford’s record as state 
secretary of labor and support for labor 
issues, said the Wofford victory was a 
mandate for health care reform and 
other economic change. 

Wofford’s “smashing victory” 
showed that “there can be no question 
now. . .that health care is a right, not 


a privilege; that Washington can no 
longer fiddle while the economy is con- 
sumed by the bonfire of official indif- 
ference; that the goal of trade policies 
is to create jobs for average Americans, 
not to enrich international financiers 
and transnational corporations,” Wil- 
liams said. 

In Washington State, labor and its 


allies helped defeat the nation’s toughest 
proposed term limitation measure by 54 
percent to 46 percent. If approved, the 
law would have forced the state’s en- 
tire congressional delegation, including 
House Speaker Thomas Foley (D- 
Wash.), to retire in 1994. 

The AFL-CIO opposes term limits 
because such proposals deny citizens 


the right to vote freely for the candidate 
of their choice. 

In New Jersey, 63 percent of the 
COPE-endorsed candidates were 
elected to the state legislature. Of the 
labor-backed winners, 17 were Repub- 
licans and seven were Democrats, as the 
GOP captured control of both houses of 
the legislature. 

In Kentucky, voters overwhelmingly 
rejected the anti-labor Republican 
gubernatorial candidate and elected 
COPE-endorsed Lt. Gov. Brereton 
Jones by a 65-35 percent margin. 

Jones’s opponent, seven-term U.S. 
Rep. Larry Hopkins, had made “right- 
to-work” and prevailing wage laws ma- 
jor campaign issues. The win was “a 
clear victory for the forces opposed to 
‘right to work,’ ” said Ray Crider, 
Kentucky COPE’s director. 

Severi COPE-endorsed mayoral 
candidates also won their races. 
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and 
Toledo Mayor John McHugh were re- 
elected while Deedee Corradini was 
elected as the first female mayor of Salt 
Lake City. 


“November 6 is the first day of the last days of 
George Bush’s administration. This was a 
primary for next year’s presidential election.” 

— William M. George, 
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO president 



Newsmakers 


Richard I. Kilroy, the founding 
president of the Transportation Trades 
Department, resigned from his post 
Oct. 9. Secretary-Treasurer Walter J. 
Shea of the Teamsters will carry out the 
president’s duties until an election is 
held during the TTD’s February meet- 
ing in Bal Harbour, Fla. Kilroy is the 
former president of the Tranportation 
Communications Union. 

The United Airlines Pilots Master 
Executive Council has elected three 
new officers. Capt. Robert D. Hall, 
who served as national first vice presi- 
dent for the Air Line Pilots from 1987 
through 1990, becomes UAL-MEC 
master chairman. Hall has held the posi- 
tion before. First Officer Gerald E. 
Baldwin was elected UAL-MEC vice 
chairman, with Capt. Joseph J. 



VIDEO 

The Battle of Fort RAC describes 
the yearlong lockout at Ravenswood 
Aluminum Corp. in West Virginia, 
where 1,700 Steelworkers have been 
“permanently replaced.” The video is 
available for $15 each, with the money 
going to assist locked-out members of 
Local 5668. Contact Gary Hubbard at 
412/562-2440. 

Benefits, the latest Union Yes com- 
mercial that highlights the hard-won 
union victories that many people take 
for granted, is available for customiz- 
ing by affiliated unions. The 30-second 
spot also has been adapted into two 
black-and-white print ads for use in 
union publications. For costs and 
details, call 800/242-UNION. 


Gareffa elected as UAL-MEC 
secretary -treasurer . 

Delbert L. Spurlock Jr. has been 
confirmed as deputy secretary of labor. 
He is a former assistant secretary of the 
U.S. Army, and has been in private law 
practice since 1989. Earlier in his 
career, he served as a staff attorney with 
the Department of Labor in Nashville, 
Tenn. 

The Federal Mediation and Concilia- 
tion Service has announced several per- 
sonnel shifts. Ted Chaskelson becomes 
assistant to Deputy Director Brian 
Flores, trading jobs with Eileen B. 
Hoffman, who becomes FMCS general 
counsel. Chaskelson also will take on 
the new position of director of legisla- 
tive affairs. 

George Lattimore, longtime 
member of Machinists Lodge 733 in 
Wichita, Kan., has been appointed 
minority affairs adviser by Kansas Gov. 
Joan Finney and manager of the gover- 
nor’s constituent office in Wichita. Lat- 
timore had served as president of the 
Wichita chapter of the A. Philip Ran- 
dolph Institute for 16 years and is a 
member of APRI’s national executive 
board. 

The AFL-CIO Department of Inter- 


national Affairs has named three new 
staff members. Phil Fishman is a new 
assistant director, coming from the 
Asian-American Free Labor Institute, 
where he served as a country program 
director. Bumie Bond has been named 
director of publications and research, 
replacing Adrian Karatnycky, who 
has been named a special assistant to 
President Lane Kirkland. Finally, Eric 
Chenoweth joins the department as a 
program director. Chenoweth and Bond 
previously were with the Teachers and 
Bond previously edited the Legislative 
Alert! 

Wayne State University in Detroit 
honored Bernie Firestone, with a 
memorial tribute Nov. 5 and 6. Fire- 
stone was a Clothing and Textile 
Workers and AFL-CIO Detroit Metro- 
politan Council leader who died in 
1989. The program included the show- 
ing of the award-winning film “Out of 
Darkness: The Mine Workers’ Story,” 
a forum on organizing, a discussion of 
labor and social history and a poetry 
reading. 

More than 290 tons of non-perishable 
food were collected by Letter Carriers 
from postal customers in 10 cities on 
Oct. 26 and delivered to local food 


banks. The pilot drive by the Letter 
Carriers was conducted in conjunction 
with the AFL-CIO and the Postal Serv- 
ice. Patterned after a successful pro- 
gram by Phoenix, Ariz., Branch 576, 
the drive was conducted in Jacksonville, 
Fla.; Peoria, 111.; San Jose, Calif.; 
Louisville, Ky.; Columbus, Ohio; Port- 
land, Ore.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Dallas and 
San Antonio, Texas; and in 13 commu- 
nities in Long Island, N.Y. 

Almost 50 members of the Montana 
Family Union attended the group’s first 
membership meeting in Helena Aug. 
17. At the meeting, Angela Russell was 
elected vice president, the top elected 
member position on the 19-member 
board of directors. Other members 
elected director were Karl Englund, 
Tom Kilpatrick, Greg Walsh, Don 
Larson, John McGlynn, Bill Strizich, 
Linda Carlson-Schechtman, and Pat 
Regan. 

CORRECTION 

Seamen Victor Honigsfeld and Jef- 
frey Amendolia, honored for their ef- 
forts at rescuing a carrier crew in the 
South China Sea, are members of the 
Seafarers. Four Marine Engineers also 
were honored. 


CONFERENCES 

The Economic Policy Institute is 
sponsoring a one-day conference on the 
changing work force titled New Policies 
for Part-time Contingent Workers at 
the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on 
Nov. 18. AFSCME President Gerald 
McEntee will be among the featured 
speakers. For information or to add 
your name to EPI’s mailing list, write 
the Institute at 1730 Rhode Island Ave. 
N.W., Suite 200, Washington, D.C. 
20036 or call 202/775-8810. 

The AFL-CIO ’s 1991 Advanced 
Southern Labor School will be held 
Dec. 1-5 in Hot Springs, Ark. The 
school is designed for union leaders 
from the south — Alabama, Arkansas, 
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, 
Mississippi, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas 
and Virginia. For information, contact 
Ed Czarnecki at 202/637-5146. 

Meeting the Challenge: Training 
America’s Workers is a three-day con- 
ference in New Orleans on Jan. 12-14. 
The conference is co-sponsored by the 
AFL-CIO Human Resources Develop- 
ment Institute, the Public Employee 


Department and Metal Trades Depart- 
ment. For information, contact Carol 
Claggett at 202/638-3912 or FAX 202/ 
783-6536. 

TESTIMONY 

The following AFL-CIO testimony is 
available by writing the AFL-CIO Pub- 
lications and Materials Office, Room 
209, 815 16th St. N.W., Washington, 
D.C. 20006. Be sure to include order 
number and title. 

Mark A. Anderson, AFL-CIO De- 
partment of Economic Research assis- 
tant director, testified before the Trade 
Policy Staff Committee Office of the 
U.S. Trade Representative on the 
North American Free Trade Agree- 
ment negotiations. (91-41) 

Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Occupational Safety and Health 
director, before the House Education 
and Labor Committee on the Imperial 
Food Products fire and reform of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act. 
(91-43) 

Lane Kirkland, AFL-CIO president, 
before Senate Judiciary Committee, on 

the nomination of Clarence Thomas 


to be an associate justice of the Supreme 
Court. (91-44) 

Meredith Miller, AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Employee Benefits assistant 
director, before Senate Finance Com- 
mittee on the Employee Benefits 
Simplification and Expansion Act of 
1991 , S. 1364. (91-45) 

Karen Ignagni, AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Employee Benefits director, 
before the Joint Economic Committee 

on national health care reform. 

(91-46) 

Karen Ignagni, before Senate Finance 
Committee subcommittee on health for 
families and the uninsured. (91-48) 

William J. Cunningham, AFL-CIO 
legislative representative, before House 
committee on Ways and Means, on 
H.R. 2889, the American Jobs and 
Manufacturing Preservation Act of 
1991 . (91-49) 

Sheldon Friedman, AFL-CIO De- 
partment of Economic Research, before 
Senate Finance Committee on the oper- 
ation and effectiveness of the Trade 
Adjustment Assistance Program. 
(91-50) 




Rainfair workers, others stand fast against scabs 


Dear Sarah: I’m not listening 


S arah Ann Creel, spending the 
summer with her grandparents in 
West Virginia, was so upset about 
her grandfather being locked out of 
Ravens wood Aluminum Corp. that 
she wrote a letter to President Bush, 
seeking his support for S. 55, the 
Workplace Fairness Bill. 

“My grandfather has worked for 
RAC aluminum plant for 28-and-a- 
half years,” wrote the 11-year-old. 
“This aluminum plant has been in- 
volved in a labor dispute since 
November 1, 1990. This is totally 
unfair to the working class people of 
America. . . .1 strongly urge you not 
to veto the H.R. 5, S. 55 bills.” 
The White House responded with 
a picture of the president and Mrs. 
Bush and a form letter that suggested 
she make “a special effort to help 
someone who is less fortunate than 
you” and take advantage of her extra 
time during the summer to read and 
keep up with her hobbies. The letter 
also thanked the youngster for shar- 
ing her “thoughts and concerns.” 


It was a disappointing response, 
Sarah wrote back. “I wrote you a 
letter concerning the laboring class 
people of America and I would like 
you to share your thoughts and feel- 
ings with me,” she replied. “I 
worked very hard on my letter and 
I feel you ignored the issue.” To 
date, the White House has not re- 
sponded. 

“Sarah is a very thoughtful and 
considerate girl for her age,” said 
her grandmother, Joyce Creel. “She 
is always thinking about someone 
else’s feelings.” 

The elder Creels welcomed their 
grandaughter from Phoenix, Ariz., 
but warned her they wouldn’t be able 
to do the fun things they had in sum- 
mers past. 

But Sarah had fun getting in- 
volved in the workers’ cause, Joyce 
Creel reported. She helped with 
the letter- writing campaign, an 
effort that boosted H.R. 5 to 
overwhelming passage in the 
House. 


Continued from Page 1 

their determination by existing on a 
liquid mixture of water mixed with 
juice, honey, baking soda and salt since 
Oct. 14. 

A Racine physician said the workers 
are putting themselves at risk because 
there is no significant nutrition in their 
liquid diet. The three have had bouts of 
dizziness and diarrhea, but remain en- 
thusiastic about the fast. 

Their hunger strike has gained them 
local and national support. Several 
Racine clergy members and members 
of a local choir announced that they 
would take part in a limited fast to show 
their support. The clergy also have par- 
ticipated in several prayer services and 
candlelight vigils to encourage the 
unionists. 

Lynn Cutler, vice chairwoman of the 
Democratic National Committee, Linda 
Golodner, executive director of the Na- 
tional Consumers League and Betsy 
Hildebrandt, communications director 
of the National Women’s Law Center, 
recently met with the fasting workers. 
They described their dispute as typical 
of the problems women face with em- 
ployers who offer poor benefits and 
wages. 

The workers march daily outside 
their plant with signs reading “Rainfair 
Is Unfair.” The local community and 
other unions have organized massive 
rallies in support of the workers. 

Indeed, the Rainfair workers are not 
alone in their struggle. Many others 
have been forced out of work while try- 
ing to provide a decent way of life for 
their families. Over the past decade, 


companies large and small— from Jay, 
Maine, to San Diego, from Portland, 
Ore., to Baton Rouge, La.— have ex- 
ploited the loophole in labor law that 
allows them to bust unions. 

In Ravenswood, W. Va., for exam- 
ple, 1,700 Steelworkers recently 
observed the one-year anniversary of 
the day they were locked out and “per- 
manently replaced.” They expected 
negotiations to continue on their 
primary concerns of health care 
coverage and workplace safety, but 
when they arrived at the plant Nov. 1 , 
1990, the day after their contract ex- 
pired, they were met by chained fences, 
security guards and busloads of scabs 
imported from other communities. 

Workers in Coatesville, Pa., have 
been walking the picket lines since 
Oct. 1, when management refused to 
negotiate a new contract and forced 
them to strike. About 1,300 members 
of the Steelworkers’ Local 1165 struck 
the plant and were replaced with scabs. 

The “Hibbing 7,” a group of female 
members of UFCW Loci 1116 in 
Duluth, Minn., have been on strike 
since 1987. The union charged Ameri- 
can Linen with illegally “permanently 
replacing” the women in the plant that 
cleans linen for hospitals and hotels. 

Solidarity has paid off for workers 
who stick it out while their cases wind 
their way through the National Labor 
Relations Board and court appeals pro- 
cess. It took four years before Decker 
Coal Co. in Wyoming settled with its 
striking Mine Workers, who gained a 
new three-year agreement and $1 mil- 
lion in back pay. 


With a coordinated campaign through 
the AFL-CIO Strategic Approaches 
Committee, workers at the New York 
Daily News regained jobs and a new 
contract after a seven-month strike. 

But many other workers fall through 
the cracks of the nation’s unfair labor 
laws. In Virgie, Ky., for example, 51 
members of Mine Workers Local 1812 


have been locked out since 1989 by 
Mine 29 Mining and Processing Inc., 
which managed to escape the settlement 
in the Pittston Coal Co. dispute. 

The Workplace Fairness bill, S. 55, 
would end the plight of these and other 
workers, restoring the basic right to 
strike that has been taken away by 
judicial fiat. 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 24 
NOVEMBER 11, 1991 


INSIDE 

1 AFL-CIO convention to 
address worker issues 

Workers’ concerns ranging from health 
care, workplace fairness and the 
economy will be examined at the AFL- 
CIO ’s 19th biennial convention in 
Detroit Nov. 11-14. 



Health care crisis 
moves legislators 

As the debate in Washington shifts to 
domestic issues, the AFL-CIO ’s drive 
to reform the nation’s health care 
system draws heightened interest from 
elected officials. 




Workers seek voice 
in workplace safety 

The goal of a safe and healthy 
workplace has fallen victim to a lack of 
political will, scarce resources and 
limited enforcement of the laws, labor 
leaders tell Congress. 



New Civil Rights Act 
redresses injustices 

After two years of bitter political 
fighting and presidential vetoes, Con- 
gress passes a labor-supported civil 
rights bill that gives new rights to 
federal workers. 



UI plan redrafted; 
jobless rate grows 

As Congress tries to draft new legisla- 
tion to extend jobless benefits for the 
long-term unemployed, the number of 
workers joining the jobless ranks swells 
to 8.6 million. 



Labor shows strength 
in big election wins 

Labor is celebrating major election wins 
ranging from smashing victories by 
union-backed candidates in Pennsylvan- 
ia and Kentucky to the defeat of term 
limitations in Washington State. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) it published ev.ry two weeks. 
Second Clots pottage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Stree*- 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


11 / 11/91 


The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






• Norton, Otero, Sacco join 
Executive Council; Kirkland, 
Donahue re-elected. Page 4. 

• Kirkland: Labor up to 
challenge. Page 5. 

• Wofford says election 
sends labor’s message. Page 6. 

• Health care breakthrough 
predicted. Page 9. 

• Uoka receives Meany 
Human Rights Award. Page 13. 





VOLUME 36, NUMBER 25 

NOVEMBER 25, 1991 


Democrats stress worker needs at forum 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Steelworkers President Lynn Williams greets Bill Doyle of wood Aluminum Corp. at the convention. The Executive 
USWA Local 5668, who, along with Dan Stidham, rep- Council agreed to take up Ravenswood in its Strategic 
resented workers "permanently replaced" by Ravens- Approaches Committee. See story. Page 7. 

Workplace fairness: a call to action 


By Muriel H. Cooper 
Detroit 

D eclaring that the right to strike 
without being “permanently re- 
placed” is “the most important labor 
law initiative to come before Congress 
in more than a decade, ’ ’ delegates to the 
AFL-CIO convention demanded Senate 
action to ban the practice. 

The convention resolution called the 
judicially created Mackay doctrine, 
which allows the practice of “per- 
manently replacing” workers who ex- 
ercise their legal right to strike, a “kind 


of word-play that could only satisfy 
conservative judges and corporate 
lawyers. In the real world of work, 
there is no right to strike when exercis- 
ing that right can mean losing one’s 
job.” 

The House in July overwhelmingly 
passed the Workplace Fairness Bill, 
H.R. 5, after a massive grassroots lob- 
bying effort by the federation. The con- 
vention pledged a repeat performance 
in the Senate when that chamber brings 
up its version of the legislation, S. 55, 
early next year. 


Supporters will need at least 60 votes 
to avoid an expected filibuster. AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland wrote to 
union publications immediately after the 
convention urging attention to S. 55 in 
their January publications and pointing 
to 20 states from which the votes will 
have to come to end the filibuster by im- 
posing “cloture.” 

The practice of hiring “permanent 
replacements” has become an ax in the 
toolbox of management during negotia- 
tions. During the past decade, many 
Continued on Page 7 


By James B. Parks 
Detroit 

T he six major announced Democratic 
candidates for president all attacked 
the anti-worker policies of the Bush ad- 
ministration and promised to change the 
conditions created by 10 years of 
Republican government. 

Appearing in a forum before the 
AFL-CIO’s 19th biennial convention, 
the candidates — former California 
Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, 
Arkansas Gov. William Clinton, Iowa 
Sen. Thomas Harkin, Nebraska Sen. 
Robert Kerrey, former Massachusetts 
Sen. Paul Tsongas and Virginia Gov. 
L. Douglas Wilder — agreed on solu- 
tions to most of the nation’s problems. 

All called for national health care 
reform, rebuilding the national in- 
frastructure and more funding for 
education and to support state and local 
governments. 

But there were some areas of dis- 
agreement. Tsongas, for example, said 
he opposed a ban on the ‘ ‘permanent re- 
placement” of strikers, favoring what 
he termed “forced arbitration” instead. 
And two candidates — Tsongas and 
Brown — backed some form of term 
limitations. 

On trade, Harkin pointed out that he 
was the only candidate to have voted 
against giving President Bush “fast 
track” authority on the U.S. -Mexico 
free trade agreement. Wilder said if he 
had been in the Senate, “you would 
have had two votes” against “fast 
track.” 

Kerrey voted for “fast track,” but 
said he backs a social contract as part 
of the agreement. Clinton also favored 
“fast track,” although he said he 
doesn’t trust the administration to 
“negotiate a good deal.” 

To maximize labor’s effectiveness in 
the 1992 election, the delegates also 
approved a presidential preference 
process that keeps the trade union 
movement unified. 

A videotape from the forum will be 
sent, along with a transcript, to all af- 
Continued on Page 6 


3 million long-term jobless finally get extended benefits 


By John R. Oravec 

L ong-overdue relief should be on the 
way shortly for 3 million jobless 
Americans under emergency legislation 
that Congress passed overwhelmingly 
and President Bush finally agreed to 
sign. 

Culminating a four-month tug-of-war 
between Congress and the White 
House, a two-part measure worked out 
by leaders of the House and Senate will 
provide 13 to 20 weeks of additional 
unemployment benefits for jobless 
workers who had exhausted their first 


26 weeks of compensation in the linger- 
ing recession. 

With layoffs continuing to mount, the 
likelihood of the jobless finding work 
is growing dimmer. In the most recent 
four- week reporting period, the Labor 
Department disclosed that nearly 1.7 
million laid-off workers filed initial 
unemployment claims. 

As Congress moved to enact the tem- 
porary benefits extension, the AFL-CIO 
convention called for a comprehensive 
overhaul of the federal-state UI system, 
which is failing in its purpose as a 


“basic humanitarian safety net” for 
jobless workers and their families. 

Since mid-summer, Democrats in 
Congress had tried to convince the 
president and their Republican col- 
leagues that the long-term jobless were 
in dire need of the additional assistance. 
Bush had scuttled two earlier 
measures — the first by refusing to 
declare an emergency and the second 
by veto, which was sustained by a hard- 
core GOP minority in the Senate. 

But a shifting political climate emerg- 
ed in the November elections as rising 


unemployment and grassroots support, 
along with pressure from labor and its 
allies, helped turn the tide in persuading 
Bush to agree to the benefits extension. 

The AFL-CIO welcomed the legisla- 
tion as a long-needed first step to 
broaden coverage of the UI system. 

“The need for permanent unemploy- 
ment insurance reform remains,” 
Legislative Director Robert McGlotten 
said in noting that the current extended 
benefits arrangement is woefully 
lacking. 

Continued on Page 3 







Labor, blacks help derail Duke in Louisiana 


By James B. Parks 

R epudiating the racist pitch of former 
IGansman David Duke, Louisiana 
voters overwhelmingly elected Edwin 
Edwards, the labor-backed candidate 
for governor. 

“It was a great victory for labor and 
for Louisiana,” said Victor Bussie, 
president of the state AFL-CIO. “It was 
the first time that business, labor, 
religion, blacks, educators and women 
united to defeat one candidate.” 
Norman Hill, president of the A. 
Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), 
praised the voters of Louisiana for deal- 
ing a “resounding defeat” to Duke’s 
“short-sighted and racist” hate 
campaign. 

The state AFL-CIO, APRI and the 
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists 
worked hard to get out the vote in the 
labor and black communities, Bussie 
said, using telephone banks and volun- 
teers. 

About 80 percent of eligible Loui- 
siana voters voted in the Nov. 16 runoff 
in which Edwards, a former three-term 


governor, beat Duke, a state represen- 
tative, by a 61-39 percent margin. The 
state AFL-CIO endorsed Edwards. 

Edwards received 96 percent of the 
black vote and 45 percent of the white 
vote. Edwards beat Duke among all age 
groups, among men and women and 
among all educational levels. 

Edwards won because he stressed 
worker issues, Bussie said, particularly 
improving education and increasing in- 
dustrial development. 

Edwards’ victory and the upset win 
of Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.) shows 
that labor is regaining political strength, 
Bussie said. “The average worker and 
middle-class worker, union and non- 
union, has begun to realize that they are 
left out and they are turning to organiza- 
tions, especially labor, to have their 
strength felt.” 

Bussie said that now that issues like 
health care are foremost in the voters’ 
mind, “the labor movement is going to 
go up. The union has saved health care 
for its members and that’s not true for 
non-union” workers. 


But Hill warned that Duke’s showing 
among white voters and his national 
fundraising success must serve as a 
“wake-up call for trade unionists, 
blacks and liberals.” 

Hill cited Duke’s 60 percent vote 
among white families earning less than 
$30,000 a year as a cause of concern 
for labor. “We in the trade union move- 
ment know first hand the importance of 
unity . . . From unscrupulous employers 
to race-baiting politicians, we must be 
vigilant against divide-and-conquer tac- 
tics,” he said. 

“We must clearly see the basic 
similarity in tactics between David 
Duke and George Bush, between Duke 
and any number of backroom right- 
wing strategists seeking to divide 
America along racial and economic 
lines. 

“There are twice as many poor 
whites as poor blacks in America,” Hill 
added. “In this context, the propaganda 
of Duke regarding ‘quotas’ and ‘welfare 
queens’ is nothing but an irresponsible 
attempt to exploit human suffering and 


ignore how poverty devastates both 
white and black America.” 

The election also left the state 
Republican party in shambles, Bussie 
said. Not only did the party denounce 
its own candidate, Duke, but its en- 
dorsed candidate — Gov. Buddy Roe- 
mer — did not even make the runoff. 
The Democrats won every statewide of- 
fice except secretary of state, where the 
Republican winner is the son of a 
popular former Democratic governor. 

Bussie said Duke’s reported entry in- 
to the presidential race is what the 
Republicans deserve. “George Bush 
and Ronald Reagan started all this 
business of injecting race into the issues 
and now it will come back on them. 

“I think it was ironic that the rest of 
the nation thought Louisiana was 
backward for being in this situation 
when the rest of the nation elected 
George Bush when he was doing the 
same things as Duke. Bush was elected 
president because one black man got out 
of prison,” he said, referring to Bush’s 
famous ads featuring Willie Horton. 


Toycott campaign targets Christmas toys from China 


By Candice Johnson 

T he AFL-CIO will be alerting shop- 
pers that many popular toys are made 
by children in China, who toil long 
hours under sweatshop conditions. 

Members of Frontlash — the AFL- 
CIO ’s group for young workers and 
students — will be joined by other 
groups as they leaflet toy stores as part 
of Frontlash’s third annual “Toycott” 
campaign at Christmas time. The fed- 
eration, along with Chinese democracy 
groups, is urging consumers to boycott 
Chinese-made toys. 

The national campaign gets under 
way Friday, Nov. 29 — traditionally 
the busiest shopping day of the year — 
with informational picketing at stores in 
cities from Seattle to Minneapolis to 
Boston. 

Continuing demonstrations will be 
held in another 35 cities throughout the 
holiday shopping season. 

The Toycott campaign will be kick- 
ed off at a Nov. 25 news conference at 
the National Press Club in Washington. 
Linda Golodner, executive director of 
the National Consumer League and 
Cheryl Graeve of Frontlash will outline 
the campaign, telling consumers why 
they should refuse to buy toys made in 
China. 

Noting that China is the largest ex- 
porter of toys to the United States, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
called on union members to “send a 
strong message to the Chinese govern- 
ment and American business that we 


will not participate in persecution and 
exploitation through our purchases.” 
Frontlash leaflets will inform con- 
sumers that many popular toys, in- 
cluding some Barbie dolls and other 
Mattel products, Teenage Mutant Ninja 
Turtles items, Mickey Mouse and 
Disney characters are made in China, 
said Graeve. 

Not all Barbies or stuffed Mickey 
Mouse dolls or Garfield characters are 
made in China, she said. But the cam- 
paign is urging shoppers to look at the 
country-of-origin tag to determine 
where the toy was made. 

“If it’s made in China, don’t buy it,” 
she said. “The message we want to 
send is that toys for little children 
should not be made by children.” 
The toy business is big business, pull- 
ing in about $13 billion a year, the Toy 
Manufacturers Association estimates. 
Last year, more than $1.5 billion in toy 
imports came from China, the Com- 
merce Department said. More than half 
of all dolls and 40 percent of some other 
lines of toys come from China — which 
means that a consumer looking for a 
doll has a 50 percent chance of picking 
up one made in China. 

On Nov. 29, Frontlash also will be 
leafletting at toy stores in San Francis- 
co; Los Angeles; Fort Collins, Colo.; 
Tysons Corner, Va.; Miami; South 
Bend, Ind.; New York; and Toronto. 

“Toycott” supporters also will be out 
in force during the busy shopping 
weekends before the holiday. 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 

AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 

Vol. 36, No. 25 ®<*|j|§^>3 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1991 



' kftQR COMMW/c^ , 

m 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-001-1 185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
John N. Sturdivant 
James J. Norton 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 
Joaquin F. Otero 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 
Michael Sacco 






LEGISMIN 


Family leave pending veto-proof assurance 


“We will continue to fight for family and 
medical leave legislation as a necessary 
minimum labor standard.” 

— AFL-CIO convention resolution 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

F amily and medical leave legislation 
that has passed through both houses 
of Congress will likely not be taken up 
by conference committee until early 
next year, when political prospects may 
be better to override a veto by Presi- 
dent Bush. 

Congress again showed its inability 
to override Bush vetoes on Nov. 19 
when the House failed by 12 votes to 
push through an appropriations bill con- 
taining a provision to reverse the ad- 
ministration’s “gag rule” against 
publicly funded clinics providing infor- 
mation on reproductive issues. 

The AFL-CIO reiterated its call for 
passage of family leave and other 
benefits to working families during the 
1991 convention in Detroit. Delegates 
also approved a resolution opposing the 
“gag rule” upheld by the Supreme 
Court in its decision on Rust vs. 
Sullivan. 

The federation has campaigned for 
nearly six years for the family and 
medical leave legislation, which was 
passed last year but vetoed by Bush. 
The bill would allow unpaid time off for 
the birth or adoption of a child and for 
the care of the employee or a family 
member. 

The Senate passed S. 5 in early Octo- 
ber on a 65-32 vote, with three known 
supporters absent. The House Nov. 13 
passed the Senate’s version of the 
measure 253-177, but that total was 
more than 30 votes short of those 
needed to override a threatened veto. 

Besides calling for family and medi- 
cal leave legislation, the convention 
urged full implementation of a land- 
mark child care law passed last year and 
supported efforts to ensure maximum 
eligibility for and utilization of the 


Continued from Page 1 

“Only one-third of unemployed 
workers are eligible for initial 
unemployment benefits — hardly a 
safety net,” McGlotten said. 

The new two-bill combination will 
provide at least 13 weeks of additional 
compensation to workers in all states 
whose initial benefits ran out. Workers 
in states with higher jobless rates are 
eligible for 20 weeks of benefits. 

Coverage reaches back to March 1 
and will run through next June 13. 

Bush signed the first part of the 
legislative package, which was shaped 
in the House, on Nov. 15. It provides 
for three tiers of extended benefits: six, 
13 and 20 weeks, depending on the 
unemployment rate in each state. 

The follow-up version was shaped in 
the Senate after some members com- 
plained their states would be short- 
changed with just a six-week extension. 

White House officials said Bush also 
agreed to sign the Senate-crafted ver- 
sion, which would cover an additional 

200,000 unemployed workers. 

The initial bill that Bush signed would 
cost about $5.1 billion. The later ver- 
sion, which was attached to an unrelated 
trade policy bill, is estimated to cost 
about $400 million more. 


newly expanded earned income tax 
credit. 

“At this convention, there has been 
a call to take back America, ’ ’ said AFL- 
CIO Vice President Joyce Miller of the 
Clothing and Textile Workers. “We 
must also take back our families from 
employers, from politicians and from 
those that oppose our objectives.” 

Family leave legislation has become 
more urgent in the United States as 
more and more families have two par- 
ents in the work force or are headed by 
a single parent, and are without such an 
option. 

“The United States is the only in- 
dustrialized country in the world 
without some form of job-protected 
leave for workers to attend to family 
needs,” Miller said. 

European Community nations re- 
cently agreed to guarantee women 14 
weeks’ maternity leave at wages at least 
equal to sick pay in their countries. 
Nine of the 12 EC nations already 
guarantee at least 14 weeks of leave at 
wages higher than sick pay — some at 
full pay — and the agreement states 
those nations with stronger provisions 
may not lower their standards. 

“Family and medical leave should be 
a minimum labor standard,” Miller 
said. “Knowing your job is still there 
while caring for your newborn, nurs- 
ing your wife back to health after a 
heart attack or helping your father when 
he broke his hip can go a long way 


Funding for the extended benefits will 
come from closing tax loopholes on 
high-income individuals, a temporary 
continuation of a UI surcharge on 
employers, and withholding tax refunds 
to persons with unpaid student loans. 

But until those revenues start coming 
in, financing of the benefits extension 
will come from Unemployment In- 
surance Trust Fund’s Extended 
Unemployment Compensation Account 
(EUAC), which had a surplus of $8 
billion at the end of fiscal year 1991. 

Bush had opposed the use of the 
EUAC monies because the administra- 
tion had been clutching onto the surplus 
to try to gloss over its budget deficits. 

During the continuing recession, 
about 300,000 jobless workers have 
been exhausting their benefits each 
month. Jobless benefits have run out for 
1 million workers since Bush dumped 
the first extension bill in August. 

Bush had insisted that no extension 
of benefits was necessary because he 
claimed the recession was winding 
down. But nearly every week more than 

400.000 new claims are filed for jobless 
benefits. In the week ended Nov. 9, a 
surge in layoffs forced 493,000 workers 
to apply for benefits, an increase of 

39.000 from the previous week. 


toward financial security and peace of 
mind.” 

Although some union contracts and 
a few company policies provide protec- 
tion, the resolution notes, “the vast 
majority of American workers, when 
faced with those real-life responsibili- 
ties, must meet them at the risk of los- 
ing their job. We will continue the fight 
for family and medical leave legislation 
as a necessary minimum labor stan- 
dard.” 

The federation pledged to continue 
seeking legislative solutions to the prob- 
lems of workers who are caring for 
children and elderly relatives while 
fulfilling their job responsibilities. 

“We also call upon national and in- 
ternational union affiliates and state and 
local bodies to continue to seek solu- 
tions at the workplace through collec- 
tive bargaining, to lobby for progres- 
sive change in policies affecting work- 
ing families at the state and local level 
and pursue all possible community- 
based remedies.” 

Miller pointed to statistics on women 
in the labor force, particularly women 
with young children and single mothers. 
“Forty-five percent of the U.S. work 
force is comprised of women, 56 per- 
cent of them with children under the age 
of 5.” 

She also noted that studies of those 
companies currently providing unpaid 
family leave have shown no increase in 
costs or reduction in benefits. 


! 


Capitol Digest 


H ouse and Senate members report- 
edly have agreed on two major pro- 
visions of the Surface Transportation 
Act reauthorization — the funding 
level, $153 billion, and the length, six 
years. But disagreements over how the 
money will be spent have slowed the 
conference on the measure. 

Some 2 million jobs would be created 
during the six-year term of the bill. But 
as the conference on the bill drags on, 
many states are feeling the pinch as they 
run out of authority to issue new 
highway and transit contracts. The 
previous authorization expired Sept. 30. 

The conferees also reportedly have 
agreed on a Davis-Bacon prevailing 
wage provision satisfactory to the AFL- 
CIO. Unsettled issues include several 
areas of labor concern, such as Section 
13C provisions and a role for labor in 
the new Metropolitan Planning Organ- 
izations, which would allocate most of 
state funds. 

House and Senate leaders said they 
hoped to have the legislation finished 


In other convention action, the AFL- 
CIO restated its commitment to ending 
discrimination against women in society 
and the economy, urging passage of the 
Equal Rights Amendment and support 
for equality in Social Security, pensions 
and insurance reform, employment 
through job training and pay equity, 
health and safety on the job, child sup- 
port enforcement, the elimination of 
violence against women, equal oppor- 
tunity laws and protection against set- 
backs by the courts and Congress. 

Recognizing that fewer than 30 per- 
cent of American families fit the tradi- 
tional definition of two married parents 
living together, delegates also passed a 
resolution supporting a broader defini- 
tion of “family” for fringe benefit 
eligibility purposes, to include all in- 
dividuals who live together in a house- 
hold as a family. 

In approving the resolution on repro- 
ductive issues and access to medical in- 
formation, “the AFL-CIO adopts a 
carefully considered policy of deferring 
to the individual judgments of its af- 
filiates and their members on reproduc- 
tive issues.” The idea that a medical 
professional would be required by law 
to withhold advice vital to a patient’s 
health is abhorrent to the AFL-CIO and 
could set undesirable precedents in a 
host of other areas, the convention 
noted. 

The resolution opposes the Bush ad- 
ministration “gag rule” because “the 
AFL-CIO believes that ‘the proper 
response to Rust vs. Sullivan is legisla- 
tion affirming in the most uncompro- 
mising terms the right and obligation of 
government-financed physicians and 
other health care professionals to pro- 
vide all relevant medical information 
and advice.’ ” 


and approved before Thanksgiving Day. 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: 

ADJOURNMENT — Congress is 
aiming toward a Nov. 26 date for ad- 
journment for the year, but may have 
trouble meeting that goal in order to 
complete business on the highway and 
banking bills, a new Labor, Health and 
Human Services and Education ap- 
propriation to replace a vetoed bill, 
along with Defense authorization and 
appropriations bills. 

PENSIONS — The Senate refused 
to grant some 40,000 “pension losers” 
even partial relief when it refused to 
table an amendment that eventually 
stripped those provisions from the 
Older Americans Act, S. 243. Those 

40,000 retirees or spouses (along with 
tens of thousands who have since died) 
lost their fully vested pensions benefits 
before the 1974 Employment Retire- 
ment Income Security (ERISA) became 
law. Some of these “pension losers” 
testified before Congress urging 
coverage under ERISA. 


To contact a member of Con- 
gress, write to: The Honorable 
(Senator or Representative's 
name), United States Senate (or 
House of Representatives), 
Washington, D.C. 20510 (Senate) 
or 20515 (House). 


Bush finally signs legislation 
to extend jobless benefits 









CONVENTION 


Three new VPs elected; 
per capita raised 5 cents 


By Candice Johnson 
Detroit 

A FL-CIO convention delegates 
wrapped up four days of delibera- 
tion in Detroit with action on 203 
resolutions and two constitutional 
changes, including a per capita 
increase. 

The convention also elected three 
new vice presidents to the Executive 
Council after unanimously re-electing 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Dona- 
hue to their seventh two-year terms. 

Elected to the council are James J. 
Norton of the Graphic Communications 
Union, Joaquin F. “Jack” Otero of the 
Transportation Communications Union 
and Michael Sacco of the Seafarers. 
They fill vacancies created by the 
resignations of Milan Stone, Susan 
Bianchi-Sand and Richard Kilroy. 

The three new vice presidents join 30 
incumbent vice presidents who were 
re-elected. 

Citing a projected budget shortfall by 
1993, “despite vigorous and conscien- 
tious cost-control efforts,” delegates 
approved a five-cent increase in the per 
capita tax to take effect in two steps. 

The per capita tax, the cost per 
member per month for a union to af- 
filiate with the AFL-CIO, increases to 
38 cents in January 1992 and to 40 cents 
the following January. 


The increase was the first since 1987, 
when the convention voted a four-cent 
increase in two steps. Prior to that, the 
last increase was in 1983. 

In action on a second constitutional 
amendment, the convention referred to 
the Executive Council a proposal to en- 
courage affiliation with state AFL-CIOs 
by setting target levels for affiliates and 
assessing a per capita payment of an ad- 
ditional one cent per member per month 
when the target is not reached. 

If it chooses, the council could set 
such a target at its midwinter 1992 
meeting, but the per capita would not 
be imposed until after a full year of 
voluntary efforts to reach the target — 
and then it would take a two-thirds ma- 
jority of the council. The funds col- 
lected would be used to assist state 
federation operations and activities. 

The 755 delegates in the convention 
hall came from 81 affiliates, nine con- 
stitutional departments, 46 state and 140 
local AFL-CIOs, one directly affiliated 
union and two fraternal organizations, 
Credentials Committee Chair Joyce 
Miller reported to the convention. 

Of the 203 resolutions, 67 were 
adopted, 35 were adopted as amended 
and 83 were covered by other resolu- 
tions. No action was taken on three 
resolutions because the policies pro- 
posed are already in place and no ac- 
tion was deemed necessary. Non-con- 



Norton 

currence was voted on one resolution 
and 14 were referred to the Executive 
Council. 

Kirkland, 69, was nominated to his 
seventh term by President Timothy 
Brown of the Masters, Mates and 
Pilots, Kirkland’s union. The second 
was by G.O. Smoak, president of the 
South Carolina AFL-CIO, Kirkland’s 
home state. 

Donahue, 63, was nominated by the 
president of his union, John J. Sweeney 
of the Service Employees, with the sec- 
ond by President Ed Cleary of the New 
York State AFL-CIO, Donahue’s home 
state. 

The new vice presidents tapped by the 
convention represent a broad range of 
trade union concerns, from the mari- 
time and railroad industries to printing 
and publications. One, Otero, is the first 
Hispanic to serve on the council. 

Sacco, 54, has served as the SIU 
president since 1988 and also is presi- 
dent of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades 
Department. 

He joined the SIU in 1958, serving 
on U.S. merchant vessels until he came 


Otero 

ashore to hold several union offices. 
From 1976 through 1988, Sacco headed 
the SIU’s Great Lakes and Inland 
Waters division. 

Otero, 57, is a TCU vice president 
and president of the Labor Council for 
Latin American Advancement. He has 
served as a TCU vice president since 
1971 and was nominated to the Ex- 
ecutive Council post by Robert 
Scardelletti, the new TCU president. 

Otero emigrated from Cuba in 1954 
and began working for the Illinois Ter- 
minal Railroad Co. in St. Louis. He was 
elected to office in the TCU in 1958. 
One of the founders of LCLAA in 
1972, Otero was elected president of the 
group in 1985. 

James J. Norton, 61, has served as 
GCIU president since 1985. A native 
of Boston, he joined the International 
Photo Engravers Union in 1949 and 
was elected to international office in 
1963. 

In 1978, he was elected secretary of 
the Graphic Arts International Union 
and in 1983 was elected to that office 
in the merged GCIU. 


Sacco 


Organizing set as a top priority 


Detroit 

D elegates to the AFL-CIO convention 
renewed the vow to “bring the 
benefits of trade unionism to every 
worker.” 

Labor’s recent victories give cause 
for optimism, said Service Employees 
President John Sweeney, who chairs the 
federation’s committee on organizing. 

Among other union gains, Sweeney 
cited AFSCME wins at the University 
of Minnesota and University of Illinois, 
the Communications Workers’ victory 
among health care workers at Buffalo’s 
Mercy Hospital and SEIU’s successful 
campaigns among nurses in Miami and 
janitors in Los Angeles. 

Despite these successes, however, the 
number of new non-union jobs is soar- 
ing, Sweeney pointed out. He urged 
unions to devote more resources for 
organizing, use union members as 
organizers, organize around contract 
and bargaining campaigns and raise the 
status of organizers. 

Vincent Sirabella, organizing direc- 
tor for the Hotel Employees and Rest- 
aurant Employees, stressed that unions 
must make a commitment to “develop 
quality training” for organizers and to 
develop and fund innovative efforts. 

Sirabella applauded the AFL-CIO 
Organizing Institute for its efforts in 
bringing together now 10 affiliates to 
work together in recruiting and train- 
ing a new generation of organizers, but 
stressed that organizing remains the 
responsibility of affiliated unions. 

Mine Workers President Richard 
Trumka also called on the AFL-CIO — 
through the Organizing Institute and the 


Department of Organization and Field 
Services — to “take the lead in coor- 
dinating a massive organizing effort” 
that uses the talents and skills of trade 
unionists. 

Changes are needed to counter the 
sophisticated union-busters and anti- 
union firms who use the nation’s lop- 
sided labor laws to block workers from 
exercising their rights to organize, 
speakers agreed. 

AFL-CIO Vice Presidents Lenore 
Miller and Jack Sheinkman outlined 
some of the problems their unions have 
faced in organizing, especially in the 
South. 

In Pelahatchie, Miss., 300 poultry 
workers who voted to join the Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store Union 
are still battling for a first contract, 
Miller said. While those numbers don’t 
show up in the organized column, the 
campaign is a victory because “those 
people know they have a trade union,” 
she said. 

Sheinkman, president of the Clothing 
and Textile Workers, told the story of 
the effectiveness of the current law — 
a settlement at Milliken Mills in Darl- 
ington, S.C., 24 years later, after one- 
third of the work force had died. An 
organizing victory won in 1956 was 
answered with a company shutdown. 
The dispute was not resolved with a 
back-pay settlement until 1980. 

Recalling President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt’s statement that “if I were an 
American worker, the first thing that I 
would do would be to join a union,” 
AFL-CIO Vice President John DeCon- 
cini said the Depression-era president 


“was the best organizer we ever had.” 

Organizing efforts should encourage 
union members, the convention said, to 
“develop leads among their unorgan- 
ized acquaintances and to develop 
volunteer organizing programs within 
their own unions,” as well as “com- 
munity activists who support labor’s 
goals.” 

Cooperation among affiliates, greater 
use of state and local AFL-CIOs, mass 
demonstrations of support and solidarity 
and aid from the international labor 
community are key, the resolution said. 

The convention said “a broad range 
of strategies and tactics aimed at 
reaching a larger of numbers of unor- 
ganized workers” should include: 

• Analysis of industry and 
demographic trends for use by affiliates 
involved in key manufacturing and 
service sector and regional campaigns. 

• Development of specialized pro- 
grams to meet the job and organizing 
needs of health care workers, in light 
of the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court deci- 
sion on hospital unit determination. 

• Expansion of corporate campaign 
tactics and partnership with the 
worldwide union movement. 

• Continued support for the 
Organizing Institute and its program to 
recruit, train and place organizers. 

Other speakers were President Ken 
Coss, Rubber Workers; President Mark 
Tully Massagli, Musicians; Secretary - 
Treasurer Bill Lucy, AFSCME; Helen 
Verhage, Somerset County, N.J., AFL- 
CIO; Paul Varacalli, SEIU; A1 Gruhn, 
President, California AFL-CIO; and 
Justin Ostro, Machinists. 


Guerrero scores 
domestic policy 

Detroit 

T he United States rebuilt western 
Europe and Japan and their 
economies, and now it’s time to take 
care of this country, a top Hispanic 
public official told the AFL-CIO 
convention. 

“We lead the world in debt and our 
ports, bridges and roadways are 
crumbling before our eyes as our in- 
dustrial base moves overseas,” said 
Texas Railroad Commissioner Lena 
Guerrero. 

The labor movement’s solidarity and 
assistance helped “crumble the walls of 
oppression throughout eastern Europe 
and yet the domestic political threat to 
our economic security, freedom, rights 
and dignity as individual human beings 
gets worse,” she said. “We find that 
America is a nation where one in 10 
need government assistance to buy 
food . . . where 33 million cannot afford 
insurance to care for basic health.” 
Guerrero, the first woman and the 
first minority ever to sit on the power- 
ful commission, said leadership from 
the Democratic party is needed to turn 
the country around. 

“We need leadership in America that 
rebuilds the public trust and faith in the 
individual, in our unions, in our 
schools, in our private sector and in our 
public sector,” Guerrero said. 

The key to victory, she said, is that 
the Democrats “must renew American 
faith in the power of government, not 
only to do good things, but to do good 
things right. If we do that, the voters 
will make a change.” 




Kirkland: Rugged unionists up to challenge 



mri-- 



“We are emerging 
from one of the 
most difficult 
periods in our 
history . . . with 
our solidarity 
intact and with 
sturdy resolve.” 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


The following are excerpts from the 
keynote address by AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland to the 19th biennial 
convention: 

U nlike some of America’s political 
patriots and flag-huggers, we really 
do believe in the values expressed in 
those words of the Pledge of Alle- 
giance: “liberty and justice for all.” 
Now we know the bitter conse- 
quences of the degradation of those 
values over the past decade: the export 
of jobs, the devastation of our cities and 
communities, and a deep recession that 
has brought soaring poverty and 
unemployment. 

This was no random turn of history, 
but a well-planned assault by Corporate 
America and its allies in the White 
House upon the rights and standards of 
Americans who work for a living and 
who give this country its flesh and 
blood. 

Your task is to launch a new and 
stronger counterattack, demanding ac- 
tion now by our government on the 
issues of concern that our members 
share with working people everywhere. 

A shambles of a health care system 
forces them to the very edge of safe- 
ty — where only the luck of the draw 
in the lottery of accidents and diseases 
stands between them and enlistment in 
the ranks of the street people. Clearly, 
the country needs, and the country 
demands, national health care reform. 

And it cries out for a new direction 
in the trade policies of an administra- 
tion that strips American workers and 
communities of their jobs to serve the 
avarice of flagless, soulless corpora- 
tions who run out on this country and 
the minimum conditions, standards and 
protections of a decent society. 

The highest court in the land has held 
that while the right to strike exists, it 
is secondary to the employer’s freedom 
to fire anyone who exercises that right. 
In a free society, the freedom of pro- 
perty must be balanced by the freedom 
of labor, and there can be no such 
freedom without the right to strike. In 
fighting for the Workplace Fairness 
Act, we are fighting to secure “liberty 
and justice for all.” To continue to 
build, through fair agreements, a bet- 
ter America in which to work and live, 
we shall not rest until the principles em- 
bodied in H.R. 5 and S. 55 are solidly 
on the statute books. 

There are, to be sure, many other 
matters that are of vital concern to 
us — family issues, civil rights, court 
“packing” and all the rest. But ex- 


perience teaches us that those who are 
right on the lead issues will tend to be 
right on all the rest, no matter how com- 
plex and controversial they may seem 
to some. Complexities fall away to 
reveal the clear daylight of truth when 
candidates bring themselves to answer 
that first question: “Which side are you 
on?” 

Harris Wofford’s victory in Pennsyl- 
vania has sounded a reveille in Wash- 
ington. Some Republican senators 
heard it and lo, they produced a health 
plan — one that can more accurately be 
described as what to do instead of a 
health plan. 

In 1988, George Bush asked the 
country for a thousand points of light. 
On Solidarity Day 1991, we brought 
325,000 burning points of light to his 
doorstep in Washington — which 
turned out to be much more than he 
bargained for. 

There was another thing that George 
Bush said in that speech in 1988 that we 
do not intend to let him forget. He made 
a solemn pledge to create 30 million 
new jobs in his time in office. 
Remember? 

Well, I have been keeping track, and 
we are getting royally stiffed. Giving 
him full credit for a small growth in 
jobs before his recession began to 
destroy them, he now owes us about 
29,750,000. He has only a year left to 
come across, and the jobs he proposes 
to create in Mexico with his free trade 
agreement, and in the prisons of his 
most favored nation, Red China, do not 
count. 

There are those who criticize Presi- 
dent Bush for spending too much time 
overseas and not enough on domestic 
affairs. I do not agree with that 
criticism. 

After all, we once had, and are en- 
titled to have, presidents who can walk 
and chew gum at the same time. 

The real question is not where he 
goes, but where he stands. In the light 
of the positions that his administration 
has taken on a host of domestic issues 
that concern us, perhaps he should stay 
abroad and leave his underlings here to 
fumble the ball. 

Perhaps if he stayed abroad longer 
and looked around a little more, he 
might learn a few useful things. He 
might notice the higher occupational 
safety and health protections of Western 
Europe. 

He might observe that every other in- 
dustrial nation guarantees its citizens ac- 
cess to health care. He might even 
discover the fact that America’s most 


successful competitors are far more 
generous with family leave and 
unemployment compensation, and that 
the “permanent replacement” of 
strikers is virtually unheard of outside 
the United States. 

From 1*981 to 1989, the combined 
wages of those who make less than 
$50,000 a year increased an average of 
just 2 percent a year. 

During the same period, the combin- 
ed salaries of all who make more than 
$1 million a year increased 2,184 
percent. 

The laws and administrative proce- 
dures designed to protect the right of 
workers to organize trade unions serve 
instead to delay and frustrate its 
exercise. 

The amiable notion that all are equal 
before the law is a mockery when 
breaking the law incurs, at most, the 
penalty of reinstatement and back pay 
for the aggrieved, another modest cost 
of doing business. 

I ask you, what would be the impact 
upon the occurrence of crime in the 
streets if the only penalty one had to pay 
for mugging someone was to return the 
stolen money if caught? Surely that 
would be regarded as a license fee 
rather than a deterrent. 

Yet this is only the beginning of the 
long list of misdeeds committed by cor- 
porate un-America in the name of 
“competitiveness.” What does that 
catchword really mean, and how does 
it serve this country? 

I give you the recent words of the 
president of NCR Corporation: 
“American competitiveness? I don’t 
think about it at all. We at NCR think 
of ourselves as a globally competitive 
company that happens to be head- 
quartered in the United States.” 

Perhaps it is time to resurrect the con- 
gressional un-American activities com- 
mittees — only this time there should 
be hauled before them the real sub- 
verted of the nation’s security, the 
privileged betrayers of American in- 
terests who roam the world in search 
of the cheapest and most oppressed 
labor, while reserving for themselves 
the right to live under American stand- 
ards and protections. 

And while we’re at it, we can bring 
in the S&L bandits, the laundry men 
who hustle for crooked international 
banks, the junk bond junkies who lev- 
eraged away our productive capacity, 
the revolving-door turncoats and 
foreign agents, the American com- 
panies that made money supplying Sad- 
dam Hussein in the months before he 


invaded Kuwait, and the corporate 
overseers who, in the name of “com- 
petitiveness,” condemn their 
employees to occupational death and 
disease. 

The recent tragedy at Hamlet, North 
Carolina, is only one chapter among 
volumes of evidence refuting the asser- 
tion that modem laws adequately pro- 
tect workers, that unions have done 
their job and are no longer needed. We 
all know that on too many occasions, 
employers will ignore and break those 
laws unless they know someone is 
watching, and even then the cost is not 
too high. 

From the shipyards of Gdansk to the 
factories of Santiago, from Pretoria to 
Tirana — and now in the streets of 
Moscow, Kiev and cities throughout the 
republics of the former Soviet Union — 
ordinary working people, pursuing their 
natural aspirations to breath free and 
gain control of their lives, are the essen- 
tial source of peaceful democratic 
revolutions that are driving tyrants from 
their thrones. 

We have every right to be proud that 
the AFL-CIO has been their most stead- 
fast resource. 

Though the Cold War with com- 
munism seems to be nearing its end, the 
struggle for humanity goes on. Judging 
from current events, the next long 
worldwide confrontation — the next 
Cold War, if you please — may well be 
on the barricades between those who 
stand for human rights and popular 
democracy, and those who serve com- 
munism’s mirror image — the New 
Nomenklatura — the forces of flagless 
capital, in league with their hand- 
maidens, the finance ministers and the 
idealogues and high priests of free 
market idolatry. 

Though I’ve heard the old timers be- 
moan the alleged absence of trade union 
spirit in our younger members, and 
complain that today’s trade unionists are 
just coasting on the sacrifices of those 
who went before, I am here to tell you 
otherwise. 

We are emerging from one of the 
most difficult periods in our history as 
a movement. We are doing so with our 
membership level as high as it has ever 
been, with our solidarity intact, and 
with sturdy resolve. 

And this generation of trade unionists 
has earned its stripes like no other in 
our history. 

Anyone inclined to dispute that 
should listen to the thousands of 
Machinists, Piltos and Transport 
Workers flight attendants who battled 
Frank Lorenzo to a stand-still. 

They should take note of the brutal 
struggles at Ravens wood, Greyhound, 
International Paper, the New York 
Daily News — and at scores of other 
worksites around the country. 

From the coal miners at Pittston and 
Decker, to the communications and 
electrical workers at NYNEX, and 
across the south at textile mills and cat- 
fish plants — all the many places where 
people have come under die worst kinds 
of assaults for daring to stand on their 
feet instead of on their knees — a new 
generation of rugged trade unionists is 
here. And those who carry the labor 
movement through the 21st Century 
will be richer for their courage and 
spirit. 

No one, but no one, in the world 
beats the unions of the AFL-CIO in the 
dedication and commitment of their 
members. 

This generation has indeed paid its 
dues. As its tribunes, I salute you. And 
I summon you now to stay the course: 
Full ahead; steady as she goes. 




Wofford: ‘Labor message will shake up country’ 


By James B. Parks 
Detroit 

L abor’s message is America’s message 
and that message is going to shake 
up the country and drive George Bush 
from the White House, Sen. Harris P. 
Wofford (D-Pa.) told delegates to the 
AFL-CIO convention. 

A week after his successful campaign 
to become Pennsylvania’s first 
Democratic senator in 23 years, Wof- 
ford told the cheering crowd that he 
owes his election to organized labor. 
“We had the strongest Democratic-labor 
partnership I’ve ever seen,” he said, 
calling that liaison the key to victory in 
future races. 

Wofford, dubbed by AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Lane Kirkland as “the man who 
is taking our message to Washington,” 
received a standing ovation as he 
entered the convention hall wearing a 
“Union Yes” hat. His speech was in- 
terrupted 15 times by applause. 

Wofford’s appearance marked the 
third consecutive day that the delegates 
and every congressional speaker cele- 

Forum begins 
unions’ effort 
in ’92 election 

Continued from Page 1 

filiated unions and state and local cen- 
tral bodies for use in membership and 
COPE meetings. That transcript will be 
in a special section in the Dec. 16 issue 
of the AFL-CIO News. As in previous 
years, unions will use their own pro- 
cedures to sample membership prefer- 
ence and decide which, if any, can- 
didate to support. 

In response to questions from mod- 
erator Paul Duke, and in opening and 
closing statements, the presidential can- 
didates sounded similar themes. 

In order to have economic renewal, 
Kerrey said, there must be fundamen- 
tal change in the way government is 
organized so it can be more efficient 
and more effective in solving the prob- 
lems Americans face. 

“We need fundamental change in the 
way we finance health care so that 
health care is established as a right and 
an environment in which we control the 
cost,” Kerrey said, pointing out that he 
has introduced a single-payer health in- 
surance reform program that would be 
funded through new progressive taxes. 

He called for a partnership between 
government and local school districts to 
improve education. 

Most particularly, he said, “we need 
a change of values so that we begin to 
care more about posterity than we do 
about popularity.” 

Clinton, saying he has seen the suf- 
fering of the middle class firsthand, 
called for national leadership to recover 
economic leadership and reclaim our 
children’s future. 

He said the nation needs economic 
policies that are determined by what it 
takes to compete and win in a global 
economy. 

That policy would include “tough 
and fair trade,” affordable health care 
and increased funding for Head Start, 
apprenticeships and college education. 

He also said he would challenge 
Americans to assume new responsibili- 
ties such as giving the poor the oppor- 
tunity to get off welfare and for students 
to pay for college education by com- 
pleting two years of national service. 

Brown said the power of organized 
labor, the Democratic party and the 


brated the Pennsylvanian’s victory, in 
which he came from 44 points behind 
to defeat the epitome of the Washington 
Republican establishment, Richard 
Thornburgh, a former Bush attorney 
general and also a former Pennsylvania 
governor. 

Wofford’s victory “sounded a re- 
veille in Washington,” Kirkland said, 
and clearly showed that he was on the 
side of labor, a test other candidates will 
face. 

Wofford won on “gut issues” that 
Kirkland said would tell labor which 
side other candidates are on. These 
issues are workplace fairness, health 
care reform, trade policies “that rein- 
force rather than undermine fair labor 
standards, action to address the plight 
of the unemployed and revive the econ- 
omy from the ground up,” Kirkland 
said. 

“This is the acid test with which to 
cut through the blather, evasions and 
smoke screens of candidates for na- 
tional office,” he said. “This is our line 
in the sand, by which we can tell 



Sen. Wofford reports for duty. 


whether they are on our side or the 
other side.” 

Wofford said the people in Penn- 
sylvania “sent a wake-up call to 
Washington” that they want fundamen- 
tal change and that it is “time to take 
care of our own people and our own 
problems. They said they want national 
health insurance and they want it now!” 

The Republicans “still don’t get it. 


It’s the shadow of fear . . . over all work- 
ing Americans, the fear that they are 
one pink slip away, one accident, one 
major illness away from having no 
health care or of going bankrupt.” 
He attacked the Bush administration’s 
failure to sign earlier legislation extend- 
ing unemployment benefits. It is a 
“scandal that the unemployment insur- 
ance trust fund of $8 billion just sits 
there unused because this president says 
it would bust the budget.” 

“That is bookkeeping fraud” from a 
president who “finds billions to bail out 
the S&L crooks and kingpins,” he said. 

His victory was a triumph of an idea 
whose time has come, Wofford said, 
and that idea is to “look homeward, to 
bring homeward the better angels of our 
nature ... to bring the spirit of the Peace 
Corps to America.” 

But Wofford warned that turning the 
promise of Pennsylvania into the vic- 
tories of the future will require a long 
hard battle. But the people have called 
for change and “we better damn well 
do it.” 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Democratic presidential candidates appearing at the AFL- Edmund “Jerry" Brown, forum moderator Paul Duke, 
CIO forum were from left, Bill Clinton, Robert Kerrey, Douglas Wilder, Thomas Harkin and Paul Tsongas. 


people has been eroded because of the 
“corrupt grip of the few on our gov- 
erning institutions.” 

He said he would not accept any cam- 
paign contributions above $100 to “cut 
the umbilical cord that I have certainly 
long held onto and what every major 
politician in this country still sucks on, 
that umbilical cord to corrupt money 
that is undermining this country.” 
For Tsongas, the issues boil down to 
a lack of a national economic battle 
plan. “The cold war is over. Japan won 
and Germany won and Taiwan won and 
Switzerland won.” The policies of the 
Bush and Reagan years have brought 
the country to its knees, he said. 

“The clever politics today is to do the 
same thing the Republicans do, which 
is to divide,” said Tsongas. “When 
George Bush put Willie Horton on that 
ad, he knew what he was doing. If we 
do nothing in 1992, we have to put 
George Bush out and say, once and for 
all, ‘it’s your kind of politics that gives 
us David Duke. ’ David Duke is the son 
of George Bush.” 

The country has been subject to a 
“hostile takeover,” Wilder said. 
“Greed and prejudice have been used 
against us, the middle class pitted 
against the poor, in order to divert the 
attention from the real culprit — voo- 
doo economics,” he said. 

After a decade of “code-word poli- 


tics,” it’s time to start healing America, 
he said. The next president must com- 
bine Franklin Roosevelt’s commitment 
to fiscal and financial sanity and John 
F. Kennedy’s dedication to fighting 
discrimination, Wilder said. 

To heal America, Wilder said, “we 
must stop exporting our jobs, stop tax- 
ing the middle class, stop treating a 
health system that leaves more and 
more people unable to afford basic 
food, stop favoring nations that use 
prison labor and stop sacrificing 
American workers for Washington’s 
mistakes.” 

Harkin, who chronicled his family’s 
labor background, attacked Bush for 
praising labor in every other part of the 
world, “but (doing) his level best to 
destroy the free labor movement here 
in America.” 

He criticized the “trickle-down” 
economics of Bush and Reagan. “Old 
George Bush, he was over in Rome a 
couple weeks ago, he said there wasn’t 
a recession over there, meaning here, 
our country. Old George Herbert 
Walker Bush can’t get it right. Born on 
third base, he thinks he hit a triple.” 

He said his economic program would 
invest our wealth at home in roads, 
highways and other parts of the in- 
frastructure so that wealth would “per- 
colate up.” 

‘ ‘We’re not broke. It’s just that all the 


money is in a few hands. That’s what’s 
wrong. It’s in a small pot. Money is like 
fertilizer. It works better if you spread 
it around a little bit,” Harkin said. 

The presidential process gives union 
members and their families the max- 
imum amount of information from 
which to make a decision on the can- 
didates, said Bricklayers President John 
T. Joyce in introducing the resolution. 

The resolution sets voluntary guide- 
lines for the presidential process that 
call for affiliated unions not to make 
public endorsements of presidential 
candidates before the AFL-CIO moves 
toward a consensus. 

Union officers and staff should not 
participate on presidential candidates’ 
committees or solicit funds for them, 
but they should offer equal courtesy and 
“start up” help to all announced can- 
didates. 

If a two-thirds majority of the af- 
filiates appears to agree on a single can- 
didate, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirk- 
land could call a meeting of the General 
Board to consider an endorsement. 

In 1983, the AFL-CIO endorsed 
Walter Mondale before the primaries. 
In 1988, when no such two-thirds 
majority emerged during the primary 
campaign, the federation endorsed 
Michael Dukakis after the political par- 
ties finished their nominating con- 
ventions. 





/ 




United labor 
declares war 
on Fort RAC 



Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

AFL-CIO Vice Presidents Jay Mazur of the Ladies' Garment Norma and Ramon Vela, who are fasting to protest the 
Workers (left), and Morton Bahr of the Communications unfairness of "permanent replacements" used by Rain- 
Workers (second from right) greet Bernice Wilson and fair in Racine, Wis. 

‘Replaced’ workers march proudly 


By Muriel H. Cooper 
Detroit 

T hey marched in proudly, heads held 
high, claiming victory. They had 
been “permanently replaced,” and 
whether they had regained their jobs or 
not, they were the true heroes in the 
fight for workplace fairness. 

The demonstration staged by these 
105 workers was one of the high points 
of the AFL-CIO convention, when 
delegates came face to face with the 
heart of the labor movement — work- 
ers fighting for justice in workplaces 
across America. 

The workers marched in two 
groups — the first representing those 
who had won the long fight to regain 
their jobs and the second representing 
those still on strike. 

The first group, entering the hall 
singing “Solidarity Forever,” came 
from such places as Delta Pride Catfish 
in Mississippi and Decker Coal in 
Wyoming, two companies that used 
“permanent replacements” in an effort 
to bust their unions. Through sweat and 
tears and years of litigation, the workers 
prevailed. 

The second, hailed by AFL-CIO 
President Lane Kirkland as members of 
the “roll of honor” for fighting on the 
front lines of the struggle, entered the 


Continued from Page 1 

companies have resorted to the tactic as 
a union-busting device. The result has 
been the destruction of families and 
communities and the poisoning of labor- 
management relations. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Wayne 
Glenn of the Paperworkers described 
such a situation during debate on the 
resolution. In Jay, Maine, he said, the 
community is still reeling from the 1988 
“permanent replacement” of 2,300 
striking Paperworkers at International 
Paper. 

“When the city manager testified 
before the congressional committee on 
this bill, he told how this little town has 
been destroyed because of the divi- 
sion,” Glenn said. “The former 
employees have no income, and the 
scabs all live in the countryside — they 
don’t live in the city and they don’t 
spend any money in Jay, Maine. So the 
town is just going down. It is a situa- 
tion that won’t be corrected in the next 
20 years unless we do our job.” 

Other delegates expressed their out- 
rage at having a law that undermines 
worker rights and American communi- 
ties. And they described the pain of 
watching their brothers and sisters suf- 


hall to the strains of “Union Yes” and 
to the thunderous applause of the dele- 
gates. 

“We all know there are many, many 
more who represent the untold human 
price that’s paid by workers and their 
families, victims of vicious employer 
greed and cold insensitivity, said 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Dona- 
hue. “It’s time we put a stop to it.” 

Many have not worked or have been 
relegated to the list of under-employed 
for several years. “You get by and 
that’s all,” said Bobbi Hecimovich of 
the “Hibbing 7,” a group of women 
who were forced on strike by American 
Linen in Minnesota four years ago. “I 
didn’t think it would last this long, but 
the legal system has prolonged it.” 

Co-worker Linda Perry said she had 
worked a few jobs in the past four 
years. “But, I had to pay day care. The 
only thing I could find were minimum- 
wage jobs,” she said, recounting the 
classic tale of working to pay the 
baby-sitter. 

Paperworker William Meserve of- 
fered a first-hand case study of how 
devastating the effects are of using 
‘ ‘permanent replacements . ’ ’ Almost 
half of the worldng population in Jay, 
Maine, was out of work when Interna- 
tional Paper brought in scabs in 1988. 


fer just because they stood up for their 
families. 

Steelworkers President Lynn R. Wil- 
liams asked for a salute to Local 5668 
from Ravenswood, W.Va., where 
1,700 workers were locked out and 
“permanently replaced” a year ago for 
standing up for health and safety issues 
and pensions. 

“These are by and large people who 
worked in that plant from the beginning 
or for most of its history . . . built a fine 
community, had decent wages, raised 
their families properly,” he said. “Just 
the kind of community and just the kind 
of people that you think about when you 
think about trade unionists and you 
think about fine American communities 
and towns across the country. 

“The average age of our people who 
have been locked out is 52,” he said. 
“The average service of the group that 
has been locked out there is 22 years 
of service.” 

Floor speakers also noted the irony 
of a country that is quick to acknow- 
ledge the right of striking workers 
abroad, yet shuns the practice here. 

On the final day of the convention, 
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland an- 
nounced that Senate Majority Leader 


“It’s sick,” said Meserve of IP’s 
management style, which destroyed 
businesses and families in the small 
community. “It shows you who is run- 
ning America. I came (to Detroit) and 
I represent 1 ,200 people. I’d like to see 
all 1 ,200 of my people here with me to- 
day.” 

Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), 
the chief sponsor of S. 55, the Work- 
place Fairness bill that would outlaw 
“permanent replacement” workers, 
assailed the corporate mentality that 
seeks to rob union workers of their jobs. 

“These employers have no sense of 
loyalty to their workers,” he told the 
replaced workers. “They have no in- 
terest in fairness or in collective 
bargaining. Their goal is to escalate 
strikes into bitter battles with their 
workers. It destroys the lives of the 
working force. It cripples the unions, 
and it is time we put that kind of 
management out of business once and 
for all.” 

Lois Waggonner, a member of IUE 
Local 825 in Illinois, said the law 
definitely would help to send a message 
to employers. “If the law had been in 
place, we would have been back to 
work in 30 days,” she said. “Before, 
it just wasn’t the American thing to 
do.” 


George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) had in- 
formed his state’s AFL-CIO delegation 
that he would become a co-sponsor for 
S. 55. 

“We owe it to America’s working 
men and women — and to our nation 
as a whole — to promote equal collec- 
tive bargaining and a greater spirit of 
cooperation between labor and manage- 
ment to meet the challenges of the 
1990s and beyond,” Mitchell wrote. 
“S. 55 is an important step in that direc- 
tion.” 

Labor’s efforts to ban these strike- 
breakers also got a boost from newly 
elected Sen. Harris P. Wofford (D-Pa.), 
who followed his triumphant appear- 
ance at the convention with a letter to 
Lukens Steel in Coates ville, Pa., urg- 
ing that company not to hire “perma- 
nent replacements” for striking USWA 
members. 

Wofford wrote that hiring scabs 
would create more problems in the town 
and surrounding communities and reit- 
erated his intention to press for passage 
of S. 55. The workers at Lukens were 
forced on strike on Oct. 1 while seek- 
ing pension improvements, changes in 
the company’s practice of contracting 
out work and pay raises. 


Detroit 

A united AFL-CIO took the embat- 
tled Steelworkers at Ravenswood 
Aluminum Corp. under its wing, as- 
signing the case to its Strategic Ap- 
proaches Committee, setting up a relief 
fund and effectively declaring war 
against Fort RAC. 

RAC locked out 1,700 USWA 
members in November 1990 and im- 
mediately “permanently replaced” 
them with busloads of scabs. Even dur- 
ing contract negotiations, the company 
surrounded the plant with barbed wire 
fences, boarded up the windows and 
brought in “goon guards,” refrigerated 
boxcars of food, mobile homes and 
video cameras — all as part of the 
master plan to bust the union. 

Corporate assault 

That corporate assault, a throwback 
to an earlier day of U.S. industrial rela- 
tions, resulted in the National Labor 
Relations Board issuing unfair labor 
charges against the company for its ac- 
tions against USWA Local 5668 mem- 
bers. The Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration also has been 
notified about health and safety con- 
cerns in the plant, a key issue in 
bargaining. 

The AFL-CIO convention declared 
that ‘ ‘the continuing brutal attack on the 
1,700 Ravenswood workers is not just 
an outrage against those courageous 
USWA members, their families, their 
community, their union, but is an in- 
justice against every trade unionist, 
every trade union, every American 
working family throughout our great 
nation and must not be allowed to con- 
tinue.” 

The Strategic Approaches Commit- 
tee is charged with establishing a 
Ravenswood Lockout Fund, with the 
federation contributing an initial 
$25,000, and instituting a corporate 
campaign aimed at businesses that use 
RAC aluminum. International efforts to 
get to Marc Rich, owner of the plant 
and a U.S. fugitive, will be increased, 
and the labor movement will rally with 
strikers at Fort Unity, set up outside the 
plant. 

On-site coordinator 

Coordinating the effort will be Gary 
Horton, an AFL-CIO field represen- 
tative who helped direct the successful 
campaign against the New York Daily 
News. 

Horton will serve as the on-site point 
man in coordinating affiliate rallies and 
expanding the outreach program. He 
also will be tracing the shipment of 
RAC aluminum to target companies 
currently using the product. 

“What’s being done to workers in 
terms of locked-out workers, in terms 
of striker replacement, in terms of 
scabs, is a sin against all America,” 
said USWA President Lynn Williams, 
chairman of the Strategic Approaches 
Committee. ‘ ‘But when you add to that 
the insult of it being done by a wanted 
criminal, it surely is a situation that we 
can’t bring to an end too quickly.” 
The committee currently is continu- 
ing to work in solidarity with the 
Amalgamated Transit Union in its 
20-month strike against Greyhound 
Lines Inc. Besides the Daily News cam- 
paign, the committee previously rallied 
labor to the side of workers striking 
USX, the National Football League and 
Eastern Airlines. 


S. 5 5 gets boost as Senate leader signs on 




Despite wins, rights leaders 
see equality as distant goal 


By James B. Parks 
Detroit 

D espite many successes, the labor 
movement and its civil rights allies 
face a multitude of challenges before 
equal opportunity becomes a reality, 
NAACP Executive Director Benjamin 
Hooks told the AFL-CIO convention. 

Hooks and Patrisha Wright, director 
of governmental affairs for the Disabil- 
ity Rights Education and Defense Fund, 
thanked the AFL-CIO for its support in 
gaining passage for the Civil Rights Act 
of 1991 and the Americans with Dis- 
abilities Act, respectively. 

In introducing Hooks as “the nation’s 
leading voice for racial equality,” AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland noted that 
organized labor and the civil rights 
community march together on many 
issues through the Leadership Con- 
ference on Civil Rights, including the 
opposition to Clarence Thomas’s nom- 
ination to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Hooks said the civil rights coalition 
must ensure that those it helped elect 
repay that debt by helping to advance 
the civil rights and workers’ agenda. 

“There’s no reason why in this rich 
and affluent country that 30 million 
Americans don’t have adequate health 
care,” Hooks told the crowd. “We 
must gird up our loins and remind those 
friends that were elected to the Senate 
and House we want them to vote and 
we want them to vote right, open their 
mouths and stand up for principles.” 
“Whether they’re Republicans or 
Democrats, if we help them, let us see 
to it that they vote right and that 
Americans do not go to bed without 
health care, that the homeless do not 
roam the streets and children do not go 
to bed hungry.” 

Hooks, who pledged the NAACP’s 
full support in passing the Workplace 
Fairness bills, exhorted the delegates 
not to forget where they came from. 


“We can’t organize if we fall too 
much in love with our plush seats, our 
comfortable chairs, our air-conditioned 
offices and don’t get out there in the 
streets where the action is and meet the 
folk who need organizing,” he said. 

He challenged the convention to 
“take back America to organize the 
unorganized ... to eliminate the cancer 
of racial prejudice . . . to guarantee that 
every worker makes a decent and liv- 
able wage. . .to stop the greedy from 
robbing the needy ... so every man and 
woman can look up and be proud of the 
fact that we are Americans.” 

Wright noted that labor, which helped 
secure passage of the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, also will have a major 
part in the implementation of the act. 

“Shop stewards will play a a key role 
in the success of the employment pro- 
visions,” she said. “They will have the 
responsibility to assist the disabled 
worker in obtaining the accommodation 
they might need to do the job.” 

The act was necessary to overcome 
policies that treated the disabled as 
second-class citizens, Wright said. 
“Over the last hundred years, we have 
created a culture of obsolescence. If 
you’re a worker who gets old, we throw 
you out. If a worker gets injured, we 
let them go. This has created the na- 
tional public policy of uselessness 
towards people with disability, a policy 
that supports isolationism, segregation 
and separate but equal.” 

That policy forced 68 percent of the 
job-ready disabled to be unemployed, 
she said, and found disabled men mak- 
ing 63 cents on a dollar, disabled 
women 26 cents and disabled minority 
women 12 cents. 

Her organization has set up a number 
offering technical assistance to help 
shop stewards in negotiations as it ap- 
plies to the disabled and the law, Wright 
said. 



“We can't organize 
if we fall too much 
in love with our 
plush seats, our 
comfortable chairs, 
our air-conditioned 
offices and don't get 
out there in the 
streets where the 
action is and meet 
the folk who need 
organizing." 

— Benjamin Hooks 


‘Labor must stand up for workplace fairness’ 


Detroit 

T wo key committee members on 
labor’s biggest issues in Congress 
challenged the AFL-CIO to stand up 
and let both Democrats and Republicans 
know that organized labor will do 
whatever it takes to pass the Workplace 
Fairness bills. 

“Make no mistake about it. It’s a bat- 
tle that will put the trade union move- 
ment to the test,” said Sen. Howard M. 
Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), chairman of the 
Labor and Human Resources labor sub- 
committee and author of the Senate bill, 
S. 55. “Because unless we prevail, 
your strongest weapon, your right to 
strike, will end up on the junk heap of 
history,” he said. 

Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), 
chairman of the Education and Labor 
Committee who led the fight for passage 
of H.R. 5 in the House, said, “We have 
got to take on the people who say 
organized labor has become a toothless 
tiger in this country, and when it gets 
tough and it’s a little hard to push, 
organized labor hasn’t got it anymore. 
I don’t believe that.” 

Both men said the fight to pass S. 55 
will be tough and it will take concerted 
action by labor to ensure victory. “You 
have to lobby back in your own states, 
whatever that state may be,” Metzen- 
baum said. “You have to go out and 
you have to picket.” 

Labor has to draw the line and let 
legislators know there will be a price 
to pay if the bill does not pass, they 



Rep. William D. Ford 


said. “It’s a simple black-and-white 
issue. A guy has to answer you. . .he 
either is with you or against you. You 
get enough of them with you and we’ll 
pass that law next year,” said Ford. 

This fight extends beyond the private 
sector, Ford said. Public employees 
know that “if you don’t keep the right 
to strike, their chance of ever getting 
it is totally gone. They’re looking at you 
as the last chance they have to ever get 
what you, up until recently, have had.” 

The fact that labor even has to fight 
to preserve the basic right to strike 
reflects the insensitive policies of the 



Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum 


Reagan-Bush administrations, they 
said. 

Bush’s statement that there is no 
recession “makes you wonder if our 
president ever had a member of his 
family who ever had a job because they 
needed a job, not because Uncle 
Charley thought it would be a nice job 
for you,” Ford said. 

“George Bush wants to send more 
jobs to Mexico, where the workers get 
paid $40 a week, where in the ma- 
quiladora area they work and sleep in 
unbelievable hovels , ’ ’ Metzenbaum 
said. 


AFL-CIO calls 
for enforcement 
of rights laws 

Detroit 

A fter winning a two-year battle with 
the White House over the Civil 
Rights Act of 1991, the AFL-CIO 
pledged its commitment to further 
achievements for equal employment 
opportunity. 

The resolution passed by delegates 
calls on the Bush administration to stop 
trying to weaken the nation’s civil rights 
laws and start enforcing those laws 
vigorously and effectively. 

“We call on our members to work 
closely with our civil rights and 
women’s rights allies for broader sup- 
port and strict enforcement of civil 
rights laws that provide equal oppor- 
tunity to all members in our society,” 
said AFL-CIO Vice President Lenore 
Miller of the Retail, Wholesale and 
Department Store Union, who chairs 
the federation’s civil rights committee. 

The resolution supports affirmative 
action, opposes discrimination based on 
sexual orientation, supports the rights 
of people with disabilities, opposes ex- 
tremist groups, supports the United 
Negro College Fund and urges affiliates 
to participate in and work for the AFL- 
CIO support groups. 

Congress passed the civil rights meas- 
ure by large margins in both houses, 
and President Bush signed the bill Nov. 
21 in a White House ceremony. The bill 
clarifies the nation’s civil rights laws 
after several Supreme Court rulings 
made it more difficult for victims to 
prove discrimination. 

Speaking in support of the resolution, 
AFL-CIO Vice President Jay Mazur of 
the Ladies’ Garment Workers hailed the 
creation of the federation’s latest sup- 
port group, the Asian Pacific American 
Labor Alliance as “an historic event” 
that recognizes the rights of Asian Paci- 
fic Americans in this country. 

Other speakers included Katie Quan, 
executive director of the Asian Pacific 
American Labor Alliance and Mary 
Botkin of the Marion, Polk and Yamhill 
Counties Central Labor Council in 
Oregon. 

Dingell assails 
wayward Bush 

Detroit 

P resident Bush owes the American 
people the same kind of considera- 
tion he gives people overseas, Rep. 
John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) told the 
AFL-CIO convention. 

“We hope as the next election ap- 
proaches, George Bush will discover a 
domestic agenda,” he said. “The 
Democrats in Congress and their 
friends in labor have one.” 

Dingell, chairman of the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee, 
said Bush has ignored the need of 
middle-class Americans for housing, 
health care and jobs. While he talks 
about export growth, his policies have 
only boosted the export of high-paying, 
good manufacturing jobs, he said. 

“Where is Bush when this is going 
on?” he asked, and answered, “Any- 
where but America.” 

Dingell described America’s health 
care technology as one of the “wonders 
of the world, ’ ’ but noted that 4 ‘many of 
the people here who wonder at that 
wonderfiil system do not have access. ” 
He predicted that Americans are fed 
up with the way things are going and 
that they will send a message to that ef- 
fect next election. 






Delegates see crossroads, press health care reform 



By Colleen M. O’Neill 
Detroit 

A s its intensified labor for national 
health care reform begins to bear 
fruit, the AFL-CIO reaffirmed its com- 
mitment to full-scale restructuring of 
the failed system. 

“The year 1992 has the potential to 
be a turning point in our decades-long 
campaign for national health care, just 
like 1946 and 1974,” AFL-CIO Vice 
President John Sweeney told the dele- 
gates to the 19th biennial convention. 

“The history of health care reform in 
our country is one of lost opportunities, 
and the big challenge before us today 
is how to make sure that 1992 does not 
go down in history “as a lost chance 
like 1946 and 1974,” said Sweeney, 
president of the Service Employees and 
chairman of the AFL-CIO Heith Care 
Committee. 

The resolution drew emotional sup- 
port from the floor. 

AFL-CIO Vice President Gerald 
McEntee related the story of his elderly 
mother, forced to go on welfare to con- 
tinue receiving nursing home care, and 
contrasted that experience with the free 
health care provided to President and 
Mrs. Bush, and even their dog, Millie. 

“If (health care) is all right for the 
Bushes, if it’s all right for the Congress, 
it’s all right for the McEntees and the 
workers of America,” he said. 

Morton Bahr, a member of the AFL- 
CIO Executive Council and president of 
the Communications Workers, had a 
message for politicians seeking labor’s 
support in next year’s elections. 

“Merely voting for this resolution is 
insufficient. We’ve got to mobilize our 
members to make sure they understand 
the true fight,” he said. 

“Each one has got to contact their 
members of the House and Senate and 

Tide is turning 
for health care, 
Kennedy says 

Detroit 

T he tide is turning in favor of labor’s 
call for national health care reform, 
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) 
told delegates to the AFL-CIO conven- 
tion. 

Kennedy said the election victory last 
week of Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. 
Harris P. Wofford, in a campaign bas- 
ed largely on the health care crisis, 
proved that Americans are fed up with 
inadequate health care and that momen- 
tum will continue to build. 

“Before Congress adjourns for the 
1992 election, we must complete the 
unfinished business of Social Security 
and Medicare by enacting national 
health insurance,” Kennedy said. The 
goal is “controlling the cost of health 
and making affordable health care a 
basic right for all Americans, not just 
an expensive privilege for the few.” 
Kennedy, chairman of the Senate 
Labor and Human Resources Commit- 
tee, has for three decades fought for the 
concerns of working Americans, and 
the enthusiastic reception by delegates 
reflected that record. His speech was in- 
terrupted 12 times by applause and he 
received three standing ovations. 

Kennedy acknowledged that labor has 
a major stake in health care reform, par- 
ticularly since the problem is showing 
up more and more at the bargaining 
table. Studies have found that the ma- 
jority of recent strikes occurred over 
health care issues. 


Source: Roper Poll, August 1991 

let them know very plain, if you’re not 
with us on this issue, we’re not going 
to be with you on Election Day.” 

Barry Gordon, president of the 
Screen Actors Guild, urged delegates to 
take the strongest possible position on 
health care, in order to seize the 
momentum toward reform. He dis- 
counted discussions of political 
feasibility, and urged “the collective 
leadership of this great organization to 
consider the importance of speaking 
loudly and strongly for a single-payer 
solution, not some time in the future, 
but now.” 

After more than 30 minutes of de- 
bate, delegates overwhelmingly approv- 
ed the resolution, which states that “we 
continue to believe, as we have advo- 
cated for many years, that a unified na- 
tional health care system with a single 



Sen. Edward M. Kennedy 


“No negotiator for an AFL-CIO 
union should be forced by the soaring 
cost of health to swallow give-backs at 
the bargaining table,” he said. “It is 
time to say ‘no’ to a health care system 
that distorts the collective bargaining 
process by forcing employers to choose 
between ever-larger insurance pre- 
miums and ever-shrinking benefits.” 
Kennedy spoke in favor of a “play 
or pay” system in which every em- 
ployer would be required to insure its 
workers and dependents or contribute 
to a public fund that would cover all the 
uninsured, including the unemployed. 


payer should be the ultimate goal. We 
also believe that the urgency of the cur- 
rent crisis demands action now.” 

The resolution said the labor move- 
ment recognizes “reform may come 
about in stages. Accordingly, we will 
support measures that would move the 
nation toward our goals.” 

In the two years since the 1989 con- 
vention, the AFL-CIO has made health 
care reform a top priority. 

Using the slogan “Now Is The 
Time,” the federation has taken its case 
for reform to the rank and file, Capitol 
Hill, the White House and everywhere 
in between. 

Still, nearly one-third of Americans 
are uninsured or underinsured, and their 
numbers are growing daily. In compar- 
ison with other industrialized nations, 
the tattered American health care sys- 


Detroit 

D elegates to the AFL-CIO convention 
blamed officials at the federal, state 
and local levels for slighting workers 
and abusing human needs through their 
misguided budget priorities. 

The convention pointed out that 
federal aid to state and local govern- 
ments has fallen to record lows while 
the budgetary choices that states and 
localities are making puts the onus on 
workers and public service. 

“The major feature of the Reagan- 
Bush anti-worker presidencies is ir- 
responsible fiscal policy,” said New 
York AFL-CIO President Edward J. 
Cleary during debate on the resolution. 
“They have neglected America’s 
burgeoning domestic and social needs 
and have abandoned states and cities, 
thereby throwing them into fiscal 
crises.” 

Public employees have had to bear 
much of the brunt in the ensuing reduc- 
tion in spending, AFL-CIO Vice Presi- 
dent Gerald W. McEntee of AFSCME 
said, pointing out that vital public pro- 
grams are suffering at a time when 
human needs are great. 

McEntee called on the delegates not 
to “support a governor or a mayor that 
we put into office that turned their back 
on us — with pay lags, layoffs and 
withholding of contracts.” 

These workers “rarely, if ever, have 
the right to strike and withhold their 
labor from their employer,” he noted. 

Government Employees President 
John Sturdivant, who introduced the 
resolution, noted that public employees 


tern fails the test of fairness and equity. 

The resolution urges Congress to: 

• Establish a national commission 
of consumers, labor, management, gov- 
ernment and providers to administer a 
single national cost containment pro- 
gram. 

• Establish a core benefit package 
to which all Americans are entitled and 
to require all employers to contribute 
fairly to the cost of care. 

• Establish a federal program for 
those not in the work force. 

• Reduce Medicare eligibility to age 
60. 

• Develop a national social insur- 
ance program to cover long-term care 
services. 

The AFL-CIO also stated its concern 
that any new program must contain pro- 
gressive and equitable financing. 


in Bridgeport, Conn., experienced first- 
hand that city governments “are able 
to use bankruptcy filings to take away 
wages and benefits from public-sector 
workers in the same way Frank Loren- 
zo was once able to violate airline 
employees.” 

The battle is not over just because all 
of the states have passed budgets this 
year, he noted. These budgets still in- 
clude funds for “privatizing and 
contracting-out the traditional work of 
the federal, postal, state, and county 
and municipal workers.” 

The resolution criticizes the practice 
by many state and local governments of 
privatization and contracting out of 
public services. And it terms “self- 
defeating” efforts by state and local 
governments to cut Medicaid and Medi- 
care benefits and to decrease in- 
vestments in education and the fights 
against homelessness, poverty, crime 
and drug abuse. 

“The AFL-CIO calls on the federal 
government to restore its obligation and 
commitment to state and local programs 
which endorse actions that promote 
economic growth, maintain high qual- 
ity employment opportunities through 
enriching the employability of the work 
force, and higher productivity,” the 
resolution stated. 

Further, the AFL-CIO opposes as in- 
equitable and distorted the “rigid tax 
and spending limitations approach to 
reducing tax burdens.” It noted that 
“such measures make it difficult or im- 
possible to provide essential commun- 
ity services.” 


Budget-cutters putting onus 
on public workers, services 





Worksite tragedy fuels debate on OSHA reform 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 
Detroit 

A fter hearing emotional appeals for 
the end of such worksite tragedies 
as the recent chicken processing plant 
fire in Hamlet, N.C., the AFL-CIO 
convention vowed to fight for 
legislative reform. 

The Hamlet fire, which killed 25 
workers unable to escape through 
locked fire exits, underscores the failure 
of current occupational health and 
safety laws to protect American work- 
ers, delegates said. 

“Two decades after the enactment of 
federal job safety and health legislation, 
the right to a safe job remains a prom- 
ise, not a reality,” the convention 
resolution said. “Every year, more than 
10,000 workers are killed and more 
than 6 million are injured by job 
hazards. 

“Construction safety hazards and 
toxic chemicals remain serious prob- 
lems. Poor job design, infectious 
diseases and office hazards have 
emerged as major safety and health con- 
cerns for millions of workers. The cost 
of workplace injuries alone is stagger- 
ing, estimated at more than $80 billion 
a year.” 

The measure approved by delegates 
supports comprehensive reform of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act 
through legislation mandating worker 


safety committees, safety programs, 
coverage for all workers and stronger 
enforcement by the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration. 

Legislation has been introduced in 
Congress to address those issues, as 
well as separate legislation on construc- 
tion safety, also supported by the reso- 
lution. 

“We need to organize our members, 
and let the Congress know that workers 
are tired of being hurt and injured to 
earn a day’s pay,” said AFL-CIO Vice 
President Lynn Williams, president of 
the Steelworkers. 

‘ ‘We owe it to the workers of Hamlet 
and all the other 10,000 workers who 
are killed every year, and the thousands 
more who are injured on the job, to do 
everything we can to get this legislation 
passed.” 

Vice President Robert A. Georgine, 
head of the AFL-CIO Building and 
Construction Trades Department, noted 
the particular dangers of the construc- 
tion industry. 

“We have tried for 20 years to get 
the kind of administrative assistance that 
we need in construction,” he said. 
“Our record with regard to fatalities, 
accidents and injuries has grown worse 
over those 20 years, not better.” 

William H. Wynn, president of the 
Food and Commercial Workers, re- 
minded delegates of comments the 


previous day on the abysmal plant con- 
ditions in Honduras. “Let me tell you, 
you do not have to go to Honduras to 
find some of the unbelievable situations 
that exist in this industry,” he said. 

Wynn detailed for delegates the horri- 
ble conditions in the Hamlet plant and 
the deficiencies of the North Carolina 
OSHA plan. “In the name of the Ham- 
let workers, let’s not let them die in 
vain. Let’s reform OSHA,” he said. 

For standards to be effective, OSHA 
must provide strong and consistent en- 
forcement, the resolution noted. 

“The AFL-CIO will push the Bush 
administration to fully utilize the higher 
OSHA and MSHA (Mine Safety and 
Health Administration) fines now pro- 
vided by law and seek changes in 
OSHA policy and practice to grant 
union representatives full participation 
in settlement discussions on enforce- 
ment cases. 

“In recent years, state and local gov- 
ernments have launched initiatives to 
improve worker protections. While the 
AFL-CIO continues to support a strong 
federal OSHA program over state 
plans, state initiatives like ‘right to 
know’ have broken new ground and 
forced federal action,” the resolution 
continued. 

“We urge all affiliates and state AFL- 
CIOs to support state initiatives on 
worker safety and health training pro- 


grams, worker clinics, VDT use, ‘right 
to act’ and criminal prosecution of 
employers for workplace injuries, ill- 
nesses and fatalities.” 

The resolution also called for safety 
standards on ergonomic hazards, 
VDTs, lead in construction, environ- 
mental monitoring and medical sur- 
veillance. 

It also urged continued support for 
Workers Memorial Day, which for the 
past three years has called national at- 
tention to workplace safety problems. 

The convention approved separate 
resolutions calling for the support and 
protection for Imperial Foods Products 
workers and their families seeking 
justice in the wake of the Hamlet fire 
and the formation of an independent 
commission to investigate that disaster, 
as well as one supporting a special em- 
phasis inspection program by OSHA in 
the meatpacking and poultry industries 
along with a standard on ergonomic 
hazards in those industries. 

Other resolutions included: support 
for the inclusion of public and U.S. 
Postal Service employees under work- 
place safety standards; endorsing indoor 
air pollution and VDT research; support 
for increased research by the National 
Institute for Occupational Safety and 
Health; adoption of OSHA’s blood- 
borne disease standard; and inspection 
of buildings for asbestos. 


Maritime Trades tackles 
bread-and-butter issues 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 


AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue addresses Maritime Trades 
Department convention. At right is MTD President Michael Sacco. 


By Sharolyn Rosier 
Detroit 

D elegates to the AFL-CIO Maritime 
Trades Department’s biennial con- 
vention tackled the problems of middle- 
class workers with a special report and 
rallied behind the nation’s beleaguered 
maritime workers. 

“We meet in convention, not to put 
on rose-colored glasses like the folks at 
the White House do,” said MTD Presi- 
dent Michael Sacco. “We meet in con- 
vention to tackle the bread-and-butter 
issues that confront this nation and its 
people.” 

Resolutions called for actions to im- 
prove the maritime industry and the 
trade union movement, including in- 
vestment in sealift capacity, safer 
American fishing vessels, port in- 
frastructure, civil rights and family and 
medical leave. 

The report, “America’s Middle 
Class: Under Siege,” released by the 
department’s Committee on America’s 
Middle Class, details the wage erosion, 
the switch to low-wage jobs and higher 
taxes that add up to a betrayal of the 
middle class by the Reagan-Bush 
administrations. 


“Once sons could expect to follow 
their fathers into blue-collar jobs in 
manufacturing and construction and 
earn $13 or $15 an hour,” the report 
stated. “This meant they could buy a 
car, maybe have a small hunting cabin, 
save a few dollars toward buying a 
home and sending their children to col- 
lege. This was the American Dream. It 
has all but vanished.” 

Sacco added, “We know that there 
are those in the government, those in 
the press and in academia who think 
things are not so bad. But we know bet- 
ter and this report tells the story.” 
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue attested to the sad 
plight of working people. “We are in 
the midst of what an economist the other 
day called a silent depression. For five 
straight years since 1986, real wages 
have gone down. 

“At the 1988 Republican convention, 
President Bush told us there would be 
30 million new jobs created in the next 
eight years,” he said. “At the current 
rate if will take 570 years and eight 
months to create those 30 million jobs.” 
House Speaker Thomas S. Foley CD- 
Wash) sent a videotaped message de- 


crying inadequate unemployment bene- 
fits. “America needs a real employment 
strategy that will generate jobs with de- 
cent wages for American families long- 
ing for employment. To those workers 
who have suffered displacement due to 
the continued recession, we should ex- 
tend unemployment compensation.” 

While the economy lags, there is an 
urgent need for health care reform, 
Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich) told the 
delegates. 

“The United States is the only in- 


dustrial nation that has no health care 
program,” he said. “Health care costs 
rise 12 percent a year and by the year 
2050, 50 cents out of every dollar will 
be going to be spent on health care in 
this country.” 

Other speakers included Rep. Bob 
Davis (D-Mich.); David Barrett, Cana- 
dian parliament; Diane Feinstein, 
former mayor of San Francisco; Ray 
Marshall, professor at the University of 
Texas; and AFL-CIO Legislative 
Director Robert M. McGlotten. 


Labor seeks overhaul of U.S. education, training program 


Detroit 

T he United States must overhaul the 
education and training opportunities 
available to young persons, especially 
the majority of youth not bound for col- 
lege, AFL-CIO convention delegates 
declared. 

Resolutions on job training, educa- 
tion, economic conversion and other 
areas emphasized the need for national 
policies and legislation to help workers 
develop and broaden their skills and to 
transfer those skills to new industries. 

The convention contrasted the train- 
ing and “school-to work” transition op- 
portunities in Germany, Japan and other 


industrial nations with the often inade- 
quate programs offered in the United 
States, and warned of the consequences 
of ignoring the crisis. 

“Our future living standards, the 
distribution of income and wealth and 
the life chances available to millions of 
our young people hang in the balance, ’ ’ 
the resolution said. 

It applauded the report of the Com- 
mission on the Skills of the American 
Workforce, “America’s Choice: High 
Skills or Low Wages,” which made 
recommendations to improve education 
and workplace training. 

These were the development of new 


educational standards; sufficient 
assistance and public resources to help 
students meet the standards; incentives 
to employers to invest in education and 
training for workers; and creation of a 
nationwide board with labor, business, 
community and public representatives 
to implement these programs. 

The convention pledged to work with 
Congress in shaping the program, not- 
ing that labor must be able to participate 
as a full partner. It called for the 
establishment of labor-management 
committees to plan, design and ad- 
minister the programs but stressed that 
apprenticeship programs — proven to 


work well — would not be changed. 

On economic conversion, delegates 
called for legislation to encourage com- 
panies to convert existing facilities from 
military to civilian use, as well as to 
provide technical assistance for product 
development and marketing and other 
aid for new business ventures. 

Congress also should provide for ex- 
panded training, retraining and place- 
ment programs, as well as health in- 
surance for affected workers and special 
federal unemployment funds to help the 
hundreds of thousands of workers who 
will be affected by defense cutbacks and 
closings, the resolution said. 




Trade deficit remedies 
sought to rescue jobs 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Sen. Donald Riegle: 'Say no to putting U.S. jobs on fast track to Mexico' 

Riegle seeks labor support 
for bill to alter Mexico pact 


By John R. Oravec 
Detroit 

U nless the government’s flawed 
foreign trade policies are remedied, 
more American jobs will be lost as the 
country sinks deeper in international 
debt, the AFL-CIO convention de- 
clared. 

An immediate crackdown is needed 
on unfair trade practices to help stem 
destructive trade deficits as well as the 
damaging giveaways of technologies 
and markets, delegates said in a 
unanimously adopted resolution. 

“The U.S. government has the re- 
sponsibility to promote and defend the 
interests of the people,” the resolution 
noted. But “current emphasis on free 
trade and unfettered capital movements 
is an explicit abrogation of that respon- 
sibility and will lead to further globali- 
zation of production, enrich corporate 
elites, and harm American workers 
without alleviating poverty among 
workers in developing countries.” 

It underlined the need for effective 
new government policies that recognize 
that the interests of corporate America 
do not parallel the nation’s interests. 

The immense flow of international 
capital must be regulated to encourage 
domestic production and to strengthen 
the codes of conduct for multinational 
enterprises to protect the rights of 
workers, the resolution said. 

It calls for full funding of the govern- 
ment’s Trade Adjustment Assistance 
program to provide adequate compen- 
sation for workers displaced by the 
flood of imports. 

And unless the U.S. -Mexico trade 
agreement is carefully structured, the 
consequence will be a greater outflow 
of American capital, increased imports 
and reduced U.S. employment as the 
nation’s remains mired in recession. 

At the same time, a bad trade accord 
would do little to improve the living 


standard of Mexican workers or pro- 
mote economic development. 

The resolution called on the Bush ad- 
ministration’s negotiators to include in 
any agreement provisions that address 
labor rights and standards, environmen- 
tal safeguards, funds for infrastructure 
and debt relief for Mexico. 

It also spells out guidelines to stop the 
abuse of workers in trade arrangements 
under the Generalized System of Pref- 
erences and the government’s Overseas 
Private Investment Corp. 

In the floor debate of the resolution, 
UAW President Owen Bieber said that 
primary U.S. industries have been hit 
hard by foreign competitors with 
unrestrained predatory trade practices 
and have hurt the entire economy. 

“The resulting damage to our in- 
dustrial base, the fall in middle-class 
living standards, the growing polari- 
zation of our economy and the deteri- 
oration of our economic power has ad- 
versely affected all of us,” Bieber said. 

President Jack Sheinkman of the 
Clothing and Textile Workers warned 
that the livelihoods of 20 million 
American manufacturing workers are at 
stake as U.S. business exploits the 
workers of Latin America and the 
Caribbean region. 

“We don’t want to lose our jobs here 
in the United States but, at the same 
time, we don’t want to have everybody 
engaged in a race to the bottom,” 
Sheinkman said. 

Others addressing the trade resolution 
included President Randy Babbitt of the 
Air Line Pilots, Executive Secretary - 
Treasurer Jack Henning of the Califor- 
nia AFL-CIO, Vice President Nick 
Bonnano of the Ladies’ Garment Work- 
ers, District Director George Clark of 
the Electronic Workers, President 
David Arian of the Longshoremen and 
Warehousemen, and Canadian Teams- 
ters Delegate Ed Lawson. 


Detroit 

A merica’s economic future is in 
jeopardy unless the labor move- 
ment’s far-reaching agenda is activated, 
starting with a fair-trade track that 
preserves the jobs of U.S. workers, 
Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. told ap- 
plauding delegates. 

Flawed trade policies of the Reagan 
and Bush administrations have turned 
the United States into “the economic 
doormat for the rest of the world,” the 
Michigan Democrat said. 

“We need stronger trade laws,” he 
stressed. “We need a tough Democratic 
president to enforce those laws. And we 
must say no to putting U.S. jobs on a 
fast track to Mexico.” 

Riegle called on union members to 
press their senators into supporting a 
Senate resolution he has introduced that 
would change the fast-track procedures 
to allow amendments to any Mexican 
trade agreement. The measure currently 
has 20 co-sponsors, and “we need 31 
more to turn the tide on this trade issue 


and stop this trade war that’s killing the 
U.S. job base,” he said. 

Millions of jobs are at stake because 
President Bush has no domestic em- 
ployment program, Riegle said. “He’s 
got a jobs program for Mexico, for 
China, Kuwait, even Cambodia, but no 
jobs program for our people. ’ ’ He noted 
that many veterans of the Persian Gulf 
war cannot find work. 

A primary cause of America’s deva- 
stating trade deficits is the failure of the 
Bush administration to enforce existing 
trade law, including the Super 301 
clause enacted in 1988 to crack down 
on trade cheating by competitor nations, 
Riegle noted. 

Riegle predicted that “the days of 
Republican elitism, or trickle-down 
economics, are coming to an end. It’s 
time to put America on a different 
track. It’s time to help our working peo- 
ple and to rebuild the middle class.” 

Riegle said organized labor must help 
lead the charge in the “all-out fight for 
economic justice.” 


Solidarity and courage inspire labor leaders around world 


‘Every day is Solidarity Day ’ 


Vanderveken: 

Detroit 

J ohn Vanderveken, who is retiring 
as general secretary of the Interna- 
tional Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions, has seen solidarity work 
across the world — from the Pittston 
coal fields to the shipyards of Gdansk 
to the townships of South Africa. 

“No trade union in the world can 
stand alone these days,” 
Vanderveken told delegates to the 
AFL-CIO convention. “And no 
union has to. Because from now on, 
every day is Solidarity Day.” 

The international trade union 
movement could not have had a more 


decent leader and the U.S. labor 
movement could not have had a bet- 
ter friend than Vanderveken, AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland said. 

Vanderveken, who spoke at Soli- 
darity Day 1991 and has marched 
with U.S. workers and lined up world 
support for them, including the Mine 
Workers strike at Pittston, praised the 
American trade unionists’ commit- 
ment to solidarity. 

“Solidarity Day was a powerful 
witness to the U.S. labor movement’s 
ideals of international solidarity,” 
Vanderveken said. It also served as 
a strong message to those who 


mistakenly claim the movement is on 
the edge of extinction, he added. 

Throughout the world, he said, free 
marketeers seem to be on another 
planet when they talk about the im- 
pact of their policies on the world’s 
working people. 

“We must make them understand 
that democracy works,” Vander- 
veken said. “Social justice is not a 
brake on the engine of economic 
growth, nor is it a luxury that can be 
bolted on when the engine is steam- 
ing down the track. It is, in fact, a 
necessary precondition of efficiency 
and prosperity.” 


Detroit 

T he message of solidarity and courage 
was delivered to convention 
delegates from Anatoly Malykhin and 
Victor Utkin, representing the Indepen- 
dent Miners Union in Russia, Byelo- 
russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. 

They were among trade unionists 
from around the world who thanked the 
AFL-CIO and union members for their 
support and pledged to help American 
workers in their fight against exploitive 
multinational corporations. 

The suffering brought about by the 
communist regime was very great, 
Utkin said, and it “will take several 
generations before we are completely 
free of this terrible sickness.” 

But “because we constantly feel your 
support. . .we will be victorious,” he 
said. 

Luis Anderson, general secretary of 
the Inter- American Regional Organiza- 
tion of Workers, said that despite 
significant changes, the struggle to 
“establish and strengthen” democracy 
continues, with new challenges posed 
by “a crazy race toward the market- 
place in search of the solutions of 
economic grandeur.” 

The help and solidarity given to 
workers and unions in Latin America, 
in fighting against multinational cor- 
porations and dictatorships and in 
spreading free trade unionism will be 
returned, he stressed. 

Roberto Flores, president of the 


Filipino Civilian Employees Associa- 
tion and a vice president of the Trade 
Union Congress of the Philippines, told 
delegates that a “firm and unwavering 
belief in solidarity” brought democracy 
to the Philippines, even in the face of 
the guns of a dictator. 

Worldwide solidarity among workers 
also can combat the abuses and anti- 
labor practices of multinational cor- 
porations, Flores said. 

In Africa, “the process for democ- 
racy” is now irreversible, said Hassan 
Sunmonu, secretary general of the 
Organization of African Trade Union 
Unity. Sunmonu pointed to the election 


of trade union leader Frederick Chiluba 
as president in Zambia, the overthrow 
of the corrupt military regime in Mali 
and the beginning of democratic proc- 
esses in other African nations as the 
results of international labor solidarity. 

However, the struggle for freedom 
and democracy in Africa cannot end un- 
til “apartheid is dead and buried in 
South Africa,” he said. 

Ada Maddocks, the fraternal delegate 
from the British Trades Union Con- 
gress, said unionists in both countries 
stood “shoulder to shoulder” in the 
fight for equality and end to discrim- 
ination. 


She compared the British health care 
system with that of the United States 
and noted that British workers “do not 
run the risk of financial catastrophe as 
a result of prolonged illness,” as many 
American families do. 

Fraternal delegate Leo Gerard, the 
vice president of the Canadian Labour 
Congress who serves as United Steel- 
workers National Director for Canada, 
congratulated delegates for pushing for 
health care reform. 

“You’re entitled to health care as a 
right of citizenship (in our country), and 
you are now on the move to get that 
right of citizenship in your country.” 




Free unions in vanguard of push for democracy 


The resolution singles out the Generalized 
System of Preferences as a weapon against 
worker exploitation around the world. 


By James B. Parks 
Detroit 

A s the winds of political and eco- 
nomic change sweep across the 
world, the AFL-CIO called for in- 
creased efforts to promote freedom of 
association abroad and to address the 
impact of multinational corporations on 
free trade unions. 

Speaking on behalf of the resolution, 
AFL-CIO Vice President Albert 
Shanker of the Teachers praised those 
people throughout the world who rose 
up with ‘ ‘only their voices and feet and 
faced their rulers and the rulers gave 
up.” 

One of the labor movement’s 
“proudest moments” has been its sup- 
port of victorious democratic move- 
ments that many thought would not suc- 
ceed, Shanker said. But, with billions 
of people under repressive regimes in 
countries such as China, Thailand, Haiti 
and Cuba, there is much more to do, 
he said. 

The resolution approved by the con- 
vention dedicates the AFL-CIO to the 
struggle for international worker rights 
on every possible front. 

It singles out the Generalized System 
of Preferences as a weapon against 
worker exploitation. Nations should 
lose U.S. trading advantage under GSP 
if they deny worker rights. But the Bush 
administration has “leaned over 
backwards to not take countries off the 


GSP even though strong cases are pre- 
sented against them,” the resolution 
said. 

The federation also called for the in- 
clusion of worker rights provisions in 
contracts signed by the Overseas Pri- 
vate Investment Corp. and private 
companies. 

On national defense, the federation 
stressed that any “peace dividend” be 
applied to domestic problems. 

In Africa, the toppling of autocratic 
regimes is opening up opportunities for 
free trade unionism. To bring about 
social justice for working people, the 
AFL-CIO will continue to promote the 
growth of free trade unions in Africa 
and to forge union-to-union ties be- 
tween U.S. and African trade unions. 

While urging an end to recent town- 
ship violence in South Africa, the 
delegates reaffirmed the AFL-CIO ’s 
commitment to a non-racial democratic 
society in that country. 

In Asia, the federation noted that a 
resurgent labor movement is evidence 
of worker unrest over the increasingly 
repressive and anti-union actions of dic- 
tatorial communist and military rulers. 


It pledged its support of union move- 
ments in the autocratic countries as well 
as the fragile democracies such as 
Bangladesh or the Philippines. 

As for China, the federation strongly 
condemned the Bush administration’s 
failure to drop most-favored-nation 
status. Since the military crackdown 
two years ago, thousands of pro- 
democracy activists have been arrested 
and human and worker rights abused. 

The country still exports goods to the 
United States made by prison and child 
labor in violation of U.S. law. The 
federation urged affiliates and con- 
sumers to join campaigns such as 
Frontlash’s “Toycott” campaign 
against the purchase of Chinese toys. 

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the 
federation called for the governments 
in the region to address the “sorry state 
of democracy, the general lack of 
worker rights and the extreme exploita- 
tion of migrant workers.” 

It also called on all sides in the Arab- 
Israeli dispute to take steps to a lasting 
peace and pledged continued support to 
the Israeli trade union organization 
Histadrut. 


As rapid changes sweep over the 
former communist countries, the reso- 
lution insisted that only a strong trade 
union movement can ensure that a stable 
democracy emerges from whatever 
takes the place of the deposed govern- 
ments. 

The delegates reiterated their support 
for the free trade unions in Lithuania, 
Latvia and Estonia as well as in the 
emerging democracies of Central and 
Eastern Europe. 

In Latin and South America, the fed- 
eration backed the return of democracy 
to Haiti while opposing the recognition 
or use of funds for the “Solidarista” 
labor associations. 

It also called for a just peace in El 
Salvador and for solidarity with Cuban 
trade unions fighting against Castro’s 
regime. 

In Ireland, the resolution continues 
AFL-CIO support for the MacBride 
code of standards for American com- 
panies doing business in Northern 
Ireland to promote equal opportunity 
and worker rights. 

Also speaking on behalf of the resolu- 
tion were AFSCME Secretary-Treas- 
urer William Lucy, Ladies’ Garment 
Workers Executive Vice President 
' Edgar Romney, Montana AFL-CIO 
Executive Secretary Donald R. Judge, 
California State AFL-CIO President 
Albin J. Gruhn and Bill Lee, manager 
of ILGWU Local 132-98-102. 



dim Bume/rage une rnoiograpny 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland presents a Steuben eagle to Yelena Bon- 
ner, who says she likes birds because "they fly free." 


‘Struggle for world freedom 
is not over,’ Bonner warns 


Detroit 

Y elena Bonner, who struggled for 
democracy at the side of her late 
husband, Andrei Sakharov, sounded a 
note of caution in telling delegates to the 
AFL-CIO convention that the struggles 
for freedom are far from over. 

Bonner, describing the efforts of 
Central and Eastern Europeans and 
others to attain their freedom, said that 
her long-term goal was that self- 
determination would some day be 
recognized as widely as human rights. 

“The most important events in the 
transition from the 20th to the 21st cen- 
tury have already happened,” she said. 
“Those events are the fall of the Berlin 
Wall, which divided two societies, and 
the fall of Moscow in 1991.” 

The new states emerging on the land- 
scape of Eastern Europe should be 
helped, Bonner said. “There is very 
precise and very constant criteria for 
help. This is human rights, this is the 


criteria for help that democrats all over 
always used for help.” 

Bonner also urged remembrance of 
those “who didn’t arrive with us to- 
day,” and said there was no time to 
relax. 

“If thousands of American lawyers 
will try to figure out the legitimacy of 
Gorbachev’s power, they will not suc- 
ceed. He hasn’t been elected by the 
popular vote, but was appointed by the 
congress,” she said. 

“In August, he absolved this con- 
gress . . . and legally denied the ex- 
istence of his position. 

“But he continues to occupy his posi- 
tion, and that is another sign that the 
unlawfulness so typical for our state 
continues today.” 

Bonner also said the world “betrayed 
democracy when we so easily forgave 
the Chinese government what they did 
to workers” in the May 1989 Tianan- 
men massacre. 


Landsbergis thanks AFL-CIO 
for its support of Lithuania 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 
Detroit 

L ithuanian President Vytautas Lands- 
bergis brought a message of solidari- 
ty to the 19th biennial AFL-CIO con- 
vention, thanking the federation for 
supporting the independence finally 
won by the Baltic state and vowing to 
fight for workers’ rights. 

“lam here in the name of my coun- 
try to say ‘aciu,’ which means ‘thank 
you,’ ” he said. “By expressing my 
gratitude to the AFL-CIO, I thank all 
of working America, all the people of 
America who defended the strong spirit 
of liberty and understood our goals.” 
Landsbergis told of the struggles of 
the workers’ movement of Lithuania to 
find its way, which he linked to the 
struggle of his nation to be free. 

“We believe that real labor unions 
are one of the essential supports on 
which a state rests while traveling the 
road to prosperity. We re-established 
independence of Lithuania so that a per- 
son would feel like a master in one’s 
land and reap the fruits of wholesome 
labor. We will always defend this in- 
alienable and fundamental human 
right.” 

The challenge now, he said, would 
be in addressing the host of economic 
problems the country has yet to solve. 

“We want now to create a dynamic, 
open, free and productive economic 
society,” he said. “The only way out 
is to immediately transform the econ- 
omy and create a new one based on 
market principles.” 

Landsbergis cautioned his listeners 
that his country yet was in danger from 
“a foreign army still in Lithuania, rais- 
ing additional political and social hard- 
ships,” and adding to the importance 
of Lithuanian and U.S. labor union co- 
operation. 

“In addition, during these difficult 
times, if our country alone cannot 
guarantee social equilibrium, it could 



Vytautas Landsbergis 


feel the supportive shoulder of a 
friend,” Landsbergis said. “Perhaps 
your influence in U.S. politics would 
defend us from violent or artificial 
calamities during the coming period of 
economic reform,” he said. 

Landsbergis, a 59-year-old professor 
of music history, emerged as the leader 
of the Lithuanian democratic move- 
ment, Sajudis, which defeated the Com- 
munist Party in elections, replacing it 
as the country’s dominant political 
organization. 

In March 1990, the Lithuanian parlia- 
ment elected him president on a 91-38 
vote. The Baltic republic declared its in- 
dependence the same day. 

Several hundred members of the local 
Lithuanian-American community 
greeted Landsbergis at the airport upon 
his arrival in Detroit. The flag-waving 
group, some outfitted in traditional 
garments, greeted the president with 
Lithuanian chants and songs and several 
groups of small children presented 
flowers to him. 




Union Label on frontlines 
of saving American jobs 


Detroit 

T he struggle to bring democracy to 
Eastern European countries will suc- 
ceed because the independent trade 
union movement will prevent the 
former rulers from regaining control, 
Kazimieras Uoka told the convention. 

Uoka, founder of the Lithuanian 
Workers Union, received the AFL- 
CIO’s 1991 George Meany Human 
Rights Award. At 40, he is now the 
chief comptroller of Lithuania and 
honorary president of the union. 

For most of his adult life, Uoka has 
struggled for freedom against the Soviet 
forces, including the Soviet attempt at 
a crackdown on Lithuanian indepen- 
dence in January 1991. 

Now that the “sensational news” 
from Eastern Europe is over, the in- 
dependent unions are facing difficult 
problems in organizing because the con- 
cept of trade unions was so compro- 
mised by communism that workers 
have a hard time trusting the new 
unions, Uoka said. 


Sensing the mood, “the old party- 
controlled unions are trying to reorgan- 
ize themselves with new names” to 
achieve their own, he said. 

“Their goal ... is now to take control 
over the economy through illegitimate 
but legal means, to destroy the people’s 
trust in the new democratic, freely 
elected governments and to heighten 
fear for the future in people’s minds. ” 

Uoka said the Polish elections show 
that the communists can fragment soci- 
ety to achieve their ends, he said. If they 
succeed, the former communist rulers 
will once again have control, this time 
as legal owners. 

Uoka was a bulldozer operator when 
he founded the Lithuanian Workers 
Union in 1988. He was a key force in 
the founding of the new Confederation 
of Labor in Russia and the Independent 
Miners Union of the Ukraine, whose 
strike committees launched the coun- 
try’s independent trade unions. He also 
is a leader of Lithuania’s Social 
Democratic Party. 


Detroit 

T he message rang through loud and 
clear at the 64th convention of the 
Union Label and Service Trades 
Department: “Buy American because 
it saves jobs and jobs secure America’s 
future.” 

“It is the responsibility of every trade 
unionist to pass this message on to all 
consumers,” said James Hatfield, 
president of the department. “We know 
the union label, shop card and store but- 
ton symbolize American-made and sig- 
nify American jobs.” 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Thomas R. Donahue blamed an insen- 
sitive administration for trade policies 
that cut American jobs, but said a sen- 
sible electorate would change that, as 
it did in Pennsylvania with the election 
of Sen. Harris Wofford. 

“Our trade policy is trickle down,” 
he said. “Improve the balance sheet 
numbers and improvements will trickle 
down. You and I both know this does 
not work and the people in Penn- 
sylvania made it clear. The message is 
that political campaigns are a way to im- 
prove jobs possibilities, wages and 
benefits.” 


A ustin Cablevision of Austin, Texas, 
has been added to the AFL-CIO ’s 
national boycott list. 

The Communications Workers re- 
quested the boycott of the subsidiary of 
Time- Warner after the company laun- 
ched a union-busting campaign, in- 
cluding efforts to force workers to 
strike. 

“The decision to strike followed a 
year of obvious union-busting strategies 
by the company, which has made it 
known that they want to eliminate the 
union at Austin Cablevision,” said 
CWA President Morton Bahr. “The 
AFL-CIO boycott sends a message that 
the labor movement will not tolerate 
this flagrant disrespect of Austin’s 
workers.” 

About 90 CWA members have been 
striking over unfair labor practices since 


The benefits of political action also 
were stressed by Robert M. McGlotten, 
AFL-CIO legislative director, who 
urged delegates to “police the activities 
of members of Congress.” 

“Of 6,000 lobbyists on Capitol Hill, 
only 150 are from labor,” he said. “We 
need you out there to help us deliver the 
message. The men and women in Con- 
gress are bright but they don’t under- 
stand the issues facing working Amer- 
icans.” 

Union Label and Service Trades 
Department Secretary-Treasurer Rich- 
ard Perry reminded the delegates of the 
importance of community education. 

“Union label councils are the 
frontline of educating the community on 
union products,” he said. “We will 
continue to use all of the arsenals — 
union label councils as well as boycotts 
and the union label newsletter — to fur- 
ther the cause of promoting union 
labels.” 

Other speakers included: Frank Gar- 
rison, president of the Michigan AFL- 
CIO; Ed Scribner, president of the 
Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO; and 
Robert Harbrant, president of the Food 
and Allied Service Trades Department. 


Aug. 21 after management stopped two 
local union officers from representing 
members on personnel matters and 
demanded an end to payroll dues deduc- 
tions in contract negotiations. 

The union has charged the company 
with seven unfair labor practice 
charges. 

The National Labor Relations Board 
has scheduled a hearing for mid- 
December. 

The strikers have picked up suport 
from CWA members at AT&T and 
Southwestern Bell and from union and 
community groups throughout the 
Austin area. 

This is the second AFL-CIO boycott 
of the cable company. The first was in 
support of the workers during an eight- 
month strike from October 1981 to June 
1982. 



Steve Yarmola/AFL-CIO News 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and Electronic Workers President William 
Bywater present Kazimieras Uoka the Lithuanian flag that flew over the 
IUE headquarters during the Soviet invasion of Lithuania. The Meany 
Human Rights Award, which Uoka received, is in the foreground. 

Uoka: Beware of groups 
masquerading as unions 


Austin Cablevision is added 
to AFL-CIO ’s boycott list 


DPE recommits to advance white-collar agenda, organizing 


By Sharolyn Rosier 
Detroit 

D elegates to the eighth biennial 
convention of the AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Professional Employees con- 
centrated on advancing the cause of 
white-collar workers as a growing part 
of the work force and a dynamic poten- 
tial force in the labor movement. 

“The professional category is now 
the third most-organized occupational 
sector,” noted Jack Golodner, DPE 
president. “Fully 26 percent of all pro- 
fessionals are represented by unions. 

“The success and visibility of unions 
among professionals favorably in- 
fluences the growth of unions among 
other white-collar workers,” said 
Golodner, who was re-elected along 
with all other DPE officers. 

Golodner decried unfair labor laws 
that limit the ability of white-collar 
workers and professionals to secure 
union representation. 

He also cited the impact of new tech- 
nology that is making it “very easy, 
very quick and very cheap” to transfer 


office and professional work abroad. 

“Moreover, as the offshore office 
movement expands into higher levels 
such as computer programming and 
software development, other skilled and 
professional white-collar workers will 
face difficulties,” he said. 

The more than 400 delegates from the 
department’s 27 affiliated unions passed 
resolutions to protect the interests of 
health-care professionals in the health- 
care reform process, to urge the enact- 
ment of copyright legislation protecting 
performance rights for sound record- 
ings and reaffirmed support for 
strengthening public education. 

The international dilemma was out- 
lined in a symposium by Jim Baker of 
the AFL-CIO president’s office. “In 
country after country, governments are 
making the argument that the market is 
the force behind what’s going on, but 
the market has no face,” he said. “We 
must acknowledge this is a bipartisan 
failure.” 

University of Oregon Professor 
Steven Deutsch said the U.S. -Mexican 


trade proposal should serve as a wake- 
up call to all Americans. “We have 
already taken the low-wage route — 
low investment in labor. The challenge 
for the 1990s is to change the tide.” 

The threat of multinational corpora- 
tions offers labor an opportunity to 
forge relationships with unions around 
the world, said Barbara Easterling, ex- 
ecutive vice president of the Communi- 
cations Workers. “If the companies are 
going to be multinational, make them 
negotiate on an international level.” 

Other symposium participants in- 
cluded Stan Marshall, UAW vice presi- 
dent; Carol Haddad, research associate 
at Wayne State University; Ron Seeber, 
associate professor at Cornell Univer- 
sity; and Gary Nebeker, Food and 
Commercial Workers’ international 
vice president. 

The delegates also were told of the 
U.S. Department of Justice complicity 
in the case of Bank of Credit and Com- 
merce International, “the biggest fraud 
in the history of the world,” by Jack 
Blum, president of the National Con- 


sumers League and former chief coun- 
sel for the Senate Foreign Relations 
subcommittee on narcotics, terrorism 
and international operations. 

Blum said the Justice Department did 
not want to upset President Bush’s elec- 
tion campaign, noting that shareholders 
of BCCI were “key government leaders 
of the Persian Gulf states who bought 
in very heavily to the political system 
and neither American political party 
wanted to embarrass them.” 

“A lot of people have known about 
this bank for a very long time and never 
said anything because of the political in- 
fluence that the bank purchased in coun- 
tries around the world,” he said. 

Blum described BCCI as a “bank 
whose principal clients were 3,000 
criminals worldwide: drug cartels of 
South America; heroin dealers in Asia; 
gunrunners; heads of state and lesser 
government officials throughout the 
world, and finally the very wealthy 
business community who wanted to get 
around monetary exchange control and 
tax laws.” 





Economic malaise prompts call for quick action 


By John R. Oravec 
Detroit 

W ith the American economy in 
shambles, convention delegates 
sounded a wake-up alarm for the federal 
government to pull the nation out of the 
festering recession. 

They called on President Bush and 
Congress to recognize the severity of 
the stagnant economy and take im- 
mediate steps to get die country back 
on track for recovery. 

Convention resolutions traced the 
dilemma to the overlords of the Reagan- 
Bush administrations — “those whose 
misguided economic policies gave birth 
to this recession” — who now refuse 
to relieve the suffering of the reces- 
sion’s victims. 

The casualties are the millions of 
American workers trapped in unem- 
ployment, as rates hover just below 7 
percent. That rate would be even higher 
if the government counted those who 
have given up futile search for work and 
those who are in part-time jobs because 
they can’t find hill-time work. 

Delegates pointed out that an uncar- 
ing president and his advisers have for 
more than a year denied the existence 
of the recession, and now insist that it 
ended six months ago. 

“They blame consumers for not 
spending the way to recovery,” the 
convention noted. “Yet the bulk of 
those potential customers — those who 


haven’t fallen into poverty — are 
middle-income working Americans 
who are weary from the past decade’s 
policies that shipped millions of good- 
paying jobs overseas, and reduced their 
buying power and standard of living. ’ ’ 

At the same time, President Bush 
twice trashed efforts by Congress to ex- 
tend unemployment benefits for the 
long-term jobless, which would allevi- 
ate their hardships in meeting basic 
family needs, delegates said. 

“Instead, President Bush’s prescrip- 
tion for rejuvenating the economy is 
based on the same trickle-down eco- 
nomic theories that got the country in- 
to this mess in the first place,” the con- 
vention stressed. “He irresponsibly 
proposes to once again open the gates 
to the public treasury to the well-heeled 
through a further cut in the capital gains 
tax” and other favors for the upper- 
income elite. 

It warned that proposals by some 
members of Congress to pump up the 
economy with a “peace dividend” 
broad-based tax cut would be folly 
while “state and local governments are 
going bankrupt and there are so many 
urgent needs” in education, housing 
and the public infrastructure. 

A better way, the delegates said, 
would be to cut taxes paid by middle- 
class workers, which could be balanced 
by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 
percent of the upper crust — benefici- 


aries of tax reductions in the Reagan 
years. Those tax cuts for the wealthy 
added more than $1 trillion to the na- 
tional debt. 

“It’s time to turn America around,” 
declared AFSCME President Gerald 
McEntee, who pointed out during 
debate that a government that can spend 
billions of dollars to free Kuwait city 
can afford to spend funds to ease the 
suffering in every American city. “It’s 
time to send the message across the 
country.” 

George Kourpias, president of the 
Machinists, noted that in 15 months of 
the Bush recession, 800,000 manufac- 
turing jobs have disappeared. He cau- 
tioned that major cuts in defense spend- 
ing would threaten 800,000 more jobs 
and called for a broad economic con- 
version program and enforcement of 
“Buy American” laws. 

President William Bywater of the 
Electronic Workers tied the lingering 
economic slump to the unfair trade 
practices of foreign competitors and in- 
ept government overseers who open im- 
port flood gates. 

“Let’s start talking tough to those 
leeches, instead of talking tough to 
Americans and telling them how much 
harder they have to work,” By water 
said. “Give us the jobs and we’ll show 
you what we can do. Don’t steal them 
from us.” 

A first step toward economic recov- 


ery should be the extension of jobless 
benefits for the long-term unemployed, 
the convention said. It also called for 
passage of the labor-backed highway 
transportation measure and funding for 
housing programs for low- and middle- 
income groups. 

“Stronger medicine is needed to 
assure recovery from the recession and 
achieve a broad-based prosperity with 
economic progress and social justice,” 
a convention resolution said in spelling 
out the AFL-CIO action plan for the na- 
tion’ s policymakers. 

It calls for: 

• Making full employment at decent 
wages a high-priority national goal. 

• Restitching the tattered safety net 
to assure an adequate level and duration 
of benefits for the unemployed. 

• Restoring the eroded purchasing 
power of workers and their families. 

• Rescinding the budget agreement 
so the nation’s urgent public investment 
needs are met. 

• Reducing military spending, 
coupled with a comprehensive 
economic conversion program. 

• Relaxing monetary policy and 
lowering interest rates, along with 
reforms to increase the public ac- 
countability of the Federal Reserve. 

• Tightening regulations on banks 
and the financial system to restore 
public confidence and prevent further 
costly bailouts. 


Workers’ wages decline; 
medical costs eat at CPI 


Trade deficit 
up 4 percent, 
could worsen 

T he U.S. foreign trade deficit widened 
in September to $6.8 billion, the 
third monthly rise in succession, as 
manufactured goods accounted for $6.3 
billion of the overall gap. 

The Commerce Department reported 
that the September deficit was 4 percent 
higher than a revised $6.5 billion im- 
balance in August as imports increased 
by $1.3 billion to $42.2 billion. Exports 
grew by $1 billion to $35.4 billion. 

America’s trade shortfall had eased 
somewhat between January and June, 
but has turned worse in the third quarter 
of the year. 

For die first nine months of 1991 , the 
shortfall amounted to $49.3 billion, 
well below the $75. 9-billion pace in the 
comparable year-ago period. However, 
the trade deficit in the third quarter was 
running at an annual rate of $86.7 
million. 

While the 1991 deficit likely will slip 
below the 1990 total of $101.7 billion, 
trade analysts said they expect the im- 
balance to worsen in coming months 
with a decline in U.S. exports. 

And although this year’s deficit 
should come in under $100 billion for 
the first time since 1984, there’s grave 
concern that the imbalance will widen 
again in 1992 — given that the trend is 
obviously headed in the wrong 
direction. 

Economist Mark A. Anderson, head 
of the AFL-CIO office of international 
trade, said the $46-billion U.S. trade 
deficit manufactured goods in the first 


Trade Deficit 

In billions of dollars 



Source: Commerce Department 


nine months of 1991 is taking a toll in 
vital factory jobs while further weaken- 
ing America’s industrial base. He warned 
that more job losses would result in a 
faulty trade treaty with Mexico. 

September’s higher volume of im- 
ports included increases of $900 million 
in consumer goods, $400 million in 
capital goods, $200 million in industrial 
supplies and materials and $100 million 
in food and beverages. Exports rose 
$900 million in capital goods, $400 
million in autos, parts and engines, 
$100 million in consumer goods, and 
$100 million in food and beverages. 

September’s jump in imports was led 
by a $ 150-million increase in foreign 
apparel shipments. 

The U.S. deficit with Japan surged by 
$500 million to $4.2 billion in Sep- 
tember and accounted for 62 percent of 
the total deficit. Deficits also increased 
in trade with China at $1.5 billion; 
Taiwan, $1 billion; and OPEC, $1 
billion. 

But in trade with Western Europe, the 
United States posted a surplus of $1.3 
billion. The September data also 
showed surpluses in trade with 
Australia, Brazil and Egypt ranging 
from $400 million to $200 million. 


T he buying power of workers dropped 
sharply in October, even though 
retail prices advanced only marginally. 

While the consumer price index for 
urban wage earners (CPI-W) rose just 
0.1 percent last month, real average 
weekly wages fell 0.7 percent, the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. 

The setback stemmed from a 0. 1 per- 
cent dip in hourly earnings and a 0.6 
percent decline in average weekly pay. 
And although real weekly pay was up 
0.7 percent from the year-ago month, 
wages have failed to keep pace with ris- 
ing prices over the past decade. 

In tracking the long-term decline in 
buying power, AFL-CIO economist 
Anne Draper said inflation-adjusted 
earnings of the average worker were 
down 5.3 percent from October 1986. 
The erosion is far worse in the longer 
term with real wages down 10.8 per- 
cent from October 1979, Draper 
pointed out. 

Three components of the consumer 
price index actually declined in Oc- 
tober — food costs, down 0. 1 percent; 
transportation costs, down 0.2 percent; 
and apparel and upkeep costs, down 0.4 
percent. 

But there was no relief in the spiral- 
ing costs of medical care, which rose 
0.6 percent last month and were 8.2 
percent higher than in October 1990. 

While heating oil prices rose 1 . 1 per- 
cent from September, they were 22.7 
percent below the year-ago month. Gas 
pump prices declined 0.7 percent in Oc- 
tober and were 17.4 percent below a 
year ago. 


Personal and educational expenses 
rose 0.3 last month and were up 8 per- 
cent over the year. 

In other economic developments: 

• Wholesale prices jumped 0.7 per- 
cent in October, the sharpest increase 
in a year, BLS reported. Food prices 
in the government’s producer price in- 
dex rose 0.4 percent, while energy 
prices advanced 1.7 percent. The higher 
rates will likely show up at the con- 
sumer level shortly. 

• After several sluggish months, 
housing starts jumped 7.3 percent in 
October as building activity picked up 
in all regions of the country, the Com- 
merce Department reported. But despite 
the gain, housing starts were more than 
17 percent below the pace of first 10 
months of 1990. Analysts said that 1991 
could be the first year since the 
mid- 1940s that the starts fall below the 
1 million. 

• Industrial production was un- 
changed in October, the Federal Re- 
serve said. It was the third month in 
succession that output remained flat at 
the nation’s factories, mines and utili- 
ties, while lagging 1.7 percent behind 
the rate of October 1990. 

• The jobs outlook is bleak for 
1992, according a panel of represen- 
tatives from major corporations 
assembled by the Conference Board. 
With unemployment expected to con- 
tinue around 6.8 percent through next 
summer, a weak labor market will be 
accompanied by some of the smallest 
pay increases in recent years, panelists 
said. 




Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


Kenneth T. Young, executive assistant to AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
since 1979, confers with Kirkland during the 1991 convention. Young, who 
is retiring at the end of this year, was honored with a resolution that pays 
tribute to his "skill and dedication to labor's historic goals." 



Trade unionists answered the call 
following a tragic shooting at a post of- 
fice in a Detroit suburb during the AFL- 
CIO convention. Newly elected Ex- 
ecutive Council member James J. Nor- 
ton was late for his first council meeting 
when he joined other donors responding 
to a plea for O-negative blood in the 
aftermath of the Nov. 14 incident at the 
Royal Oak, Mich., post office. Norton, 
president of the Graphics Communica- 
tion Union, joined Letter Carriers 
President Vincent R. Sombrotto, 
Postal Workers President Moe Biller 
and other union officials at the site. 
Sombrotto also gave blood at the Red 
Cross blood bank and expressed 
everyone’s “heartfelt sympathy and 
prayers go to the victims and their 
families.” Other convention delegates 
and guests giving blood were John M. 
Walsh, Jr., Thomas J. Hunter, 
James P. Conway, Mark G. 
Johnston, Donald L. Hershner, 
Robert J. Irvin, Helen Verhage, Ray- 
mond J. Crowell, Hugh Wolfen- 
barger, Ronald John Davidson, 
Christine M. Williams, Paula D. 
Duvall and James E. Cole. 

Sigurd Lucassen, president of the 
Carpenters, gave the keynote address at 
the National Conference of State 
Legislatures’ annual labor issues 
seminar. Lucassen’s address focused on 
the Carpenters’ “Ready to Rebuild 
America” campaign, an effort to in- 
crease awareness of the critical state of 
the nation’s public facilities. 

Ethnicity ran rampant during the elec- 
tion of officers at the AFL-CIO conven- 
tion. After listening to Service 
Employees President John Sweeney 
and New York State AFL-CIO Presi- 
dent Ed Cleary nominate Thomas R. 
Donahue, for re-election as secretary- 
treasurer, AFL-CIO President Lane 
Kirkland opined that “the Irish make 
very fine soliders when they’re led by 
Scottish officers.” Bakery, Confec- 
tionery and Tobacco Workers President 
John DeConcini chimed in with how 
much better the process works when 
“their nomination is closed by an 
Italian.” In his acceptance, Donahue 
noted that if you have seen the Scottish 
officer and Irish soldier “you know 
which one wears the pants.” Then 
Lenore Miller, president of the Retail, 
Wholesale and Department Store 


PUBLICATIONS 

America: What Went Wrong?, a 
nine-part series published in the 
Philadelphia Inquirer, examines the 
hardships facing middle class and work- 
ing families that grew out of economic 
policies of the 1980s. Free copies can 
be picked up at the paper’s circulation 
office, or send a $2. 15 check or money 
order to the Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. 
Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. 

A Participant’s Handbook for a 
Train-the-Trainer Program, a new 


Union, rang down the curtain on the 
episode with: “As one who can wear 
both pants and skirts, I stand here 
representing those people who can rule 
the world.” 

The Hispanic Labor Committee of 
the New York City Central Labor 
Council is to honor Mary Crayton, 
AFL-CIO Region VII director; Julio 
Mojica, vice president, UAW District 
65; and the late Benjamin Garcia, 
Local 371 SSEU/AFSCME District 
Council 37 at its annual scholarship din- 
ner dance Dec. 28. The three will be 
recognized for their contributions on 
behalf of working people, and especial- 
ly Hispanic workers. 

DEATHS 

Robert G. Porter, secretary- 
treasurer of the Teachers, died Nov. 20 
at Washington Adventist Hospital of 
complications after heart surgery. He 
was 64. 

Porter was appointed secretary- 
treasurer of AFT in 1963, leading the 
50,000-member organization to its cur- 
rent strength of 780,000 members. He 
was a former civics teacher in the East 
St. Louis public schools and helped 
establish the East St. Louis Teachers 
Union. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 


manual from the AFL-CIO Department 
of Education, includes chapters on how 
adults learn, instructional techniques, 
teaching aids, class control and team 
teaching. Copies are $5 each from the 
Publications and Materials Office, 
AFL-CIO, 815 16th St. N.W., 
Washington, D.C. 20006. An Instruc- 
tor’s Guide is forthcoming. 

The Labor/Higher Education Coun- 
cil’s recent report, Working Together: 
Labor-Campus Collaboration, is 
available through the AFL-CIO Depart- 
ment of Education, 815 16th St. N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20006. 202/637- 
5141. 

A new edition of Major Programs 
of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is 

available, single copy free, from In- 
quiries and Correspondence, Office of 
Publications, Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics, Washington, D.C. 20212. 

The Chicago Area Jewish Labor 
Committee has produced a kit explain- 


said of Porter’s service: “Through it 
all, Bob Porter remained steadfast to his 
basic trade union instincts and ideals. 
He believed that every individual 
deserves a basic measure of dignity, op- 
portunity and a voice in his or her own 
future. And, through the labor move- 
ment, he worked tirelessly to advance 
those principles in public education 
throughout our society. Working men 
and women have lost a dedicated ser- 
vant and advocate.” 

Porter is survived by his wife, Pat; 
two sons, Steve and Rudy; one 
daughter, Paula Glenndening; and five 
grandchildren. 

Willard Swire, treasurer of 
Associated Actors and Artistes of 
America and an executive consultant of 
Actors’ Equity, died Nov. 13 at his 
home in New York. He was 81. 

Swire also was a member of the 
board of directors of the American 
Theatre Wing and the American Educa- 
tional Theatre Association; president of 
Theatre Authority; adjunct professor in 
the department of drama at the Univer- 
sity of Miami; a life member of The Ac- 
tors’ Fund of America; and a fellow of 
the American Theatre Association. 

He is survived by his wife, Janet 
Katherine Dickson, and son, R. Derek 
Swire of Los Angeles. 


ing the historical roots of the relation- 
ship between the Jewish community and 
the labor movement. Copies are $1.50 
each. Contact Stanley Gross, Jewish 
Labor Committee, 8743 E. Prairie 
Road, Skokie, HI. 60076. 

Ergonomics: The Study of Work 
examines the types of work patterns that 
cause cumulative trauma disorders and 
the methods used to control or prevent 
their occurrence. The booklet (order 
No. 029-016-00124-7) is available for 
$1 from Superintendent of Documents, 
Government Printing Office, Washing- 
ton, D.C. 20402-9325. 202/783-3238. 

Ergonomics: Low-Cost, Common 
Sense Training Solutions consists of 
three videos, a leader’s guide and par- 
ticipant workbooks. Three-day pre- 
views are available for $40. For infor- 
mation, call toll-free 1-800-233-6067 or 
write BN A Communications, Inc., 
9439 Key West Avenue, Rockville, 
Md. 20850-3396. 


Union message 
is the medium 
at ILGA meet 

By Sharolyn Rosier 
Detroit 

L abor communicators were called on 
to develop networks to disseminate 
labor’s message and to “communicate 
the power of labor’s diversity.” 

The call was sounded by Jim High- 
tower, a former Texas agriculture com- 
missioner and now a political analyst 
and broadcaster, as he delivered the 
15th A.J. Liebling Memorial Lecture at 
the International Labor Communica- 
tions Association convention. 

“You have to have a long-term 
strategy because 1992 is not the vic- 
tory,” Hightower told the ILCA. “The 
victory is 1994, 1996, and the year 
2000. There’s an eager bunch of peo- 
ple waiting to hear from us. We can’t 
wait on blow-dried D.C. politicians.” 
Hightower told the more than 100 
delegates that people are staying out of 
politics because they feel shut out. They 
want to belong and it’s up to labor to 
bring them in. He urged the audience 
to “raise less com and more hell.” 

In the keynote address, International 
Metalworkers Federation General Sec- 
retary Marcello Malentacchi warned 
that unions must build their strength 
around the world to deal with multina- 
tional corporations. 

“The period of euphoria is over,” he 
said. “The world has changed radically 
and is still changing. It is up to unions 
worldwide to press forward against the 
dangers and to forge relationships so 
that we might see better days for work- 
ers across the world.” 

The convention elected Leo Canty, 
editor of the Connecticut Teachers, 
president and Susan Phillips of the Food 
and Commercial Workers secretary- 
treasurer. They succeed Pat Ziska of the 
Machinists and David Elsila of UAW, 
respectively. 

Delegates also amended the constitu- 
tion to add two vice presidents and 
eliminated the special dues rates for 
central bodies and inter-union councils. 

In a press conference on the closing 
morning of the convention, federation 
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Dona- 
hue briefed delegates on AFL-CIO ef- 
forts on such issues as health care and 
striker replacement. 

“In all of the trickle-down economics 
proposed by Reagan and Bush, the only 
thing that’s filtered down to workers is 
pain,” Donahue said. He urged the 
labor communicators to know both 
sides of an issue — and explore them 
in their journals — so they are able to 
refute the arguments against labor. 

Rex Hardesty, director of the AFL- 
CIO Department of Information, 
warned the delegates about the rise of 
“racket” newspapers, urging them to 
alert local unions not to accept the “free 
lunch” offer from someone who will 
put out a newsletter “for free.” 

The delegates also elected 10 new 
vice presidents: Magda Lynn Seymour, 
Service Employees; Laura Ginsburg, 
AFL-CIO Public Employee Depart- 
ment; Robert Chambers, UAW Local 
1999; Molly Charboneau, Flight Atten- 
dants; Anne Rivera, Clothing and Tex- 
tile Workers; James Earp, Operating 
Engineers Local 3; Sam Kirkland, 
UAW Local 1776; Rick Palmer, Ma- 
chinists Local 141; Antonio Ramirez, 
ACTWU; and Kathy Wilkes, Long- 
shoremen’s and Warehousemen’s 
Union. 

Other speakers included the Rev. 
Jesse L. Jackson, UAW President 
Owen Bieber and actor David Clennon. 





Ray Crowell/Page One Photography 

Food and Commercial Workers President William Wynn Privilege first-time buyer mortgage program. UFCW 
reads inscription recognizing the Williamses as the first member Sheila Williams stands with husband David and 
union family to purchase a home under the Union daughters Brittainy and Cleo. 


to those who have belonged to a union 
at least three years and who meet 
federal income eligibility requirements. 

Delegates to the convention passed a 
resolution affirming the federation’s 
commitment to the Union Privilege pro- 
grams and directed the organization to 
develop further services and benefits to 
meet the needs of union members at 
home as well as in the workplace. 

The resolution also said the program 
should “continue to work with affiliates 
to explore ways of using the member- 
ship benefits developed by Union 
Privilege as tools to attract new 
members to the labor movement and re- 
tain existing members.” 

Union Privilege programs continue to 
assist union members across the nation 
with such needs as home-buying, life 
insurance, loans, prescription drugs and 
travel, among others. 

Born as a result of a resolution at the 


1985 AFL-CIO convention, Union 
Privilege uses the buying power of 
nearly 14 million union members to the 
benefit of all. 

One of the most popular programs is 
the Union MasterCard. Since August 
1986, more than 2 million cards have 
been issued, with an estimated $250 
million in savings passed on to custom- 
ers via lower interest rates and no an- 
nual fee. 

The rate on the credit card has 
dropped for four consecutive quarters, 
and now is at 13 percent — one of the 
lowest in the nation. Because the rate 
is tied to the prime rate, the interest rate 
drops as the prime drops. Union Privi- 
lege projects the interest rate may drop 
to 12.5 percent in January, given the 
current economic climate. 

The national average finance charge 
is 19 percent. The Senate endorsed 
legislation Nov. 13 that would cap 


credit card interest rates at 14 percent 
as lawmakers said consumers were be- 
ing gouged by card rates. 

Union Privilege began the mortgage 
program in May. In its first six months, 
union members have placed more than 
60,000 calls to the mortgage company 
handling the program and have obtained 
more than $100 million in mortgages. 

The program also features competi- 
tive interest rates, flexible approval 
rules, down payments as low as 5 per- 
cent for other than first-time buyers, 
ways to reduce closing costs and the 
convenience of telephone applications. 

In addition, such union-specific 
benefits as financial help in the event 
of a strike, unemployment or disability 
are included in the mortgage plan. 

To apply or to talk with an expert 
mortgage consultant, union members 
may call 1-800/848-6466 Monday 
through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST. 


Home owners 
help celebrate 
Union Privilege 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 
Detroit 

U nion members with new homes at- 
tended the AFL-CIO convention to 
help celebrate the success of the Union 
Member Mortgage program — one of 
the newest Union Privilege benefits. 

They were the first to buy homes 
through the first-time home buyers 
Union Member Mortgage program, 
which includes a 3 percent down 
payment. 

Sheila Williams, 32, a Cincinnati 
drugstore cashier and a member of 
Food and Commercial Workers Local 
1099, and her husband, David, a com- 
puter programmer, had spent four years 
looking at houses, and saved for their 
down payment for more than 16 
months. 

Thanks to Union Privilege, the 
Williams family, including daughters 
Brittainy and Cleo, is now enjoying a 
two-story colonial with a two-car 
garage in Forest Park, a suburb of 
Cincinnati. 

A1 McClanahan, 50, president of In- 
diana Local 18 of the Bricklayers and 
Allied Craftsmen, purchased his dream 
house on a lake in Plymouth, Ind. , with 
the help of Union Member Mortgage. 
McClanahan — an avid angler who 
hopes to retire in 12 years — says the 
Union Privilege program allowed him 
to afford the up-front payment for his 
own home. 

The Williamses and McClanahan 
were introduced to the convention dur- 
ing the Tuesday morning session. Vice 
President William Wynn presented 
Sheila Williams with the American 
Dream Award in recognition of her use 
of the Union Privilege program, while 
Vice President Jack Joyce presented the 
award to McClanahan. 

The Union Member Mortgage pro- 
gram offers the down payment money 



Democratic candidates 
address labor concerns 

Six Democratic presidential candidates 
promised to reverse anti-worker 
policies of the Reagan-Bush administra- 
tions as AFL-CIO delegates approved 
a presidential endorsement process. 



AFL-CIO reaffirms push 
for major OSHA reform 

The goal of a safe workplace is still an 
unfulfilled promise, delegates declare as 
they vow an all-out push for congres- 
sional action on comprehensive OSHA 
reform. 




Congress gathers votes 
on family leave hill 

In an effort to better its chances to over- 
ride a presidential veto, Congress will 
wait until next year to resolve dif- 
ferences in the two versions of the 
Family and Medical Leave Act. 




Labor-black coalition 
beats ex-Klansman Duke 

An unprecedented coalition of labor, 
blacks, business, educators and women 
propelled ex-Louisiana governor Edwin 
Edwards to a resounding victory over 
David Duke’s race-baiting campaign. 



4 Replaced ’ heroes 
electrify convention 

“Permanently replaced” workers 
marched proudly, heads held high, as 
they were hailed by the AFL-CIO con- 
vention as heroes and heroines in the 
battle for workplace fairness. 



Sick economy prompts 
call for action now 

As the impact of the Bush recession 
spreads, the AFL-CIO convention 
called on the president and Congress to 
take quick steps to get the country back 
on the right economic track. 



The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published .very two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $ 1 0 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Stree*. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 

11 / 25/91 


to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 






VOLUME 36, NUMBER 26 


DECEMBER 16, 1991 



By James B. Parks 

T he UAW scored a major organizing 
win in the right-to-work state of Ten- 
nessee, picking up about 3,000 new 
members at the Murray Ohio Manufac- 
turing plant in Lawrenceburg by a re- 
sounding 1,621-1,029 vote. 

Meanwhile, adding to the sweet taste 
of victory in Tennessee, the Bakery, 
Confectionery and Tobacco Workers 
won a close vote at Eagle Snacks in 
Fayetteville. 

The UAW’s win on Nov. 27 was the 
second large vote in the state this year. 
About 1,000 workers at Baird Ward/ 
Areata Graphics voted for the Graphic 
Communications Union in April. 


This was the sixth attempt to organize 
the Murray plant since it moved from 
Cleveland in 1956. The lawn mower 
and bicycle manufacturer has been 
owned by Tomkins PLC, a British firm, 
since 1988. 

Tomkins gave workers “a thousand 
reasons to join the union,” said UAW 
organizer Chuck McDonald. One of the 
strongest issues for the UAW was the 
two-tiered wage and benefit system im- 
posed on the workers last fall. 

The company established a “plant 
within a plant” in its push-mower divi- 
sion, hiring up to 400 workers at wages 
ranging from $5 to $6.50 an hour. 
Other Murray workers made $9.52. 


The company had threatened to move 
that operation out of Lawrenceburg if 
the workers did not approve the plan. 

“The big thing is that employees have 
lost confidence in their employer and 
the future and destiny of the company,” 
McDonald said. 

The vote is a part of an upward trend 
in organizing in the South, said Doug 
Niehouse, Tennessee organizing coor- 
dinator for the AFL-CIO’s Industrial 
Union Department. 

“People are only going to take so 
much,” he said. “Companies come to 
the South and think they’re talking 
about southern workers who are will- 
ing to do anything the company wants, 


and the workers get angry. They don’t 
want to be treated that way.” 

More and more workers throughout 
the South are interested in unions, 
Niehouse said. “Because of the 
economy, the level of interest is much 
higher.” 

“The area where we’re focusing is 
the South,” said Vincent O’Brien of the 
AFL-CIO’s Organization and Field Ser- 
vices Department. “We’re finding in- 
terest in unions rise, when you’re in the 
kind of economic freefall we’re in, 
where pink slips are a fact of life.” 
The BCT, in its first victory at an 
Eagle Snacks plant, won the right to 
Continued on Page 16 


Rainfair pact 
regains jobs, 
adds benefits 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Shoppers get an education in how child labor in China sumer allies leaflet outside a store in Tyson's Corner, 
is used to manufacture toys as Frontlash and its con- Va., as part of the Toycott campaign. See story, Page 2. 


Pan Am is latest victim of deregulation 


By Candice Johnson 

P an American World Airways be- 
came the third major airline to fold 
this year, stranding nearly 8,000 
workers and ending more than 60 years 
of flying. 

The carrier, which sought federal 
bankruptcy protection in January, failed 
when Delta Airlines declined to make 
a final $15 million installment of a $140 
million payment. Eastern and Midway 
airlines closed their doors earlier this 
year and Continental and American 
West remain in federal bankruptcy 
court. 

Capt. J. Randolph Babbitt, president 
of the Air Line Pilots, blamed the 


federal government’s hands-off policies 
for the continuing erosion of the avia- 
tion industry. He called for an end to 
the policy of “economics by bankrupt- 
cy,” stressing that the nation was “in 
desperate need of a national transporta- 
tion policy that will protect and nurture 
our transportation system.” 

A public opinion poll released by the 
AFL-CIO Transportation Trades De- 
partment backed that conclusion, find- 
ing that a clear majority of Americans 
“believe they have been ill served by 
airline deregulation and would support 
stronger federal regulations with respect 
to airline safety, service and route 
authority.” 


Delta had agreed, as part of a re- 
organization plan, to provide Pan Am 
with $140 million to keep it flying 
routes mostly in Latin America. But 
Delta, which acquired Pan Am’s East 
coast shuttle operation and European 
routes, told the bankruptcy court it did 
not wish to make the additional $15 
million payment. 

Still up in the air is distribution of 
severance benefit payments for Pan 
Am’s union workers, which must be 
determined by the bankruptcy court. 

Teamsters airline director Marvin 
Griswald said Delta’s action was “un- 
conscionable” because the unions were 
Continued on Page 13 


ILGWU members 
end 6-month strike 

Racine, Wis. 

A six-month strike at Rainfair Inc. 

ended in victory for 136 union 
members who the company said had 
been “permanently replaced.” 

As part of the contract settlement, 
ratified by a nearly 4-1 margin, 
members of Ladies’ Garment Workers 
Local 187 will reclaim their jobs, pick- 
ing up a wage increase and some pro- 
tection against company efforts to shift 
a growing percentage of health costs to 
workers. 

Most union workers will return to 
work by Dec. 20, on the basis of 
seniority, and Rainfair will run two six- 
hour shifts for about six months. Any 
work transferred to the company’s 
South Dakota facility will be returned 
to Racine, the union said. The new, six- 
hour arrangement is also offered to 
replacement workers under the agree- 
ment. 

The strike, which included a 35-day 
fast by several workers that was 
publicized nationally, generated an out- 
pouring of support from within the 
labor movement and from community 
and religious groups. 

Health care costs and low wages were 
the key issues as contract talks opened 
last spring. Management initially 
demanded that workers pay 40 percent 
of health care premiums — about $152 
a month for family coverage — and in- 
sisted that workers be locked into a 
minimum percentage of health care 
costs they would pay. 

But Rainfair workers were earning, 
on average, about $6.60 an hour, with 
nearly a third of the mostly female and 
Continued on Page 4 


UAW gains 3,000, BCT also wins in Tennessee 





Toycott tells shoppers 
of child labor in China 


Replaced workers cheered by toys and turkeys campaign 


By Colleen M. O’Neill 

H oliday shoppers in cities around the 
country are getting educated about 
child labor in China, thanks to the 
“Toycott” campaign organized by 
Frontlash, the AFL-CIO’s youth arm. 

Joining forces with the National Con- 
sumers League and other groups, 
Frontlash kicked off the campaign at a 
Nov. 25 news conference, then fanned 
out to shopping malls around the coun- 
try to leaflet toy buyers beginning on 
Nov. 29, the day after Thanksgiving 
and traditionally the biggest shopping 
day of the season. 

On succeeding weekends, the groups 
have continued to call attention to the 
use of child labor in China. 

“Toys made for children shouldn’t be 
made by children,” said Linda F. 
Golodner, executive director of the 
NCL, at the news conference. She 
detailed the horrors of Chinese sweat- 
shops, where children as young as 10 
often work 14 or more hours a day, six 
days a week, earning $10 to $15 per 
month. As the holidays near, 24-hour 
shifts are not uncommon. 

Some of the toys Frontlash displays 
carry U.S. flags and strongly patriotic 
“American” messages — all prepared 
in China. 

Frontlash, the NCL and other sup- 
porters leafletted Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 
7-8 in front of toy stores in San Fran- 
cisco; Tysons Corner, Va.; Langley 
Park, Md.; Miami; South Bend and In- 
dianapolis, Ind.; Boston; New York 
City; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and 
Knoxville, Tenn. 


The focus of this third annual “Toy- 
cott” is to tell consumers “if it’s made 
in China, don’t buy it,” said 
Frontlash’s Cheryl Graeve. 

Toys are China’s second-largest ex- 
port, after textiles. According to the 
Toy Manufacturers of America, more 
than $1.6 billion worth of toys comes 
into the United States from China. 

Golodner pointed out that 55 percent 
of doll imports — Garfields, Snoopy s, 
Barbie Dolls and Teenage Mutant Ninja 
Turtles, among others — come from 
China, as well as 40 percent of other 
such toys as puzzles, games, cars and 
trucks. 

“It is through Mickey Mouse and 
Ninja Turtles left on the shelf this 
season that we will tell Beijing ‘no 
more,’” Graeve said. “We will not 
enable them through our dollars to 
repress their people.” 

“Toycott is important. Toycott will 
help deliver a powerful message to the 
old men who rule in China: Repression 
will not work,” said Shen Tong, a 
Boston University graduate student who 
is chairman of the Democracy for China 
Fund. 

In a letter to the AFL-CIO’s Food and 
Allied Service Trades Department, 
1990 George Meany Human Rights 
Award winner Fang Lizhi called the 
Toycott a “concrete step for liberty, 
democracy and respect for human life. ’ ’ 

“Toys remind us of the joy and in- 
nocence of children at play,” Fang 
said. “The children of the world are our 
future, and this future must be one in 
which human rights are respected for ' 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

A young shopper in Tyson's Corner, Va., reads Toycott leaflet. 


all, regardless of religious or political 
beliefs.” 

Chinese officials denounced the 
Toycott, and one told a Miami Herald 
reporter the child-labor allegations were 
“totally unfounded.” However, news 


of the Toycott led to a drop in toy 
manufacturers’ stock on the Hong Kong 
exchange. 

Many of the Chinese-made toys ex- 
ported to the United States are suplied 
by Hong Kong-based companies. 


By Muriel H. Cooper 

'Tis the season when family expecta- 
I tions — particularly those of 
children — are high, even though jobs 
may be scarce. For the families of 
workers who have been “permanently 
replaced,” it can be a season for pain 
and disillusionment. 

To ease that pain, the AFL-CIO is 
spreading a bit of holiday cheer with 
assistance for nearly 1,000 workers 
who have been “permanently re- 
placed” or are currently on strike — 
breadwinners who stood up for their 
health and pension benefits and now 
find themselves out of a job. 

The federation’s Community Serv- 
ices Department, through its National 
Holiday Family Solidarity Project, is 
providing toys and turkeys for families 
in more than a dozen cities, said Chris 
Marston, the department’s assistant 
director. 


“In other cases, we will provide 
vouchers that can be used at union 
grocery stores or toy stores,” he said. 
“That way, the families can pick their 
own turkeys or toys.” 

The workers, including many Amal- 
gamated Transit Union members and 
former Greyhound employees who are 
facing their second holiday season after 
being “permanently replaced,” also are 
using the holidays as an opportunity to 
demonstrate the unfairness of their 
situations. 

In Rhode Island, for example, re- 
placed strikers will present Sen. John 
H. Chafee with a holiday food basket 
as a graphic reminder of the hardships 
being faced every day by unemployed 
workers and their families. They also 
will ask the senator to support S. 55, 
the Workplace Fairness bill, which 
would ban the use of “permanent 
replacements.” 


Described as “the most important 
labor law initiative to come before Con- 
gress in more than a decade” by AFL- 
CIO President Lane Kirkland, S.55 
must have the support of at least 60 
senators to avoid a filibuster. The 
federation is continuing its effort to lob- 
by for votes with the help of communi- 
ty groups and letters from unionists. 

The Senate is expected to take up the 
legislation sometime after it reconvenes 
in January. The House passed its ver- 
sion of the bill, H.R. 5, in July. 

Other activities planned this holiday 
season include: 

• A mass rally by ATU strikers at 
New York’s Port Authority, followed 
by the distribution of toys and turkeys 
to at least 150 strikers. 

• Milwaukee’s Central Labor 
Council is working with the United 
Way to provide assistance to ATU 
families and Ladies’ Garment Workers 


members at Rainfair, where a recent 
contract settlement has left workers try- 
ing to catch up after a six-month strike. 

• In Ravenswood, W.Va., Steel- 
workers locked out and “permanently 
replaced” by Ravenswood Aluminum 
Corp. are benefiting from the generosi- 
ty of many others, including workers at 
the New York Daily News, former vic- 
tims of the “permanent replacements” 
phenomenon. 

The newspaper has “adopted” more 
than 700 RAC kids for Christmas, and 
will provide toys and clothes for the 
youngsters. It is one of many outreach 
programs to benefit the workers in the 
small West Virginia town. 

“USW District 23 is providing 
Christmas donations and moral sup- 
port,” said USWA Local 5668 Presi- 
dent Dan Stidham. “The Kentucky 
AFL-CIO and District 30 also are pro- 
viding assistance.” 



Director of Information: Rex Hardesty 

Editor: Michael Byrne 

News Editor: John R. Oravec 

Assistant Editors: Candice Johnson, 

James B. Parks 

Staff Writers: Muriel H. Cooper, Mike Hall, 
Colleen M. O’Neill, Sharolyn A. Rosier 

Graphics /layout: Stan Hitt 


AFL-CIO Headquarters: 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 
Telephone: (202) 637-5010 


Vol. 36, No. 26 



MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1991 


, moa COMMUW/C, 

ATT) 

•AFi.rin/r.LC 


The AFL-CIO News (ISSN-00 1-1185) is issued every two weeks at 815 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 
The AFL-CIO does not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized to solicit 
advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


Official Publication 
of the 

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations 

Lane Kirkland, president 
Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer 

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 


Albert Shanker 
William H. Wynn 
Joyce D. Miller 
Vincent R. Sombrotto 
Marvin J. Boede 
Lynn R. Williams 
Gene Upshaw 
Jack Sheinkman 
William J. McCarthy 
John N. Sturdivant 
James J. Norton 


Edward T. Hanley 
John DeConcini 
John J. Sweeney 
Gerald W. McEntee 
Owen Bieber 
Morton Bahr 
Jay Mazur 
John J. Barry 
Moe Biller 
Richard L. Trumka 
Joaquin F. Otero 


Angelo Fosco 
Wayne E. Glenn 
James E. Hatfield 
William H. By water 
John T. Joyce 
Robert A. Georgine 
Lenore Miller 
Sigurd Lucassen 
George J. Kourpias 
Frank Hanley 
Michael Sacco 







iegislot 



Congress approves jobs-creating highway bill 


Panels stay over 
to study economy 


By Mike Hall 

J ust hours before adjourning for the 
holiday season, Congress passed a 
$151 billion highway and mass transit 
bill that will create an estimated 2 
million jobs over the next six years. 

The legislation, which the AFL-CIO 
supported, was the only major jobs bill 
to get through Congress this year. 

During the several weeks of con- 
ference, the AFL-CIO was successful 
in its efforts to retain the funding levels 
and Davis-Bacon and labor protections 
that originally were in the House bill but 
were missing from the Senate version. 

The bill also gave unions a voice in 
the Metropolitan Planning Organiza- 
tions, which will play a major role in 
distributing the funds for highway and 
transit projects. 

The margins of victory — 372-47 in 
the House and 79-8 in the Senate — 
forced the White House to back down 
from earlier veto threats. President 
Bush pledged to sign the legislation and 
cited the need to stimulate the econ- 
omy — even though the bill differed lit- 
tle from the version he said he would 
veto months before. 

“This bill will be the centerpiece of 
our domestic agenda for years to 
come . . . for jobs, for the economy and 
for our future competitiveness in the 
global economy,” said Rep. Robert 
Roe (D-N.J.), chairman of the Public 
Works and Transportation Committee. 
“With this vote we are rebuilding 
America.” 

The bill authorizes $119 billion for 
highway construction and repairs and 
$31.5 billion for mass transit construc- 
tion and expansion. Those funds include 
$7.1 billion for completion of the in- 
terstate highway system and $24 billion 
for a flexible surface transportation fund 
that state and local officials can use for 
transit needs, if necessary. 

There is $16 billion to replace and 
repair the nation’s bridges and $9.2 
billion for new transit starts and rail 
modernization projects. The legislation 


Bill Burke/Page One Photography 

Machinists President George Kourpias talks with Rep. Leon Committee, before testifying on economic issues. At 
E. Panetta (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Budget center is Rudy Oswald, AFL-CIO chief economist. 


also prevents the expanded use of triple 
trailer trucks. 

In other last minute action, the AFL- 
CIO ’s effort to protect pension plan 
deposits in banks paid off when “pass- 
through” insurance was maintained in 
a slimmed-down version of the bank- 
ing reform bill, S. 543, approved on the 
last day of the session. The provision 
provides up to $100,000 in insurance 
per beneficiary in a pension plan when 
those plan’s assets are deposited in a 
bank. 

The House and Senate also extended 
for six months two AFL-CIO-backed 
employee tax exemptions for employer- 
provided education expenses and pre- 
paid legal services. 

While Congress will not begin its sec- 
ond session until late January, several 


House and Senate committees remained 
in Washington to conduct hearings on 
ways to repair the nation’s economy. 

Testifying for the AFL-CIO, 
Machinists President George J. Kour- 
pias told the House Budget Committee 
that the nation has lost almost 1.7 
million manufacturing jobs during the 
Reagan-Bush years. 

Currently some 16 million Americans 
are unemployed or underemployed, 
most without unemployment benefits, 
Kourpias said, adding that those who 
find jobs usually find lower paying jobs 
with little or no health care. 

“We are losing our manufacturing 
base,” he said, as the United States 
goes from being the world’s largest 
creditor nation to becoming the world’s 
largest debtor nation. 


“These problems won’t be solved by 
a cheery State of the Union address, or 
more trickle-down economics, or tax 
cuts for the rich,” Kourpias said. If 
Congress reduces taxes to stimulate the 
economy, the cuts should be for mid- 
dle income Americans, he said. 

Kourpias called for a national com- 
mitment to solve the nation’s economic 
problems, “the same type of initiative 
we had when we developed the Mar- 
shall plan for Europe . . . The nature of 
this recession dictates that we cannot 
wait any long for recovery to happen 
by and of itself,” he said. 

The wealthiest 1 percent of Amer- 
icans should pay more because they 
“reaped huge benefits from earlier tax 
cuts — cuts that added more than $1 
trillion to the national debt,” he said. 


Labor presses for full coverage of new civil rights bill 


By James B. Parks 

H aving fought for passage of the Civil 
Rights Act of 1991, the AFL-CIO 
and its civil rights allies are working on 
many fronts to ensure the law is fairly 
and fully enforced. 

A primary concern, disputed by fed- 
eral officials and the courts, is whether 
the act applies to discrimination cases 
that were pending when the bill was 
signed. 

The bill clarifies the nation’s civil 
rights laws after several Supreme Court 
rulings made it more difficult for vic- 
tims to prove discrimination. It shifts 
the burden of proof to employers, pro- 
vides for jury trials and for damages in 
sexual discrimination cases. 

The law was effective on the date 
•President Bush signed it — Nov. 21. 
Officials at the Equal Employment Op- 
portunity Commission and the Justice 
Department have not yet issued formal 
guidelines on implementing the bill, but 
Bush’s statement at the signing directs 


that the provisions do not apply retro- 
actively. 

At least one federal court has taken 
an opposite view. On Dec. 5, U.S, 
District Judge William T. Hart ruled 
that the pending sex discrimination case 
of a Chicago disc jockey could proceed 
under the rules set by the new law. 

“Since the language and legislative 
history of the statute do not fairly in- 
dicate that the statute is to be applied 
prospectively only, the presumption of 
retroactivity remains,” Hart said in his 
ruling. 

The bill’s co-sponsors, Sens. John 
C. Danforth (R-Mo.) and Edward M. 
Kennedy (D-Mass.) disagree on retro- 
activity. Danforth says it cannot be ap- 
plied retroactively. 

But Kennedy disagreed. “It will be 
up to the courts to determine the extent 
to which the bill will apply to cases and 
claims that are pending on the date of 
enactment,” he said. “Ordinarily, 
courts in such cases apply newly 


enacted procedures and remedies in 
pending cases.” 

The victims in one of the cases cited 
in the bill — Wards Cove vs. An- 
tonio — were not treated fairly by Con- 
gress when it exempted only that case 
from the bill’s provisions, said Katie 
Quan, interim chair of the Asian Pacific 
American Labor Alliance. 

During the AFL-CIO convention in 
Detroit, Quan said the federation is 
backing legislation introduced by Sen. 
Brock Adams (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jim 
McDermott (D-Wash.) to reverse the 
exemption. 

Wards Cove is an Alaskan cannery 
where 2,000 employees are Americans 
of Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Samoan 
and native Alaskan descent, Quan said. 
In his dissenting opinion in Wards 
Cove, Justice John Paul Stevens said 
their working conditions “bear unset- 
tling resemblance to the aspects of a 
plantation economy.” 

Congress voted the exemption, Quan 


said, because “the company spent 
$175,000 to convince Republican and 
Democratic congressmen and senators 
that the $2 million they had spent on 
legal fees was enough punishment 
already.” 

In another matter, Kennedy and Rep. 
Barbara B. Kennelly (D-Conn.) intro- 
duced AFL-CIO-supported legislation 
that would remove the limits on punitive 
and compensatory damages for victims 
of sex discrimination in the civil rights 
bill. 

The limits have come under fire since 
there are no such caps on the remedies 
available to victims of race or national 
origin discrimination. 

“There is no justification for this 
double standard,” Kennedy said. “In- 
ternational discrimination against 
women, religious minorities and dis- 
abled persons is no less reprehensible 
than intentional race or national origin 
discrimination, and our laws should not 
perpetuate this injustice,” he said. 








Nevada AFL-CIO photo 


The Nevada AFL-QO, the Northern Nevada Building and Con- Reno Balloon Race recently. The sign was painted by 
struction Trades Council and a host of union workers gave Dorothy Hoffman of Stage Employees Local 363 and the 
"Union Yes" a high ride with labor's entry in the Great balloon was piloted by Cindy LaVan of UAW Local 2162. 


Survey faults OSHA enforcement 


Testimony bolsters 
reform campaign 

By Colleen M. O’Neill 

T he Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration imposed penalties for 
only 32.4 percent of citations issued 
against the 50 largest companies, a 
14-year survey reveals. 

The study, conducted by the Wash- 
ington-based public interest group 
Essential Information and released Dec. 
10, provides further evidence of the 
need for reform of the nation’s 
workplace safety laws. The AFL-CIO 
is urging passage of S. 1622 and H.R. 
3160, legislation that would overhaul 
the 20-year-old Occupational Safety and 
Health Act. 

According to the report, the 50 
largest 1990 Fortune 500 corporations 
were required to pay only 53.1 percent 
of penalties initially imposed by the 
federal OSHA. The report said federal 
OSHA issued 17,318 citations and 
5,605 penalties and imposed $3.8 mil- 
lion in penalties against the surveyed 
corporations from 1977 to 1990. 

“OSHA has more bark than bite,” 
said Jim Donahue, author of the report 
that reviewed enforcement documents 
from 1977 to 1990. The government’s 
hesitancy to impose violations “is con- 
tributing to the injury and killing.” 
Among the workers of those 50 com- 
panies, an average of 6.8 were killed 
or injured each month during the 
14-year period, OSHA records show. 


That average is consistent with the 
annual figures on occupational injury 
and illness, which were released by the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics Nov. 19. The 
BLS reported that 2,900 workers lost 
their lives on the job during 1990, and 
6.8 million workers suffered job in- 
juries and illnesses. 

“The simple fact is more workers 
were injured and became ill from 
workplace hazards in 1990 than at any 
other time in the past decade — and that 
makes a strong case for passage of the 
OSHA reform legislation now before 
Congress,” said Peg Seminario, AFL- 
CIO director of occupational safety and 
health. 

Petrochemical industry workers have 
suffered greatly from weakened OSHA 
standards and enforcement — and 
families affected by the workplace woes 
provided emotional testimony of that 
deficit at a Senate hearing Nov. 5. Two 
widows said that if the current OSHA 
reform legislation had been in place, 
their husbands might not have died in 
industrial accidents. 

Bert Arce was killed in an October 
1989 blast at Phillips Petroleum’s 
petrochemical plant in Pasadena, Texas, 
along with 22 fellow workers. The ex- 
plosion was caused by contract workers 
doing a job Phillips workers considered 
unsafe. 

After the blast, “I told our daughters, 
who were just 3 then, that there had 
been a big accident where their daddy 
worked, and that I was pretty sure he 
wasn’t coming home,” Carol Arce told 


lawmakers. She also worked at the 
plant. “It was two days before the com- 
pany called to tell me Bert was missing. 

“Since I left the plant that day, I 
haven’t gone back to work there. ... On 
that October afternoon, I lost my hus- 
band, my career and my identity. My 
daughters haven’t gotten over it either. 
They are terrified that one day I won’t 
come home, just like their daddy.” 
Bonnie Skala’s husband worked for 
Monfort in Grand Island, Neb., and 
was crushed to death in machinery he 
was repairing — machinery that had 
been stripped of safeguards. 

“My husband’s company was con- 
cerned with speeding up the production 
process as much as possible,” she said. 
“That speeding-up process helped kill 
my husband. If companies remove 
guards, barriers and other safety 
measures from machinery, how can 
there be any assurance that the workers 
operating that machinery will be safe?” 
The House Committee on Labor and 
Education, in a report released Dec. 4, 
said even the simplest of safety stan- 
dards was ignored at the Imperial Foods 
Products plant in Hamlet, N.C. 

“Our investigation shows a complete 
lack of enforcement of even the most 
elementary fire safety standards,” said 
Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), the 
chairman of the committee. 

The report cited the company’s em- 
phasis on production and profits at the 
chicken processing plant, at the expense 
of safety measures, as contributing to 
the 25 worker deaths. 


Strike gets 

community 

support 

Continued from Page 1 

Hispanic work force earning less than 
$5 an hour. 

After voting to strike on June 20, the 
ILGWU members received letters from 
company management that permanent 
replacements were being hired. The 
campaign against permanent replace- 
ment became another major battle. 

Rainfair workers spent more than five 
months on the picket line and leaflet- 
ting throughout the community to win 
the new agreement. 

The 32-month settlement provides a 
20-cent wage increase in each of three 
contract years and a limited employee 
co-payment toward health insurance 
coverage. 

Other benefits include a 401(k) plan 
and a review of all job rates by the 
ILGWU ’s engineers. 

ILGWU President Jay Mazur called 
the Rainfair victory a tribute to solidar- 
ity within the labor movement. 

“The extraordinary cooperation of 
unions, including the construction 
trades and chemical workers, and par- 
ticularly the uniformed services — fire 
fighters and letter carriers — was very 
helpful,” he said. 

The fire fighters and letter carriers 
are primary consumers of Rainfair pro- 
tective gear. Mazur stressed that the 
AFL-CIO-endorsed boycott of Rainfair 
protective gear “made a big dif- 
ference” in gaining a settlement that 
returned all the strikers to work. 

During the strike, six people — five 
Rainfair workers and the husband of 
one — began a fast to draw attention to 
the workers’ fight for justice. Among 
them were Bernice Wilson and Norma 
and Ramon Vela, who met with report- 
ers during the AFL-CIO convention in 
Detroit and with representatives of 
women’s and consumer groups. 

Norma and husband Ramon fasted 
for 35 days, undertaking the sacrifice 
because “the strike seemed to be linger- 
ing and we felt that maybe by doing 
something extravagant, we could get the 
ball rolling.” 

When the settlement was reached, the 
Velas ended their fast with some broth 
and a little white rice. “We had seen 
how the other hunger strikers had trou- 
ble eating following their fast, and we 
learned from them” and from Farm 
Workers President Cesar Chavez, who 
met with the hunger strikers in October. 

The hunger strikers also were joined 
in limited fasts by members of the 
clergy in Racine, a local choir and other 
community supporters and found their 
way into “the community heart,” 
Wilson said. 


Unions welcome new standard on blood-borne diseases 


M ore than five years after organized 
labor called for action, the Occupa- 
tional Safety and Health Administration 
finally has issued its blood-borne 
disease standard. 

The rules, which take effect in early 
March, seek to protect workers from in- 
fection by the AIDS, hepatitis or other 
viruses by limiting exposure of health 
care workers, public employees and 
others to blood and “other potentially 
infectious materials,” according to 
OSHA. 

Affected by the standard, which calls 
for universal precautions treating all 
bodily fluids as potentially infectious, 
are private physicians’ and dentists’ of- 
fices, mental health facilities, correc- 


tions institutions, hospitals, clinics, 
HMOs and blood banks, among others. 

OSHA pointed out that “other occu- 
pations where exposures might occur 
include, but are not limited to, funeral 
services, linen services, medical equip- 
ment repair, emergency responders . . . 
and law enforcement.” 

The standard was issued Dec. 2, in 
compliance with congressional legisla- 
tion setting a Dec. 1 deadline for OSHA 
action. It marks the first time OSHA has 
designated an infectious disease as a 
health and safety hazard. 

“We welcome this standard on 
blood-borne diseases — although it was 
too long in coming, we’re glad to see 
it here now,” said Peg Seminario, 


AFL-CIO director of safety and health. 
“We look to OSHA now to vigorously 
enforce the standard, to do the utmost 
to protect American workers.” 

The standard calls for extensive 
worker training; the use of gloves, 
masks and gowns in situations of poten- 
tial exposure; safe disposal of needles 
to minimize accidental needle sticks; 
free vaccinations against hepatitis-B for 
workers; proper cleaning of equipment; 
and safe storage and disposal of poten- 
tially infectious wastes. 

The measure also requires employers 
to develop exposure control plans and 
identify workers who might be at risk. 

“This is a sane, effective approach 
to countering the hysteria created by 


the Helms amendments,” said John J. 
Sweeney, president of the Service 
Employees. 

Those amendments sought to subject 
AIDS-infected health care workers to 
punishment for failing to disclose that 
information to patients. While the new 
OSHA rule is designed to protect work- 
ers, OSHA Administrator Gerard F. 
Scanned acknowledged that it might 
provide additional protection from the 
spread of viruses for patients as well. 

“It’s about time,” said Gerald W. 
McEntee, president of AFSCME. “At 
long last, health care workers and 
others exposed to blood-borne patho- 
gens . . . will receive the protection they 
deserve.” 





AFL-CIO 19th Constitutional Convention > Detroit : Michigan 


© 1991 by the AFL-CIO. This transcript of the 
AFL-CIO candidates forum constitutes an in- 
ternal communication of the AFL-CIO and its 
affiliated unions solely to members of those 
unions and their families. 



T he convention was called to order Tuesday after- 
noon, Nov. 12, at 2:30 p.m., AFL-CIO President 
Lane Kirkland presiding. 

KIRKLAND: This afternoon the convention will 
hold a candidates’ forum. Six announced Democratic 
presidential candidates have accepted our invitation 
to participate. This forum will be moderated by Paul 
Duke, the senior correspondent for public television 
in Washington and the moderator of the television 
program “Washington Week in Review.” Brother 
Duke. Welcome, Paul. 

As I mentioned this morning, I hope and trust that 
there will be no demonstrations. Once the forum 
starts, delegates are requested to hold their applause 
until closing statements are completed. That is in the 
interest of both time and fairness. 

Please remain seated at the conclusion of the forum. 
There will be the usual convention announcements 
thereafter. One half hour after the close of this after- 
noon’s session, a reception for the delegates, the can- 
didates, and their guests will be held in the foyer just 
outside this hall. Paul, the deck is yours. 

MODERATOR DUKE: Thanks very much, 
Lane. And for all of you, welcome to 1992 Live, right 
here in Detroit, because this is the first of the 
presidential debates that will feature all of the an- 
nounced candidates thus far for the Democratic 
nomination. 

Let me tell you that this forum is governed by some 
certain basic rules, and let me just outline those for 
you. Each candidate will make a three-minute open- 
ing statement of his choosing. Then, there will be a 
question-and-answer period in which the moderator 
will be the chief interrogator. As a matter of fact, 
the moderator will be the only interrogator. 

I will ask a candidate a direct question. That candi- 
date will have one minute in which to respond. Then, 
each candidate will have one minute to react to or 
to comment on the direct question or the comment 
or the response of the others. 

Once all the candidates have answered, I then will 
have the option of asking a follow-up question to one 
of the candidates, if I so choose; and that candidate, 
then, will have one minute to answer. 

If a candidate is strongly attacked — and we know 
that never happens in politics — but if it happens to 
occur, then I will offer the candidate who is attacked 


the chance to rebut before asking another direct ques- 
tion. But the rebuttal is going to be limited to 30 
seconds, and we have some lights here on the stage, 
and we hope to keep that under control. 

At the end of the forum, each candidate will have 
two minutes to make a closing statement. 

Now, the participants today, one of whom, ob- 
viously, hopes to lead the country starting in 1993, 
are Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska; Governor Bill 
Clinton of Arkansas; former Governor Jerry Brown 
of California; Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia; 
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa; and former Senator 
Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. 

We held lotteries to determine the order of the open 
and closing statements, and it so happens that Senator 
Kerrey won the part for the opening statement. And 
now I think the candidates are indeed supposed to 
come out on the stage. (Applause) 

DUKE: All six are present and accounted for and 
miked up. I think we can now begin. Senator Kerrey, 
the floor is yours. 

KERREY: The 1991 presidential campaign is 
about change, fundamental change. An increasing 
number of Americans are beginning to believe that 
it is possible and are beginning to believe that it is 
desirable to change the president of the United States 
of America. 

In part, this is because the president of the United 
States just doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a 
life-and-death struggle going on in America today for 
working Americans who are facing decreasing in- 
come, caught in a squeeze of lower income and rising 
costs for health care, for housing and for education. 

The president, rather than looking out at America 
and seeing flesh and blood, appears to look only 
through the lens of a pollster. He appears to act very 
much like the character in Mel Brooks’ movie, 
History of the Earth, Part One, where as the King 
of France — his aide comes and says, “The people 
are revolting.” And the King of France says, “I’ll 
say they are.” 

That’s the way George Bush is acting toward the 
people of the United States of America. He stands 
in the Rose Garden of the White House and says no 
to parental leave, no to increases in minimum wage, 
no to extended unemployment benefits, no to giving 
strikers the right to come back on the job after they’ve 


settled their dispute, no to a woman’s right to choose, 
no to civil rights. 

Increasingly, I believe Americans are growing dis- 
trustful of that kind of leadership and, increasingly 
as a result, are saying it’s time for a change in 1992. 

But if we are to have economic renewal in 
America, I believe we’ll have to change much more 
than just the presidency. We need to change the way 
the government itself is organized so as not only to 
be more efficient, but more effective in solving the 
problems an increasing number of Americans face. 
We need fundamental change in the way we finance 
health care so that health care is established as a right 
and an environment in which we can control the cost. 
We need fundamental change in the way we educate 
our children so not only do we have a sense that we’re 
increasing performance but a new partnership be- 
tween the federal government and local school 
districts. 

We need a change not only in the way we apply 
technology but the way we train people to handle that 
technology so that their job skills can increase and 
their standards of living can as well. 

In 1992, most particularly, we need a change of 
values so that we begin to care more about posterity 
than we do about popularity, more about the next 
generation than we do about the next election; and 
that’s why I’m running for the president of the United 
States of America. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: For eleven years I have been privileg- 
ed to serve as the governor of a state that is small 
enough for me to know by name the people who have 
suffered in the Reagan-Bush revolution. I have seen 
middle-class families work longer hours, spend less 
time with their children to bring home smaller 
paychecks to pay more for health care, housing, 
education and taxes. 

I have watched two administrations now glorify 
wealth and power over work and productivity and 
family; glorify the fast buck over the long haul. It 
is apparent to me that the central question in this elec- 
tion is whether we will change our national leadership 
to recover our economic leadership, restore the 
forgotten middle class and reclaim the future for our 
children. 

If you vote for me, you’ll get someone committed 


Participating in the AFL-CIO candidates forum are (from left): Nebraska Sen. 
Robert Kerrey, Arkansas Gov. William Clinton, former California Gov. Edmund 


Steve Yarmola/ AFL-CIO News 

G. "Jerry" Brown, moderator Paul Duke, Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, 
Iowa Sen. Thomas Harkin and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas. 




to just that, someone whose economic policies will 
be determined by one simple question: What does it 
take to compete and win in the global economy? The 
answer to that will determine my trade policy, my 
tax policy, my investment policies. 

I know we need a tough and fair trade policy, and 
we need to meet our competitors on the field of 
economic battle. 

I know we need affordable health care for all 
Americans, or we’ll never be competitive in the 
global economy. 

I know we need a real education president, some- 
one who will fully fund Head Start, give us ap- 
prenticeships for young people who don’t want to go 
to college but don’t want to be in dead-end jobs; of- 
fer the opportunity for all Americans to finance a col- 
lege education and give every one of your members 
a chance for a lifetime of training and retraining. 

But I know the American people have to meet the 
challenge to change, too. All of them will have to 
change to seize new opportunities and assume new 
responsibilities. And I’ll challenge them all: the poor, 
to have the opportunity for more education and train- 
ing and help for their children with the challenge to 
end welfare as we know it; for students, the oppor- 
tunity to have new-found educational opportunities 
with the challenge to meet high standards. And if they 
take money from national service funds to go to col- 
lege, to pay it back with two years of service here 
at home as policemen or teachers or nurses helping 
to build America. For parents, the opportunity to have 
real family leave and favorable tax policies with the 
challenge that if they leave the home and leave their 
children for someone else to raise, they will have to 
meet the toughest possible child support enforcement. 
For workers, the opportunity for affordable health 
care, lifetime training and genuine striker replacement 
legislation. But the challenge to give us the most 
competitive workplaces in the world by changing the 
working environment and working with managers. 
I’ll challenge business that way, I’ll challenge govern- 
ment that way, and I ask you to join with me. 

We won’t always agree, but if I’m your president, 
we’ll be full partners in restoring the middle class 
and America’s greatness. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: My candidacy is not so much about me, 
it’s about you, you, and you, and all of us. Everyone 
in this room and everyone in Detroit and everyone 
who used to live in Detroit, everyone in this country, 
because there’s no one person, if we speak honestly, 
who can come to grips and handle the crisis that’s 
before us. You’ll hear proposals about health care 
and education and national service and jobs and jobs 
at good wages. 

We have to understand something. From the days 
when hundreds of thousands of people would meet 
in Cadillac Square in this city to where we are to- 
day, there’s been a profound and steady erosion of 
the power of organized labor, the power of the Demo- 
cratic Party, and in fact, the power of the people of 
this country. 

If you try to understand, and we really face it 
honestly, we find out that when you look at the power 
of those who are elected to service, you see that they 
are in the grip of the power of a fraction of this coun- 
try, from a democratic system where people had 
weight in the process, we’ve slowly turned into a 
politics where 1 percent of the population — because 
of their campaign contributions — control and 
dominate this process. And as a result of that, no mat- 
ter what speeches you may hear, when the rubber 
meets the road, people vote against you. They vote 
against you on jobs and on trade and on health 
insurance. 

For 25 years the Democratic Party has talked about 
having a national health insurance plan, but as long 
as the medical insurance complex pumps tens of mil- 
lions of dollars into the incumbent party, both 
Democrat and Republican, you’re never going to see 
a health insurance bill. And that is the essence of the 
problem. The majority of people are suffering 
because of the stranglehold, the corrupt grip of the 
few on our governing institutions. 

My candidacy is about telling the truth of that and 
challenging it. I’ve said I won’t take more than $100 
from any citizen. The reason for that is not because 
it’s easy, not because somebody gave me that idea, 
but because I can’t figure out any other way to cut 
the umbilical cord — that I have certainly long held 
onto and what every major politician in this country 
still sucks on — that umbilical cord to corrupt money 
that is undermining this country, that has undermined 
organized labor, and is eating away like a cancer at 
the Democratic Party. 

This is about wakening America. It’s about waken- 
ing you, when your people vote against you and put 


a fast track to lose jobs, to move them out of Detroit. 
I mean, 98 treaties have been passed without fast 
track. When you can’t even have the right to withhold 
your labor — what made Solidarity what it is, they 
sat in those yards in Gdansk — and unless you have 
the power in solidarity to withhold your labor, unless 
the government recognizes that, then you have no 
power. And this candidacy is about joining you in 
taking back your government. 

DUKE: Governor Wilder. 

WILDER: I’m glad to be here today and to say 
that I’m running for president because the country 
that I love and that you love has been subject to a 
hostile takeover, and that was during the Reagan/Bush 
era. Greed and prejudice have been used against us, 
the middle class pitted against the poor in order to 
divert the attention from the real culprit. The culprit 
was voodoo economics. George Bush coined that 
phrase. 

The wealthiest Americans got richer. They got the 
tax breaks. The rest of us got the tax burdens. To 
paraphrase the hit song, the rest of us got the shaft. 

A decade of code-word politics has made prejudice 
respectable again. From Willie Horton to quotas to 
David Duke, the Republicans capitalized on our fears. 
And yet, let’s be clear: they’re not the only ones to 
blame, because you and I know that after Walter 
Mondale lost the election in 1984, many Democrats 
began suggesting that the Democratic Party was too 
closely identified with minorities and labor. 



Edmund 6. "Jerry" Brown 

I told those Democrats at the time that they were 
playing into the hands of those who wanted to divide 
us. I hope they realize now they have contributed to 
the climate that we see in our country today. 

It’s time to start healing America, and we need a 
president who understands all the damage that has 
been done to our great country. We can’t entrust the 
future of our country to those in Washington or 
elsewhere who play at code- word politics, nor to 
those who saddled working America with their budget 
and economic mess. 

Sixty years ago Governor Franklin Roosevelt knew 
that unless financial and fiscal sanity was restored, 
the hopes of working America was doomed. Thirty 
years ago, John F. Kennedy knew that there could 
be no illusions when it came to fighting discrimina- 
tion. The next president must understand both of these 
lessons. 

I’m an American, born in a segregated society in 
the Depression, and I understand probably better than 
anyone running why the forces of greed and prejudice 
must be defeated. The past sacrifices and the dreams 
of working America run right through my veins. And 
I know the struggle of working men and women, and 
I know exactly how it feels to be told that you can’t 
get that job, even though you know you have the 
qualifications to get that job. 

The working people of America have the right to 
be angry. But my life has taught me this, anger 
doesn’t solve anything, it builds nothing, but it can 
destroy everything. 

And I’m running because I want to see this country 
come together. We must stop exporting our jobs, stop 
taxing the middle class, stop tolerating a health system 
that leaves more and more people unable to afford 
basic ways, and stop favoring nations that use prison 
labor, and stop sacrificing American workers for 
Washington’s mistakes. Together we can heal this na- 
tion, replace greed with equity, and replace prejudice 
with equality and replace Bush with a real Democrat. 


DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: Thank you very much. I want to thank 
Lane Kirkland and the AFL-CIO for having this 
today. 

As many of you know, I come from labor. My 
father was a coal miner most of his life. My brother 
Frank was a United Auto Worker for 23 years until 
they busted his union. So I want you to know I’m 
proud of labor and I’m proud of what labor has done 
for America. I tell you, I think it’s a darn shame that 
we have a president of the United States that can say 
all kinds of nice things about labor in every other part 
of the world, like Solidarity, but does his level best 
to destroy the free labor movement here in America. 

I want you to know as a candidate and as a president 
I won’t do that because I’m on your side. 

I’ll tell you another thing, I won’t just take your 
money and your support and treat labor like some 
illegitimate cousin. I’m not built that way. I’m built 
to stick up for working people. And that’s why I’ve 
come out with an economic program to put people 
back to work in America and give them good jobs. 

It means, first of all, getting rid of trickle-down 
economics. You know, give everything to the rich, 
hope it trickles down. You know that never works. 

Secondly, it means investing our wealth here in 
America, building roads and highways and bridges 
and mass transit and sewer and water and energy and 
communication systems. And I mean to do it with 
American steel and American products and American 
labor here in our own country. 

It means investing in early childhood education and 
Head Start. It means a national health insurance pro- 
gram for all. It also means that we’ve got to stop sub- 
sidizing the defense of Europe and Japan to the tune 
of $160 billion a year and make them start paying 
their own tab. 

And it also means getting tough on trade and quit 
exporting our jobs. I want you to know I’m the only 
candidate for president that voted against sending 
your jobs to Mexico on a fast track, and I’m proud 
of it. 

I want to say something else too. I consider public 
service to be vital to a free democratic government, 
and in the Harkin administration, we won’t make 
public service a whipping boy. I’ll stick up for our 
public employees; I won’t stick it to them. 

Lastly, let me say old George Bush, he was over 
in Rome a couple weeks ago, he said there wasn’t 
a recession over there, meaning here, our country. 
Old George Herbert Walker Bush can’t get it right. 
Born on third base, he thinks he hit a triple. 

There are some who say I shouldn’t be bashing 
Bush. Well, I’ve got this to say: if not us, who; if 
not now, when? And I intend to hold his feet to the 
fire and make him accountable for what he’s doing 
to America. And I’m telling you all, this is a tough 
message, the tough message of Franklin Roosevelt 
and Harry Truman and John Kennedy and, yes, Har- 
ris Wofford, that I’m taking to the American people. 

DUKE: Time’s up. 

HARKIN: It is a message of courage and convic- 
tion, and with that message I’m going to win the 
nomination. And with that tough message and your 
help, I’m going to whip George Bush. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: Thank you very much. I began my 
campaign eight months ago. I was not a politician in 
Washington looking at the polls. I was a private 
citizen back home watching George Bush take this 
country over the economic cliff. I’m not in govern- 
ment. I left government seven years ago. 

The basic reality we face in this country is very 
simple. The cold war is over. Japan won and Ger- 
many won and Taiwan won and Switzerland won. 

Why did they win? Because they know what they’re 
doing. They have an economic battle plan. If you’re 
a steelworker in the United States, you know that we 
don’t have one; and if you’re an unemployed steel- 
worker, you know it even better. If you’re an auto 
worker, you know we don’t have one. If you’re an 
unemployed auto worker, you know that even better. 

George Bush, like Ronald Reagan, has no eco- 
nomic battle plan. You know, it would be like if 
Michigan State and Ohio State had a football game 
and they announced just before the game that the 
coach of Michigan State would not be at the game. 
He’d be at a conference in Rome, but would send 
his best wishes. Then, the university would declare 
that no more game plans were allowed and that every- 
body could go on the field and do their best and good 
luck to them. That’s the Reagan-Bush economic plan. 
It’s no plan at all. 

What we have to do is say to the American people, 
enough decline. I grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. 

I suspect a lot of you have been there. You talk about 
economic decline, my home city used to be a textile 




capital, and we lost those jobs. And that’s what I grew 
up in. It wasn’t a couple-month recession. It wasn’t 
a couple years’ recession. It was a decline decade 
after decade after decade. That’s my childhood. And 
what’s happening to this country is that we’re going 
to give our children the same future. They’re right 
now beginning to hear around the country young peo- 
ple saying they’re angry because of what we’re going 
to leave them. 

We have to have an economic battle plan. Here is 
mine. There are copies out there. George Bush has 
no idea what to do, but you have to hold us account- 
able. You have to say to us, “What is your economic 
battle plan, what is your health care plan, put it on 
the table.” 

We’re going to do that and we’re going to give you 
something very good, and in January, 1993, George 
Bush can go back to Europe, live there forever. We’re 
going to turn this country around. 

The economy 

DUKE: All right. We’ve heard the opening 
statements, and I’d like to pursue this matter of 
economic battle plan, because the topic that echoes 
up and down the meeting rooms of this convention 
clearly is jobs, jobs and more jobs. And, say what 
you will, George Bush does have a program of sorts. 
He talks about economic growth and he has a pro- 
gram to reduce the tax on capital gains, which he 
thinks would stimulate the economy. 

So what I would like to do is to put this question 
to you now, Governor Brown: Specifically, how 
would you get the economy moving again and do you 
believe that we need a new dose of supply-side 
economics? 

BROWN: I think we need a new dose of what I 
would call a new capitalism. We need a dose of 
economic strategy that we don’t have. We don’t have 
a plan. You don’t have a game plan, and you don’t 
have it. And all the rhetoric aside, I’m going to get 
back to the basic issue. Unless labor has the tools, 
you’re not going to protect the gains, and even if you 
create the economic game plan, they’ll all go to Mex- 
ico anyway, or Malaysia. You’ve got to have a trade 
plan. You have to have a labor law reform. You have 
to be able to withhold your labor. 

And, then, in that context, you have to have an 
economic strategy to rebuild infrastructure, roads, 
highways, trains, the waterworks, schools. You need 
all that stuff, everything that Harkin said and every- 
thing that everyone else says. 

But you need one more thing. The incumbent 
leadership — and this can be real harsh, but it’s 
true — is bought and paid for by the very interests 
that are destroying this country and destroying you. 
And unless we challenge them, the economics are 
always going to be turned around. That’s why you 
lost on fast track. That’s why you lose on labor law 
reform. You must cut the umbilical cord to the cor- 
rupt status quo. Then, you invest, and then you peo- 
ple finally win. 

DUKE: Okay. I want to ask all of you to hold your 
comments to the questions to one minute, as was 
agreed to in the discussions beforehand. Governor 
Wilder. 

WILDER: I think that the only plan that I’ve heard 
to speak to putting money out there is my plan. I call 
it “Put America First Plan,” and it deals with 
realities. We need to stimulate the economy to pro- 
duce jobs. 

How do you do it? We’ve been borrowing from 
Social Security, borrowing from the Highway Trust 
Funds and borrowing from everybody else. My plan 
would call for $50 billion right away to be put into 
starting up our economy, right away, by cutting $25 
billion in waste, but finding $15 billion from lower- 
priority items on the budget, and $10 billion I would 
find from defense spending. That’s $50 billion auto- 
matically going right into our economy. 

I’d take $35 billion of that and give that for tax 
relief for middle-class families, tax incentives; and 
I would take $15 billion of that and give it to our 
citizens in our localities so they can fight infrastruc- 
ture needs and build educational needs and oppor- 
tunities. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: As I said before, what we need to do 
is start investing here in America, and first thing 
we’ve got to do is throw out that supply-side, trickle- 
down economics. You know, these Republicans, they 
just can’t get it right. They keep trying it. They don’t 
understand, you can’t fertilize a tree from the top 
down. They keep trying it. It doesn’t work. You’ve 
got to put it in at the bottom, let it percolate up. And 
that’s why my economics program that I outlined a 


couple, three weeks ago is what we need here in 
America, to put Americans back to work. 

I talked about building roads and bridges, high- 
ways, mass transit, automated roads, new energy sys- 
tems, communications systems. And, again, it means 
doing it with American steel, American products, 
American workers, doing it here in this country. 

People say, “Harkin, where are you going to get 
the money for that?” Well, I’m going to go to the 
American people and say: You’ve got a choice. 
We’re not a poor country. We are the richest country 
in the world. Six trillion dollars GNP, $1.3 trillion 
federal budget. We’re not broke. It’s just that all the 
money is in a few hands. That’s what’s wrong. It’s 
in a small pot. And what we’ve got to do is spread 
it around a little bit. Money is like fertilizer. It works 
the best when you spread it around a little bit. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: That’s true in politics, too. 

My plan is very simple. No country is great eco- 
nomically if it doesn’t have the best manufacturing 
base in the world. If you’re not producing auto- 
mobiles, if you’re not producing computers, if you’re 
not producing parts, if you’re not producing steel, 
if you’re not producing textiles, nothing else matters. 

My strategy is an investment strategy, two parts. 
One, invest in human capital, education and train- 
ing — we’ve talked about that — so that we have the 
best skilled workers in the world. 


The second part is to invest in your productive 
capacity, research and development, plants and equip- 
ment. 



Gov. William Clinton 


It’s like a set of dominoes. The first domino for 
our country as it is for any country is the manufac- 
turing base. If people are not working making pro- 
ducts that are high valued and that are exported, the 
rest of the economy begins to fall down; and that’s 
what is happening to this country. Manufacturing has 
to be our focus. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: I will say five things quickly. First of 
all, we need to restructure the federal government 
itself. It’s gotten too big. It’s inefficient. It does not 
solve the problems that America needs to solve. I pro- 
pose going from 14 to seven departments. That will 
make the federal government an awful lot more 
accountable. 

Secondly, we’ve got to have a single-payer system 
of health care so that all Americans have health care 
as a right, so that they aren’t penalized for pre- 
existing medical conditions. The incentives are there 
like we have with all industrial nations. They increase 
your job skills. They increase your ability to be able 
to extract from the marketplace. 

Thirdly, we need a different way of getting tech- 
nology applied in the marketplace. We spent $150 
billion, two-thirds of which is in defense. We need 
to shift that over to civilian research, particularly in 
processing; and fourthly, I believe that we need sig- 
nificant investment in changing the regulation and the 
objective that we have for our communications 
technology. 

Overall, I think we’ve got to try to say essentially 
that the real wealth in America is going to be created 
by working men and women in this country. Unless 
we provide a tax system, an educational system and 
an infrastructure system so they can get wealthy, none 
of the rest will work. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: I will say we have three major pro- 
blems. One is everybody says we’re underinvesting. 
We’re underinvesting in public and private funds. 


Two, we’re not competing in the organization of our 
economy; and three, we’re wasting more people than 
anybody in the world. Let me just address those 
quickly. 

We need more public investment in infrastructure, 
education and the control of health care costs. 

Secondly, we’ve got to compete, not just tough 
trade policy, but how do you support trade policy? 
Other countries have health and export financing. 
We’ve got to do it. Other countries do research and 
development with government help. We’ve got to do 
it. Always compete. 

Finally, don’t waste so many people. We let people 
lose their jobs here because of crazy decisions man- 
agers make, and there’s no fund to retrain them. Most 
people lose their jobs, and they either stay out of work 
too long or they have to take a job making 30, 40, 
50 percent of what they used to be making and there’s 
no fund to retrain them. 

So I say make more use of our people. Educate and 
train everybody for a lifetime. If you compete eco- 
nomically, you invest more and you put people first, 
you’ll win in a global economy. What we’ve done 
is reward wealth and greed and let the people who 
run the biggest companies in this country make a hun- 
dred times what their workers do and get a tax deduc- 
tion for it; and we’ve been rewarded with economic 
decline. We’ve got to change. 

Spending 

DUKE: All right. It seems to me that you’ve struck 
a kind of a theme here. You all talk about we need 
a great deal more investment in the country to im- 
prove various things, health and education, to do 
more to build up the country; but I don’t find any 
solutions in terms of how do we pay for these things. 

For example, Senator Harkin, you recently said if 
we make our children pledge allegiance to the flag, 
we should pledge to give them education, health care 
and housing. We can all agree with those noble ob- 
jectives. My question to you, would you specifically 
tell us how you would pay for those things? 

HARKIN: First of all, that was Bob Kerrey who 
said that. I want to give credit where credit is due. 
It’s a pretty good saying, I’ve got to admit. I wish 
I’d said it. 

How do we pay for it? Again, I’m going to go to 
the American people and say you’ve got some 
choices. As I said, we’re the richest country in the 
world. People always say how are you going to pay 
for it. But, implicit in that question, it’s sort of like 
we’re poor. We’re broke. We’re not broke. We’re 
the richest country in the world, but we’ve got to 
make choices and here’s your choices. 

It’s called a ballot. If you want to continue to spend 
$160 billion a year of your money defending Europe 
from the Soviet Union or whatever it’s called, the 
choice is there. Take your ballot and put it in the Bush 
box. But if you believe we can take some of your 
wealth — it’s your money — and invest it here in 
America in better roads and bridges and mass transit 
and energy systems, better education, health care for 
all, you take your ballot and you put it in the Demo- 
crats’ box because that’s where we’re going to get 
the money. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas, do you have a specific 
pay-as-you-go plan here? 

TSONGAS: Let’s take the issue we’ve all been 
talking about, health care. Everyone is going to offer 
a health care commitment, but where is the package? 
Where’s the specifics? 

In the back of the room there are 150 copies of the 
plan that we’re talking about. This country spends 
$730 billion a year in health care. That is 12 percent 
of our GNP. The problem is not that there’s not 
money. The problem is there are 37 million Ameri- 
cans who are not covered. 

George Bush says he doesn’t see a program that 
he likes. The fact is the money is there. The easy part 
is to say I’m for health care for everybody; and I am 
a product of medical science, so I care about this 
deeply. 

The question is, can you have a program that works 
economically. I have endorsed a managed competi- 
tion plan, and I think it’s critical, as was said in the 
early speeches, that you force us, every one of us, 
to put our health care plan on the table and explain 
to you specifically how we pay for that. 

Here is mine. I think everyone should do the same 
thing. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: I think Paul Tsongas is really on to 
something. I think the health care is a linchpin to try 
to provide resources, particularly for children. I have 
a proposal that — with all due respect — I believe 




is superior to the managed competition plan. 

It simply says that if you’re American, you have 
a right to health care. We’ll argue at the federal level 
what our benefits are going to be. I have a progressive 
system of paying taxes that will pay for the plan itself 
so that every American- under $40,000 a year will 
pay at least $500 less. 

It is an enormous relief on property tax as well. 
AFSCME just did a study that showed a $27 billion 
reduction in property tax if my bill were to be passed. 
It does not tie people to employment. It liberates 
Americans to be able to worry about the right thing, 
and it provides for the first time continuous health 
care to 1 1 million children who live in poverty who 
do not have the kind of care that they need. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: First of all, I would like to point out 
that this national government could find $500 billion 
to pay for the bankruptcy of the S&Ls — which will 
cost $900 billion when you finish paying the interest 
on the debt — and can’t find $5 billion to fully fund 
Head Start. So I believe the money is there. 

Secondly, I agree with what the others have said. 
If you control health care costs, you will free up 
massive billions of dollars in existing federal 
revenues. 

When you take that, plus the second thing I think 
we have to do, which is to not increase current con- 
sumption programs in the federal government more 
than per capita income goes up for the American peo- 
ple; and thirdly, take the savings you get from the 
peace dividend, from reduction in defense spending 
and divide it between paying off the debt and in- 
vesting in education. 

Those three steps will provide the money we need 
for every program I have recommended for the 
American people. 

DUKE: Let me urge you to hold your applause, 
if you would, because you’re taking away time from 
the discussion, even though at the end you will be 
given plenty of time to applaud. 

One of the hot topics in labor circles is the growing 
practice of replacing workers — did I miss you? 
Okay. 

BROWN: Why don’t we come back to the same 
point. There’s money. This is the essence of my case. 
Bush gave $7 billion to the Egyptians because they 
supported the war. The Democratic-controlled Con- 
gress gave $50 billion to bail out the S&Ls. 

There’s the money, but there’s not the political will 
because the incumbent leadership is bought and paid 
for. That’s the problem. Until you take that power 
back, you’re not going to redirect the money where 
it’s needed. 

A million people left Detroit. This city is dying. 
It’s dying because there’s not enough power here. 
Labor has power, and that’s where it has to begin. 
Working people have to take this country back. Then 
we’ll have the plan. Then we’ll have the investment 
where it’s really needed, and that’s in people’s 
pockets and families; and that takes care of the 
schools and everything else. 

DUKE: Governor Wilder, you have a turn, too. 

WILDER: Let me, first of all, say: Tom Harkin, 
you indicated earlier you were the only person who 
voted against fast track with Mexico. I didn’t have 
a vote in Congress. If I had, you would have had two 
votes. 

Secondly, I am the only one here who spoke of the 
$50 billion being allocated for jump-starting our 
economy, and told you where I would get it without 
taxing anyone. And moreover, let me say this: health 
care has to be affordable, accessible and there has 
to be accountability. Before you can do any of that, 
however, you have to get some handle on the fiscal 
spending in Washington. I wasn’t there to sign on 
to that budget compromise which made us the largest 
deficit nation in the world. 

We keep talking about how rich we are. Then why 
do we owe everybody in the world the kinds of money 
that we owe? And why don’t we put our priorities 
first? We can pay for those plans by having accessi- 
bility, accountability, and to make certain that it’s 
affordable. The affordability comes, however, in cut- 
ting needless spending and getting rid of waste. 

Trade 

DUKE: The moderator will move on to another 
question. We have talked a bit about trade today. 
Trade is always a prime topic, particularly in labor 
circles before an audience like this. There are Demo- 
crats in Congress who are pushing for more restric- 
tions on trade practices. But the question I have to 
put to all of you is: shouldn’t the policy when it’s 
decided go beyond what labor wants? Couldn’t some 


of these restrictions hurt consumers and drive up 
prices, harming the economy in the long run? I’ll start 
with you, Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: I think the answer is yes. I mean, my 
vote to give the president fast track authority, by the 
way, was a reluctant vote given the performance of 
the Republicans the past eleven years on trade, where 
trade, the object of trade is the number itself. 

I believe what trade should be used for is an engine 
to increase the standard of living of everybody in the 
world, and indeed, it has been. Very few people on 
this platform would criticize what Harry Truman and 
George Marshall did in Europe, and that was to ex- 
pand economic opportunities in Europe. We traded 
with Europe, and our standard of living went up as 
a consequence. In addition to that, we should see trade 
as a means to strengthen our communities and 
strengthen our environment. If we have a social con- 
tract between the United States and Mexico, which 
I am going to argue for alongside with Don Riegle, 
then in fact we can make trade work for all people 
in this country and in the world. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton? 

CLINTON: I feel it only fair to acknowledge that 
I agreed with Senator Kerrey on giving the admini- 
stration the authority to negotiate, even though I don’t 
trust them to negotiate a good deal. 

We have won a lot over the years in trade. We have 
jobs going on a fast track to Mexico right now 
because of short-sighted management, and because 
we don’t have a national economic policy that con- 



Sen. Thomas Harkin 


trols health care costs, trains workers, increases pro- 
ductivity and gives us a chance to have a competitive 
trade policy. 

So, we have got to expand trade, that’s the only 
way a rich country gets richer, but we can’t do it on 
the backs of middle-class working people. We can 
do it, and everyone can win, if you have someone 
who has the guts to have a national policy to restore 
middle-class economics of this country. Then we can 
have more trade, other countries can win and we will, 
too. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: Just coming over here yesterday I ran 
into someone who is running a plant closing depart- 
ment for the state of Michigan. He said plant closings 
have doubled, outsourcing of jobs. What’s happening 
is the power of the few, the people who write those 
thousand-dollar checks that are financing all these 
presidential campaigns, they make more profit by go- 
ing to Mexico. That’s the fact. Sure we should ex- 
pand, I want to expand trade to the maximum, but 
in the context of an economic plan that is subject to 
people such as yourselves. As long as you’re putting 
up 15 percent of the political campaigns, you’re go- 
ing to get 15 percent of the action. Unless we can 
break the stranglehold of that corrupt status quo, then 
all you’re going to get are crumbs of rhetoric. That 
to me is the most important issue, and I will come 
back to it on every question, because it is the key to 
our survival, yours, mine and the United States of 
America. 

DUKE: Governor Wilder. 

WILDER: Paul, no case has been made that the 
American consumer has been hurt as a result of us 
insisting that jobs not be exported abroad. We have 
got to have foreign markets open to the American in- 
vestor, American industry. To the extent that we are 
constantly being hurt — I got hurt in my own state 
of Virginia with a plant that says they were moving 
south. They didn’t say south of the border, but they 


finally got south of the border. 

You know why? Because of the cheap wages with 
them not having the opportunities to protect those 
workers in those regards as the American worker 
would be insisting upon. So, accordingly, I think the 
American consumer won’t be hurt, our trade policies 
can be expanded. You can’t begin to compare what 
we did at a time when the Marshall Plan was enacted 
with President Truman, because America then was 
the giant of trade across the entire world. That is no 
longer the circumstance, and accordingly, I think the 
American consumer and the American taxpayer is be- 
ing cheated. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: I don’t think anything says it more 
clearly than these two ads right here that were in an 
industry magazine. Here is an ad that was in the 
September 1990 magazine. It says: “Here is Rosa 
Martinez, produces apparel for U.S. markets on her 
sewing machine in El Salvador. You can hire her for 
57 cents an hour.” September 1990. 

Same ad, August 1991 , just this August, one year 
later. “Rosa Martinez produces apparel for U.S. 
markets on her sewing machine in El Salvador. You 
can hire her for 33 cents an hour.” Hell, next year 
they’ll say she’ll pay you to work for you. 

The thing is, and I’ll tell you, you go out and buy 
those shirts — you’ve done it like I have, one made 
there, one made here, same price in the store. Who’s 
making the money? It isn’t Rosa Martinez, and it isn’t 
our workers in this country. That’s why the con- 
sumers aren’t getting a good break. And that’s why 
I say it’s time for a president that gets tough on trade. 
Don’t lower our standards to theirs, make them raise 
their standards up to ours. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: In Europe today, what they’re looking 
forward to is Europe 1992. 1 believe strongly, I agree, 
we need a North American-South American common 
market. The Europeans are going to come together, 
and when they do, we are increasingly going to be 
excluded. In the Pacific Rim, the same thing. 

We have to have a strategy, an economic strategy 
that reaches out to North America and South America 
has to be the basis of it. Our future — let me tell this 
quick story. There’s a fellow who ran for the Lowell 
City Council back in the bad old days. His campaign 
slogan was: “Help us save what’s left.” Now that’s 
a hell of a positive statement. This country has only 
one future. The Japanese know it, the Germans know 
it. Highest wages in the world, highest skills in the 
world. We’re not going to compete with Malaysia. 
You compete with Malaysia, you’re going to live like 
Malaysians. We have to compete with Japan, Ger- 
many, Switzerland at the highest wages in the world. 
That’s where the economic battle plan comes in. 

DUKE: That leads me to a follow-up question to 
you, Senator Tsongas. Aren’t these proposed trade 
restrictions really a cop-out? Isn’t the real problem 
the productivity, the need to improve the productivity 
of American workers? 

TSONGAS: I am not a protectionist, I have never 
been a protectionist. But the fact is, what Reagan and 
Bush did very simply was, they went to the 
Japanese — let me use them — and said to the 
Japanese, “I’m going to take on the Soviets, the evil 
empire. We need your support. You can have every- 
thing else.” And they took it. 

What we have to do is be competitive — invest in 
education, training. We also have to say to all our 
trading partners, reciprocity, level playing field. You 
go to the Japanese and say to them, ‘ ‘It is not in your 
interest for the United States to implode economical- 
ly. There are two pieces to the puzzle, fair trade and 
aggressively getting your act together.” 

You know, the old expression in Pogo, “We have 
met the enemy, he is us.” 

If we underinvest, which is what we are doing com- 
pared to all our trading partners, we’re never going 
to compete, but we have to make them play fair. 

Strikebreakers 

DUKE: Another hot topic in labor circles is the 
growing practice of replacing workers on strike. The 
unions obviously are opposed to this, but many busi- 
ness groups contend that in this atmosphere of a reces- 
sion which we have today, or a partial recession at 
least, that business needs more freedom to hire and 
fire to make sure that it can meet the efficiency that 
management needs. 

What is your opinion? There is a bill which is now 
before Congress, and what is your opinion about 
whether we need this bill or not, Governor Clinton? 

CLINTON: I think we do need it. I don’t think 
; t’s fair to say workers have a right to strike and say 




that means the right to lose your job. And business 
knows it’s not there, because they had the legal right 
to do it for thirty years and never used it. 

When was it used? When the Reagan-Bush era 
dawned and they were told that basically wealth and 
power counts more than work and productivity. Busi- 
ness knows it, but to be further fair, business feels 
the pressure, that they need to use this more now 
because this is the only country in the world without 
an economic strategy to compete and win. 

You give affordable health care and control health 
care costs for business, you give systematic training 
so we’re the best-trained people in the world, you 
revolutionize the workplace for productivity and give 
us striker replacement legislation, we’ll protect 
workers and still compete and win in the world 
economy. That’s what we ought to do. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: I strongly support that — and Tsongas 
is handing out his book, I’ve got a labor record out 
there that you may see as you walk out, it’s probably 
the strongest — it is the strongest labor record 
anywhere in America. I’ll stand on it. We banned 
professional strikebreakers in California. 

I come back to the same theme, that what is missing 
here are the tools, the tools to take power back. We’re 
sitting in a city that has lost a million people. You 
go to Kuwait, we’re rebuilding it. We had a Mar- 
shall Plan, and unless we take that same attitude and 
commit ourselves to rebuilding our own people, that’s 
investment — everybody is talking about it. 

That’s what we need to do. And there’s only one 
obstacle. I believe it’s the system by which we’ve 
made politics and politicians into beggars from the 
few who’d rather move to Mexico or move to some 
foreign country than invest right here in this coun- 
try. That’s the critical question. Yeah, we can get 
economic striker protection, but it’s going to take 
some kind of an earthquake, because the Senate 
Democrats aren’t doing it — some of them are. 
That’s what has to be changed. 

DUKE: Governor Wilder. 

WILDER: It makes no sense for someone to lose 
their job because of exercising a constitutionally pro- 
tected right. And for that worker to be put out of work 
because they’re saying that I want to protest against 
what the grievance procedures are, what the health 
policies are, and nothing at all affecting that worker’s 
work. And for management, or anyone else, to be 
able to say, “As a result of your exercising that right, 
you’re fired.” I’m against that, that’s wrong. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: In opening, I said something about my 
brother Frank. He worked 23 years. He was a United 
Auto Worker, worked in the plant. The first ten years 
he worked there he didn’t miss one day and wasn’t 
late once. In 23 years, he only missed five days at 
work because the snow plows didn’t come through. 
He’s a deaf man, he’s disabled. 

After 23 years, they brought in the scabs, they 
busted the union, brought in the scabs and threw him 
out on the trash heap. 

No one has to beg me to be on that anti-striker 
replacement bill. I know what it means from my gut. 
And no one, not one person in this audience or in 
the labor movement in America has to tell Tom 
Harkin how important the fight is at Ravens wood, 
West Virginia, to the life of the free labor movement 
here in America. 

And I can tell you this, as president of the United 
States, I’m going to do everything in my power to 
pass that anti-striker bill, and you can count on it. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: I spent six years in the United States 
Senate. I had a 90 percent labor support record for 
COPE. But I have spent 20 years trying to make the 
point that what we need in this country is arbitration 
and conciliation between labor and management. I 
would love to support the striker-replacement bill, 
but I don’t think in the long run that that is better 
than forced arbitration. 

I’d love to get the support, but I’m not going to 
flip-flop on this issue, and I don’t think it’s good 
economics. Labor, management, government has to 
get together and understand what everybody else 
among our trading partners understands. We have to 
work as a team; labor, management and government 
have to get together and not have a situation where 
we expend our energies towards each other rather 
than against the outside. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: Well, I support the striker replacement 
bill. I think it’s a reasonable protection for workers. 
I don’t think it violates the freedom that businesses 
need. 

But I must say, last week I visited Finkle Manufac- 
turing Plant in Chicago, Illinois. Four hundred some 





jobs there, high-paying machinists jobs, the 
Machinists union organized, some $30,000 a year in 
employment. And what that plant represents is I think 
what we all ought to think about when we’re talking 
about trade and what can government do. Fifteen per- 
cent of those sales depend upon exports. And what 
that plant manager said to me was: “The thing that 
I need from my government is an educational system 
that will bring me workers. And only four out of 20 
people who apply have the skills needed to be able 
to work on that floor. And what I need is a govern- 
ment that can provide me with the technological 
research that I need to stay competitive, and there’s 
nothing out there right now in government that pro- 
vides me with that edge.” 

DUKE: Let me move now to you, Governor 
Wilder, and ask you a question relating to education, 
because here, too, everybody wants to do something 
to improve American education, but the public seems 
unwilling to pay for it. In New Jersey, as you know, 
the voters repudiated the educational reform plan of 
Governor Florio. In Missouri, the voters turned down 
a $385 million bond issue to make the schools bet- 
ter. So, how do we improve American education? Do 
we need to turn more to private education, to some 
kind of voucher system? 

WILDER: What we’ve done, and I think we 
should do it on a national level, is to involve the 
private sector, working with government. I’ve done 
that in Virginia, what I call “Work Force 2000.” 


Sen. Robert Kerrey 


But we need to start early to get our youngsters 
with more monies for at-risk youngsters; to get in- 
volved with prevention in terms of youngsters who 
are going astray and dropping out of school. And 
also, when you correlate health care with education, 
because they’re inseparable, you have to do that. 

In addition to that, we are finding our young peo- 
ple who are not going to go to college, we’re putting 
them in a mentoring program. If they’re going to go 
into vocations, then we’re going to be with them as 
far as the mentoring section, the private sector’s con- 
cern. But in doing that, they’ll get a certificate, a 
degree or a diploma. 

Then also, you’ve got to end what we call a dispari- 
ty in education. I’ve appointed a commission to do 
that. And you can’t have equal education if you don’t 
take into consideration where that person lives and 
the economic status of that individual. You can’t hold 
that against them. 

DUKE: We’ll go to Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: I agree with Governor Wilder, we’ve 
got to start rethinking education. And that begins at 
birth and the preparation for education begins before 
birth. That means that we’ve got to start funding early 
childhood education, quit trying to patch and mend 
and remedy later on. Let’s get Head Start fully 
funded. 

George Bush said in 1988 he wanted to fully fund 
Head Start. That’s under my subcommittee jurisdic- 
tion. Under his proposals he sent down, do you know 
when we’ll fully fund Head Start? In the year 2050. 
That’s unacceptable to me, and it’s unacceptable to 
the rest of America. 

Secondly, we need to make the federal government 
a better partner with our local schools in terms of pro- 
viding the tools, the computers, the technology they 
need. 

The third point I’ll make is this: We need better 
education for vocational training for those kids that 
don’t go to college here in America. 

Lastly, let me say this, we can’t be defunding 




AFL-CI0 1 

' ■: - 



education, overcrowding our classrooms, cutting our 
supplies, and then blaming the teachers for the 
problems. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: Tom, the reason that the president did 
not give you the money for Head Start is because he 
gave that money to Star Wars. So he thinks that we’re 
better off, we’re more viable if we’re worried about 
Estonia invading Luxembourg than we are giving kids 
viability, number one. 

Secondly, the only way, Paul, you’re going to con- 
vince the American people to spend the money is to 
make them understand the link between economic 
viability and education. The way it is now, George 
Bush separates this. All people care about is spen- 
ding. Our job is very simple. Economics equals 
education equals economics equals education. That 
has to be the drum beat. A president of the United 
States gets up and says, “My fellow Americans, if 
we have the best educational system in the world, 
we’ll have the best standard of living.” That’s where 
the leadership comes from, then in here is where you 
will see it in January of 1993. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: First of all, I must say that early 
childhood education obviously is the key. And I’m 
definitely opposed to the use of vouchers. I believe 
it would destroy public education as we know it and, 
in particular, increase the “savage inequality,” as 
Jonathan Kozol described it in poor school districts. 

But what is desperately needed, I believe, is a new 
partner with the federal government, the federal 
government coming to assist the 16,000 school 
districts in this country that are urgently trying to 
reform and restructure, for the purpose of increasing 
the performance of our school children. 

Now, there’s something wrong in America with our 
school system, and the biggest thing that I see is that 
we’re just not committed to be able to get the job 
done. Our Department of Education, in my judgment, 
has become a regulatory nightmare, a top-down regu- 
latory mechanism, that almost adds no value at all 
to our school children, and thus we need fundamen- 
tal change in that Department of Education if we ex- 
pect to get the job done. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: I believe I’ve spent more time in 
school rooms, raised more money for education, and 
promoted more reform than any other governor in 
this country and anyone else who could be running 
for president. We raised taxes in Arkansas, but we’ve 
also done it in a fair way. Investment is important, 
but also opportunity is important. We need full fun- 
ding of Head Start, a national apprenticeship system 
for the kids that don’t want to go to college, full ac- 
cess to college, and lifetime education and training 
programs. We need high standards, standards for 
those apprenticeship training programs, standards for 
what kids should know, and national exams to see 
if they know it. Then, you need massive national 
restructuring, more power at the school level, to 
teachers, principals and parents, less bureaucracy, 
and really support for innovative change like public 
school choice, not private school vouchers. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: You’ve got to fully fund Head Start. 
You’ve got to start with the kids. One out of five are 
bom in poverty. You’ve got to make that commitment 
to national health care so every child comes into the 
world with a full chance. You’ve got to make the 
commitment to putting teachers at the forefront of 
our society. That’s not true. That’s not the way it is 
today. Their pay and their livelihood and their respect 
is critical. That’s why they have to have the tools of 
collective bargaining to determine what goes on in 
that classroom. 

And I signed a collective bargaining bill and 
covered more public employees than any other per- 
son in the country. 

But most important is the full employment economy 
that comes from investing in this country. Kids could 
learn if their father and mother have a decent family 
income; and that, together with the specifics, will put 
our schools back in the forefront. 

Cities and states 

DUKE: We’ve talked a great deal about the in- 
action at the federal level; but as you all know, some 
more than others, the states are in a state of financial 
crisis as well — rising budgets, rising taxes. They’re 
cutting back and they’re laying off people. Now, what 
do we do about that problem? I’ll begin with you, 
Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: You talk to any governor — and my 
state was one of the first states to go through the 
recession. What happens is, if you have a recession, 




there are no tax revenues. The problem that the states 
are dealing with is that their revenues are falling 
because the environment, the capacity to have people 
working, has disappeared. You lose thousands of 
jobs, people are not working, they’re not paying 
taxes, plants go out of business, that’s the problem. 
All these states and all the suffering that you all have 
gone through is because the country is sinking eco- 
nomically. You can’t blame the governors when the 
bottom falls out of their revenue base. The only way 
you’re going to bring back the states, and the cities, 
by the way, is to have a growing, expanding, eco- 
nomic pie; and that’s where the president of the 
United States comes into the picture. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: I would, once again, touch on health 
care. I mean, I’ve got to address your attention to 
the fact that I do have a single-payer piece of legisla- 
tion in that completely eliminates Medicaid. And both 
the governors on the stage can talk about the rising 
cost of Medicaid at the state level. No American 
would ever again go into a welfare office and prove 
that they’re poor enough to get health care, as 27 
million Americans now do. It is a tremendous relief 
to the states to be relieved of that particular problem, 
plus states would not have to worry about negotiating 
for health care, as all other employers do as well, 
and have to provide benefits that are also increasing 
in cost. Unless you solve that particular problem first, 
unless you have a piece of specific legislation that 
addresses the rising costs of health care and gets all 
of this in as a consequence of being an American 
citizen, I believe the states are going to constantly 
be struggling to be able to fund the things that they 
want. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: We all know this is hardly a partisan 
issue. If you look at a former architect of the Reagan- 
Bush revolution, Governor Wilson, a Republican 
California, raising taxes $7 billion and cutting spend- 
ing $7 billion, former Republican Senator Lowell 
Weicker in Connecticut having 40,000 people demon- 
strating against him because he no longer has a print- 
ing press, so they have to balance the books, you see 
what the problem is. You cannot tell the state and 
local governments that you’ve got to create the jobs, 
you’ve got to educate the kids, you’ve got to solve 
the health care problems, and, by the way, here’s less 
money to do it with. 

So, there’s three things you can do to help state 
and local government. One, get the growth rate of 
the country up. Two, control health care costs and 
give us an affordable national health care plan. And, 
three, stop sending down mandates that don’t have 
anything to do with helping us invest in this country 
and making the economy grow again. If you do those 
things, state and local government can begin to func- 
tion again and all of us will be better off and we can 
reduce the rate of increase in state and local taxes. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: States are suffering because the 
economy is suffering and the American people are 
suffering, and, still, the budget agreement in Con- 
gress is frozen in concrete. You can’t shake it. $300 
billion for military spending, taking care of Europe 
and Kuwait and every other darn place. But not here. 
Remember, in this country people were selling ap- 
ples in 1939 on the street and in 1941 everyone was 
working. What is required is an investment. That’s 
massive investment in infrastructure, technology, 
energy, transportation, all the things that are need- 
ed, and tax cuts that will target innovation and train- 
ing. We have the money. 

The reason why the states don’t have the revenue, 
people aren’t working; and even when they’re work- 
ing, they’re getting $7-an-hour jobs when they used 
to get $16-an-hour jobs. That’s it. You’ve got to say 
the enemy is not over there. It’s right here. It’s ig- 
norance, it’s inequality, it’s a low-wage philosophy. 
And that’s what we’re all about. But to take it back, 
you’ve got to break open that gridlock that’s in 
Washington, and that incumbent party is frozen. 
That’s why I say insurgency is the only thing that will 
unlock it. 

DUKE: Okay. A little long. I must go to Gover- 
nor Wilder now. 

WILDER: My state was voted the best financial- 
ly managed state in the South for its size than any 
state larger in the country. But I’m saying, even in 
doing that, we balanced our budget. We didn’t raise 
anybody’s taxes, not one penny. And, likewise, we 
ended up with the largest surplus in my state’s history, 
$200 million; and we likewise had a budget surplus 
of some $90 million. But it was tough. But people 
made the sacrifices across the board. But Washington 
constantly sends down the mandates and sends down 
the requirements, and accordingly, we have to suck 


it up. We can’t continue to do that unless we’re going 
to have more management over our own affairs, and 
until the monies that we send to Washington, our tax 
dollars, are spent more wisely and more fiscally 
prudent. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: I think the first thing we’ve got to do 
is recognize that we’re in a recession and be honest 
about it. J. Danforth Quayle was recently up in New 
Hampshire and said the recession was over. Bush is 
over in Rome, as I said earlier, and said, “There’s 
no recession over there,” in our country. You know, 
we’ve got a president who has isolated himself from 
our people and our problems. We are in the worst 
downward economic spiral since the 1930s. Now, 
everyone is going around talking about how to jump- 
start the economy. You know, when my car is dead 
and I’ve got to jump-start it, that doesn’t solve the 
problem. I’ve still got a dead battery. We don’t need 
a jump-start. We need a new battery. And that means 
we need to get rid of trickle-down economics. We 
need to invest in job production here and build that 
infrastructure. It’s been estimated that 60 percent loss 
of productivity in America is because we’re not in- 
vesting in our infrastructure. 

Third, as Bob Kerrey said, we need a national 
health insurance program that covers everyone. 



Paul Tsongas 


And I’ll tell you, last, we need a president who will 
get tough on trade. That will solve your states’ prob- 
lems. 

Democratic Party 

DUKE: We’ve heard a variety of issues that have 
been discussed today; but even so, the Democratic 
Party has had tough sledding in many ways in recent 
years and there are people who feel that the Demo- 
cratic Party has lost touch with many of its traditional 
values. For example, that it has ignored its core con- 
stituency, the middle-class and the working-class 
whites, and that it’s been too concerned about equality 
and minority rights and affirmative action programs 
and things like that. 

Governor Wilder — I’ll start with you — do you 
think that the Democratic Party has lost touch with 
these traditional values and really needs top-to-bottom 
reform? 

WILDER: Absolutely not. It has not lost touch. 
And that was the rhetoric I was referring to after 
Walter Mondale lost. Everyone said, “Oh, we’ve got 
to go back, we’ve got to throw out this group and 
take in more of that group, the party is too close to 
labor, it is too close to minorities.” And yet, you look 
at the victories that the Democratic Party scores. 
Where do they come from? Those same groups or 
those same parties that people said throw out. No, 
the Democrats haven’t lost their way. Some pundits 
on so many occasions who tell us which way we are 
going have lost their way. I submit, all we need to 
do is go back, to regroup, and to bring those same 
forces that made this country great in the Depression, 
during the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt put us 
back together, but as a people. And we need healing 
in this country more so than ever before. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: You know what made me a Democrat, 


was when I was a kid about nine years old, my dad 
took me out in his Model A and showed me a build- 
ing; and on the side of the building was a plaque and 
it said, “Work Projects Administration, 1939.” 
Now, my dad wasn’t ashamed of that. He was proud 
that he had worked on that building. I never thought 
about it then, but I thought about it later when I was 
in Congress. You know, to this very day I have never 
yet had a person come up and show me the stub of 
a welfare check and tell me how proud they were of 
it. That’s what made me a Democrat, is because my 
party believed in jobs and giving people the pride and 
dignity of work, and not the humility of welfare. The 
welfare state they accuse us of building, the Repub- 
licans are building the welfare state with their trickle- 
down economics; and that’s why I agree with Lou 
Harris, the pollster. He said for the Democrats to win 
in 1992, they need a candidate who is not afraid to 
attack the Republicans and isn’t ashamed of tradi- 
tional Democratic values. And I tell you, I might 
know someone who can do that. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: You know, the clever politics today 
is to do the same thing the Republicans do, which 
is to divide. When George Bush put Willie Horton 
in that ad, he knew what he was doing. He was going 
to divide this country by race for his own political 
benefit. And a man who would divide the country 
by race should not be president of the United States. 

We have to understand that we’re part of one team. 
How I do and how you do affects all of us. You know, 
the Japanese understand this, the Germans understand 
this. Those people who would say to the Democratic 
Party, “Turn your back on your traditional core,” 
we’d lose our soul. Why would anybody vote for us? 

It seems to me, if we do nothing in 1992, we have 
to put George Bush out and say, once and for all, 
that “it’s your kind of politics that gives us a David 
Duke.” David Duke is the son of George Bush. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: He’s harder to follow than Tom 
Harkin. Well, to a certain extent all of us have lost 
touch I think. I must say that the finest thing that this 
nation ever did was build policies in the 1960s upon 
what was then called the Great Society, and a great 
society said that people had dignity and value, 
whether or not they had the ability to come to 
Washington in a Gulfstream and influence the policy- 
makers. And as a consequence of those values, said 
human beings had much more than just something 
they could attribute to in a poll. 

The people of the United States gave me health care 
and educational benefits as a disabled veteran, not 
because I signed up with any politician. There wasn’t 
a politician in America that I liked. There wasn’t a 
political party in America that I liked. I made no con- 
tributions, other than to say today that I’m grateful 
to this great country for saying that we’re going to 
build a great society and reach out to those who are 
bent low and try to lift their sights up. And we’ve 
forgotten how to do that. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: I think we do have to change. This 
is the longest-lasting party, the Democratic Party, in 
the history of any democracy, because we have been 
willing to change consistent with our traditional 
values; and whether you like it or not, a lot of the 
members of labor unions in this country have been 
voting against Democrats because they thought we 
were for the status quo, for government as it is, for 
dividing up the pie differently, for not changing 
anything rather than being for change and growth and 
opportunity. And you always clap when people tell 
you what they want to hear; but the truth is, last year 
Germany’s productivity growth was three times ours, 
Japan’s was four times ours, and we all have to clap 
when we’re challenged to change and do better. And 
I have fought David Duke and George Bush and all 
these other buzzards on civil rights in the South, 
where it’s harder. I’ll keep doing it. But you should 
accept as Democrats the challenge to change so all 
of us can be part of an American economic revival. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: Here is what one of your general 
presidents has said: “Today the Democratic Party is 
a little more than a fund-raising umbrella for a self- 
perpetuating club of politicians who feel a greater 
obligation to their campaign contributors and to other 
incumbents, regardless of party, than they do to the 
voters who elected them. ’ ’ And the best proof of that 
is that they wait up until the middle of the night to 
pass a pay raise giving themselves $2,000 a month 
more and putting them in an income bracket higher 
than 99 percent of the American people. You bet they 
are cut off. Until we can bring them back to earth 
and put them back to grass roots, you’re never going 
to see a damn bit of change. 




Leadership 

DUKE: We’re now down almost to the closing 
statements, but I have another question to put to all 
of you. We’ve had some tough things said here today 
about George Bush/ We’ve also had some tough 
things said about the Democrats. And some of the 
toughest things have been said by you, Governor 
Brown. You referred to the “corrupt grip of the 
few,” the “power of the few,” the “corrupt status 
quo today,” “incumbents being bought.” 

So I’d like to put a question to you, Senator Harkin, 
for this final round. Do you think he is talking about 
throwing out a lot of Democratic rascals in 
Washington? 

HARKIN: Well, I don’t know. You’ve got to ask 
Governor Brown what he means by what he’s say- 
ing. I don’t know. 

DUKE: Do you think a lot of Democratic rascals 
should be thrown out in Washington? 

HARKIN: Well, what I think is that the 
Democratic Party needs some strong leadership in the 
White House. We need a president, once again, like 
Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Ken- 
nedy, someone who can go to the American people, 
who understands how they feel, who knows in their 
guts what it’s like to be an ordinary, hard-working 
American, who knows what it’s like to struggle and 
to fight for their family and to work themselves up 
from the bottom and know what that ladder of op- 
portunity is about. We need a strong president in the 
White House to take the Democratic Party and to lead 
it, not to bash it, but to lead it, to make sure I can 
go to Congress as a strong president and say we’re 
going to have a national health insurance program 
by the fall of 1993, that we’re going to end striker 
replacement, and that we’re going to provide jobs to 
the American people. That’s what the Democratic 
Party needs. 

DUKE: Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: It seems to me pretty clear, Gover- 
nor, that there are good incumbents and bad in- 
cumbents, and I happen to be a supporter of the no- 
tion of term limits, not the Washington state proposal, 
but the idea of citizen legislatures, which is what our 
Founding Fathers began with. There’s some very 
good people in government. Where I think you’re 
right, however, is that the average American believes 
there’s gridlock between the Democrats and the 
Republicans in Washington and nothing is moving. 
That’s why I have made a point of saying that I’m 
not going to take PAC money and called upon all of 
us to make that pledge, so we can go to the American 
people and say, “We’re free from those special in- 
terests.” And I renew that pledge, I renew that plea 
today, so at least at the presidential level, the 
Democratic Party can make it very clear that PAC 
monies are not going to be part of our agenda. 

DUKE: Senator Kerrey. 

KERREY: Well, I say that Liza Doolittle said it 
best in “My Fair Lady.” She said, “Words, words, 
words. If you love me, show me.” 

I have a specific proposal for health care with pro- 
gressive taxes attached, specified in the proposal. It 
changes the world for the insurance companies. I 
know Governor Brown thinks the insurance com- 
panies should be taken on. I agree with him. I invite 
him to take them on in my behalf as well. I under- 
stand that we need to take on vested interests if we’re 
going to make that kind of change for the people of 
the United States of America. There are lives at stake 
with this issue. It is not just a question of offering 
a program up in contrast to George Bush, who has 
no program. Lives are at stake in America. I quite 
agree with Governor Brown. We get detached and 
disconnected and sometimes forget that we’re trying 
to serve for the purpose of increasing the perfection 
of human beings. 

DUKE: Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: I agree that there needs to be a shake- 
up in Washington, but I don’t think a $100 campaign 
contribution limit alone will do it. The $1,000 limit 
is less than half of what it was in 1974 in real terms. 
What we need to do is to reduce the impact of PACs, 
lower the cost of congressional campaigns, and open 
the airways to honest debate. The first thing, Con- 
gress should live under the laws that it makes. As 
president, I won’t sign a pay raise for the Congress 
or for the president until the wages of middle class 
Americans start going up again. When we do our job 
for them, we can raise our pay for ourselves. 

But let me tell you something. There’s not been 
a time in history when the 535 members of Congress 
changed this country. If you get a president who will 
lead and be a firm partner and do the things we’re 
talking about doing today, they would turn this coun- 


try on a dime, because the American people will send 
them a signal to do it. And that’s what this election 
is about. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: People talk about having a single-payer 
medical plan so you can cover everyone without pay- 
ing any more money, and that’s true. When you say 
single-payer, you’ve just knocked out hundreds of in- 
surance companies who are giving tens of millions 
of dollars to candidates of both parties. That’s my 
point. I don’t come here as some academic. I’ve been 
the governor of the largest state. It’s the biggest 
government outside of Washington. I raised $30 
million in today’s dollars. I know the whole thing in- 
side and out, and I can tell you, the system is tilted 
and distorted against you. And unless we can under- 
mine the corrupt strangle-hold that’s in Washington 
now, then all our best hopes and dreams will fail. 
That’s why I’m limiting my contributions to $100. 
That’s why I support term limits. I want to break it 
open and put you back in power. 

DUKE: I’ll ask a brief follow-up question to some- 
one in just a moment, but first I’m going to Gover- 
nor Wilder. 

WILDER: Thank you, Paul. Let me say that the 
answer to the question as to whether — I thought 
your question was whether Jerry Brown was talking 
about Democrats in Washington. That’s what I 
thought it was. I heard a lot of different answers. 



Gov. L. Douglas Wilder 


My answer is, yes, he was talking about them, and 
for good reason. Because the largest rising party in 
this country is the party outside of the beltway. 
There’s a two-party system in this country, one in- 
side the beltway and the other outside the beltway. 
I happen to be a Democrat, but I’m also a member 
of that party outside of the beltway. And until you 
change that around — I hear people talking about 
what they would do about health care. Well, you’ve 
been there. The question is: Where were you and 
what did you do for all those years? Six, I don’t know 
how many. I don’t know how many. 

But George Bush isn’t the only person responsible 
for this. You were there, too. And to the extent that 
Democrats were in the predominant control of that 
Congress for all those numbers of years, the ques- 
tion will be asked by the American people, where 
were they? 

DUKE: And that leads to my follow-up question 
to you, Senator Kerrey, because, as the governor 
says, the Democrats have been dominant. Basically, 
the Democrats have run Congress since the 
mid-1950s. And so, the final question: Is the system, 
as Governor Brown was saying — is the system real- 
ly tilted against you, the people? Is that how you see 
it now? 

KERREY: Well, it does require a considerable 
amount of effort to make democracy work, no ques- 
tion about it; and, you know, to say that it’s a 
representative in Congress or it’s the president begs 
the question, what is it that we want to do? And when 
I lay out a proposal that restructures government, I 
have already heard from a variety of interest groups 
that say, “We don’t want to lose the special relation- 
ship that we’ve got with this bureaucracy, we’re not 
concerned, necessarily, with what the bureaucracy 
does, but we’re concerned about preserving and pro- 
tecting this relationship. ” I’ve heard on health care, 
I’ve heard on education, I’ve heard on other pro- 
posals. There’s no question that it requires a signifi- 


cant effort in fighting for those things in which you 
believe, and there’s no question as well that demo- 
cracy doesn’t always produce the right outcome. 
What we’re trying to do, it seems to me, in this cam- 
paign is give the American people a clear choice of 
change, when, in fact, there’s going to be only the 
maintenance of the status quo coming from George 
Bush. 

DUKE: Today you’ve heard from six of the 
choices loud and clear, I would say. We now are 
ready for the closing statements, which will be two 
minutes long. 

There was a lottery here and, Senator Kerrey, you 
won, or lost, whichever the case may be, for the final 
statement. 

KERREY: We’ll find out if I win or lose. 

I will simply add to what I’ve said before. 

I’ve got specific proposals on health care, specific 
proposals on education, technology, on trying to 
change our communication system to give us a power- 
ful engine in our homes and in our schools to learn 
and expand economic opportunity that I believe will 
fuel economic renewal in America. 

But I will also say that throughout my own life, 
one of the things that I have learned over and over 
and over is that in order to get something done, you 
first of all have to know where you want to go, and 
then make a determined effort to try to get there. But 
just as important in my lifetime, either in the military 
in Vietnam or recovering from wounds in the Phila- 
delphia Naval Hospital, or in raising two good 
children, or in putting a business together, or win- 
ning two elections, once for Governor and once for 
Senate, I have never in my life done anything worth- 
while without reaching out to other people and asking 
them for help. 

So of all things that I’m doing here at this particular 
convention and throughout this campaign is saying 
to the American people, I want to put together a ma- 
jority of Americans who are concerned about their 
future, willing to put it all on the line for the children 
and risk it all, if necessary — popularity, the elec- 
tion — risk it all on behalf of our future. If we act 
upon that value, we will build for greatness in this 
country again. 

DUKE: Your closing statement, Governor Clinton. 

CLINTON: I thought I was last. That’s what they 
told me. 

DUKE: I’ m sorry. I misread. I’m looking at the 
original order. Senator Tsongas. 

TSONGAS: My political instincts tell me I don’t 
want to be last. 

You know, if you think about our founding fathers 
and our own ancestors, our parents, our grand- 
parents, and think of all the sacrifice that was made 
so we could have this great country, they worked 
hard. Some of them died to give us America, and look 
what’s happened to it. What George Bush and Ronald 
Reagan have done to this country is to bring this coun- 
try to their knees. 

This is not about ambition. This has to be about 
purpose. Our ancestors expected more when they put 
all of this together and gave it to us. We should have 
a sacredness about how we feel about this country 
and not squander it. We’re only on this earth a short 
time, and all that work that was done for hundreds 
of years to give us America, they gave it to us for 
this time to preserve it, to nurture it, and then give 
it to our children intact. 

It’s not about George Bush or the Democrats or 
the Republicans or management or labor or liberal 
or conservative. It’s something much more noble at 
stake here; and whether we as the leadership and 
others in the Democratic Party can go back and take 
this country back to its greatness so that we can look 
at our responsibility to the next generation and we 
can turn it over to them and not feel guilty that we’ve 
given them less. 

Our children will be the first generation in 
American history to get a lesser country than what 
we had. That is a horrible indictment, not only of 
the Republicans, but of all of us; and I think what 
this campaign is about and what we’re all going to 
try to do is to turn to our children and give them the 
country, give them an America as great as it has ever 
been, and true to the ideals of our founders. 

DUKE: Governor Brown. 

BROWN: What happened to us has been going on 
quietly. It’s been building up slowly, the deteriora- 
tion in the economy, the corruption of the political 
system. 

I know what it is. I’ve been in 17 different elec- 
tions. I know what it is to spend your time principal- 
ly at gourmet cocktail parties with people who give 
you a thousand bucks, each one, try to make fifty 
thousand each night. When you do that day in and 
day out, you begin to be very sensitive to the needs 


of those people and the rest of the people who would 
never think of writing a check for a thousand dollars 
to a politician. They get lost behind. 

That’s the problem. I come here having thought 
about it. I left the governorship in ’83. I took two 
years as chairman of the Democratic Party, raised 
millions of dollars from all the groups that I’m now 
talking about; and I saw us lose the governorship. 

I see our registration going down. I see labor getting 
weaker, and I come up with — this is my best under- 
standing of what needs to be done. 

We have to take this government back. We have 
to cut the umbilical cord to the corrupt money, the 
corrupt money that is distorting the process in 
Washington against you, against each one of you in 
this room and the people you represent. 

That’s what my candidacy is. It’s an insurgent cam- 
paign, and, yes, I support the term limits, because 
I know we need new blood there. Whatever is there 
is not working, and that leadership has to be challeng- 
ed; and the way you challenge something is in a cam- 
paign, a national campaign, and you have to do it, 
each one of you. 

Please, think about it. Think what you can do. Your 
awakening, your insurgency, your drawing together 
in a campaign of true opposition can restore labor, 
can restore America, and can restore the future. 
Thank you. 

DUKE: Governor Wilder. 

WILDER: Thirty-nine years ago this month, I was 
huddled in a little bunker in Korea trying to stay 
warm, and I was told that we were fighting com- 
munism; and I was wondering why I was there, be- 
ing sent away from a country fighting for freedoms 
for some people that were going to enjoy far more 
than I when I came back home to my country, to my 
state, to a school — a law school that I couldn’t go 
to in my state. I had to go out of state to be educated. 

Yet, a week or two, about a month ago, I went back 
over to Korea; and I was able to see what all of that 
meant. I know what it means now for the freedom- 
loving people everywhere. I know what it means to 
me, and I can tell you America needs healing now. 

You know, I also think about another person. We 
speak about our forebearers, our ancestors. I think 
it was Sept. 3, 1838, a fellow was leaving the South. 
Frederick Douglass was his name. He was a slave, 
and he was escaping, and as he made his way north 
in his quest for freedom, I wonder if he ever had it 
in his mind that just 153 years later his namesake, 
a grandson of slaves himself— I was named after 
Frederick Douglass— would not only be governor of 
the Commonwealth of Virginia, but would be seeking 
the candidacy for the nomination of the presidency 
of the United States. I wonder how he felt. 

I can say to you all of us in this country are blessed 
with having so much and so many opportunities. I 
say to young people everywhere yes, we’ll find a way 


to bring it together. Whether it’s health care, whether 
it’s education, whether it’s jobs. Once we bring the 
lull might of the American people together understan- 
ding that we truly are one nation, one people, indivisi- 
ble, under God with liberty and justice for all. 

DUKE: Senator Harkin. 

HARKIN: When I think of labor, I think of my 
family. I think of my father who spent 20 years of 
his life in the coal mines, had nothing to show for 
it but black lung disease, no retirement, no health 
care, nothing. I think of my brother Frank, disabled 
working 23 years, a United Auto Worker when they 
busted his union, brought in the scabs and threw him 
out in the trash heap of life. 

I tell you, people don’t deserve to be treated like 
that in America. You know that. You’ve always 
known it. That’s why the labor movement in America 
has always been in the forefront of every battle to 
provide dignity and worth and opportunity to 
American working people. 

Now, I want to speak to you plainly and bluntly. 
There are some who say that you’re the problem. 
Well, I’m here to say you’re a part of the solution. 
You’re the ones that are going to help us enact a tough 
trade policy to keep our jobs in America. You’re the 
ones that are going to help us enact a national health 
program to cover all Americans. You’re the ones that 
are going to help enact that economic program I 
talked about to give good jobs to people, jobs where 
someone can work and make enough money to raise 
their family, educate their kids, buy a home, buy a 
car, take a nice vacation, retire in dignity with good 
health care. Those are the kinds of jobs we want in 
America, and we can do it. 

We can do it with strong leadership, and I intend 
to provide that strength, that strength to reclaim the 
American dream and provide that ladder of oppor- 
tunity for our children. So I’m here to ask for your 
support. 

I would be proud to have your support because I’m 
on your side; and I’ll tell you this. When I’m presi- 
dent of the United States, every double-breasting, 
scab-hiring, union-busting employer in America will 
know that working people of America have a friend 
in the White House; and that’s all there is to it. Thank 
you. 

DUKE: Now indeed it is your turn, Governor 
Clinton. 

CLINTON: Maybe I should have gone first. 

I want to make two brief points in closing. First 
of all, something we didn’t talk about is what we 
would all do if we were president tomorrow to jump 
start this economy. I think there are some things that 
can be done. We ought to extend the unemployment 
benefits. This president wanted to have an emergency 
to feed the Kurds and their children, and I was for 
that; but I think we ought to feed unemployed Ameri- 
cans and their children too. 


Secondly, I think we ought to lower the interest 
rates on credit cards. That would put billions of 
dollars back into the hands of consumers. Your in- 
terest rates on your checking and savings accounts 
have been cut. Why not lower your interest rates on 
credit cards. Why are they at an all-time high? 

Thirdly, we ought to speed up the highway bill. 
We could put $25 billion in the economy in the next 
six months, put thousands and thousands of people 
to work. 

Fourthly, we ought to do more in Washington to 
help middle-class people buy homes by insuring more 
of the federal home mortgage for middle-class people. 
That would revitalize the housing margin, help 
finance some of these failing financial institutions. 

Finally, we ought to have a middle-class tax cut. 
That’s what we ought to do tomorrow. 

Now, when I was a kid, I lived with my grand- 
father in a little town in South Arkansas called Hope. 
My grandfather thought he was going to Franklin 
Roosevelt when he died. Most of his customers were 
black, and he fed them if they were good people, even 
before food stamps, in the grocery store that he ran, 
and that’s where I learned all of my politics. 

More than half of us then lived at or below the 
poverty line after World War H. I’ll tell you 
something else. We looked for government to help 
us, but we also took responsibility for ourselves. 
We’ve all told you today — I’ve told you I’ll give 
you an America that can compete and win again. 

I ask you two questions in closing. Do you really 
believe we can beat the Japanese and the rest of Asia, 
the Germans and the rest of Europe? Do you believe 
we can be number one again; and secondly, do you 
have the courage to lead that charge by changing and 
doing what it takes to make this a high-wage, high- 
growth, high-opportunity society, not a hard-work, 
low-wage society? 

I believe you do, and that’s why I think we’re all 
going to win in 1992. Thank you very much. 

DUKE: Well, that’s it. The final word. This has 
been the first major campaign forum involving all of 
the candidates, the six major candidates for the 
Democratic nomination in 1992. 

My personal thanks to each of you for being here 
and taking part in this discussion which I hope has 
been very enlightening today. Thanks, and now, back 
to you, Lane Kirkland. (Standing ovation) 

KIRKLAND: On behalf of the delegates, I want 
to thank each of the candidates for what has been a 
very fine contribution to our own democratic political 
process. I know that I speak for all of the delegates 
when I say to you that each of you gave a fine and 
forceful account of yourselves, and clearly, the 
Democratic Party has a fine array of candidates going 
into this political season. I want to thank Paul Duke 
for a very fine job of moderating this session and keep 
it going as well. (Applause) 



Bill Burke/Page One Photography 


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Train Dispatchers 
push organizing 

Las Vegas 

T he Train Dispatchers convention 
looked to the future with calls for ac- 
tive organizing of the railroad industry 
and for establishment of an educational 
program for local and system represen- 
tatives. 

The delegates also adopted several 
changes in the constitution and by-laws 
that would enable the union to merge 
with another labor organization. 

President Robert J. Irvin and Secre- 
tary-Treasurer Robert L. Rafferty were 
re-elected for four-year terms. Three 
vice presidents and a trustee were re- 
elected. Two new trustees, R.R. Bailey 
and L. A. Parmelee, also were elected. 

Among the speakers for the Oct. 28- 
31 meeting were Robert M. McGlotten, 
AFL-CIO legislative director, Jim 
Boehner of the Railroad Retirement 
Board and Dee Taylor of Culinary 
Workers Local 226. 

Asian Pacific alliance 
gets Hawaiian cheers 

Honolulu 

G ary Rodrigues was re-elected to a 
fourth term as president of the 
Hawaii AFL-CIO during the 14th bien- 
nial convention. Delegates also elected 
seven new vice presidents and re- 
elected 29 more. 

The convention also called for a ban 
on the hiring of “permanent replace- 
ments” during a strike, passage of na- 
tional health care reform and family and 
medical leave and a curb on domestic 
violence. They endorsed no-fault 
automobile insurance and a governor- 
appointed school superintendent and 
school board members. 

The delegates praised the national 
AFL-CIO for the formation of the 
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance 
to promote opportunities for all 
Americans. Currently, there are ap- 
proximately 80,000 Hawaiian union 
members whose unions are affiliates of 
the AFL-CIO. 

North Carolina urges 
more OSHA inspectors 

Charlotte, N.C. 

I n the aftermath of the Imperial Food 
Products fire, the North Carolina 
AFL-CIO made the hiring of more state 
Occupational Health and Safety Ad- 
ministration inspectors its top legislative 
priority. 

Delegates to the state federation con- 
vention approved a resolution calling 
for “the proper funding of the state 
OSHA program to provide for the com- 
plete complement of inspectors nec- 
essary to protect North Carolina’s 
workers.” 

The resolution pledged the state 
federation to redouble its efforts to “in- 
sure those who are responsible in this 
area be required to act responsibly.” 
Twenty-five people were killed and 55 
injured in the fire that swept through the 
plant where workers were unable to 
escape through locked doors. 

Convention speakers included AFL- 
CIO Vice President Joyce Miller of the 
Clothing and Textile Workers, who also 


is president of the Coalition of Labor 
Union Women, Food and Commercial 
Workers President William H. Wynn, 
Postal Workers President Moe Biller 
and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Many of the 
about 290 delegates joined in a rally at 
the scene of the fire in Hamlet. 

The convention, which met Oct. 
16-18, also called for legislation allow- 
ing fines for public-sector workplace 
safety violations. 

Delegates re-elected Christopher 
Scott and James Andrews to two-year 
terms as president and secretary- 
treasurer of the state federation, 
respectively. 

Five new members were elected to 
the board of directors: Jack Cipriani of 
the Teamsters, James Stem of the 
United Transportation Union, Barbara 
McKoy of the Ladies’ Garment Work- 
ers, Harry Batton of the Government 
Employees and Harold Huffman of the 
Paperworkers. 

Colorado helps 
striking miners 

Colorado Springs, Colo, 
he 19th biennial Colorado AFL-CIO 
convention approved resolutions sup- 
porting national health care reform and 
workplace fairness legislation. 

The delegates also took up a collec- 
tion for the 160 miners who have been 
on strike for six months over health care 
issues at Cyprus Minerals’ Empire 
Mine. 

The miners struck after the $1.9 
billion mining company proposed cuts 
in health care benefits. The company 
also wants to limit health care coverage 
to the widows who have lost their 
husbands in mining accidents. 

The union has encouraged the Public 
Service Company of Colorado, the ma- 
jor coal purchaser, to take a public stand 
against Cyprus. Meanwhile, workers at 
two other Cyprus-owned mines in West 
Virginia and Pennsylvania joined with 
the strikers on Oct. 10 in a one-day shut 
down as a show of solidarity. 

“Cyprus Minerals must understand 
that when they move to take away the 
health care benefits of any UMWA 
members they’re picking a fight with 
our entire union,” said UMWA Presi- 
dent Richard Trumka. 

Alabama elects six 
new members of board 

Birmingham, Ala. 

T he Alabama AFL-CIO convention 
elected six new board members and 
rejected a proposed per capita increase. 
A majority of the delegates favored the 
5 -cent increase, but the vote fell short 
of the two-thirds needed to pass, said 
President A.G. Trammell. 

The delegates, meeting Oct. 21-23, 
re-elected Trammell, Secretary-Treas- 
urer Douglas Burkhalter and 12 board 
members to four-year terms. They also 
picked six new members: Charles Tip- 
ton and Jim Higginbotham of the Mine 
Workers, Donald Lagham and Byron 
Vice of the Paperworkers, D.C. Car- 
lisle of the Steelworkers and Sidney 
Hannah of the Rubber Workers. 

AFL-CIO Vice Presidents Richard L. 
Trumka of the Mine Workers and 
George J. Kourpias of the Machinists 
urged the convention to work for pas- 
sage of the Workplace Fairness bill and 
for national health care reform. 

Other speakers included Rubber 
Workers President Kenneth L. Coss; 
United Garment Workers President 
David Johnson; Harold Mclver, na- 
tional organizing director for the AFL- 
CIO ’s Industrial Union Department; 
Ron Martin, director of AFL-CIO 
Region V and Norman Hill, president 
of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. 


Mitchell cheered 
for S. 55 support 

Rockport, Maine 

D elegates to the 18th biennial conven- 
tion of the Maine AFL-CIO were 
cheered by the announcement by Senate 
Majority Leader George Mitchell (D- 
Maine) that he would co-sponsor S. 55, 
the Workplace Fairness Bill. 

“Workers must be able to raise their 
issues without the fear of being put 
permanently out of a job,” Mitchell 
said. “Short-term wins by management 
must not come at the expense of long- 
term stability within an industry, or its 
communities.” 

The convention also passed 38 resolu- 
tions, ranging from a denunciation of 
unfair taxes to a call for fair represen- 
tation of “working Americans and their 
concerns and heritage on public televi- 
sion.” 

To ensure effective action on the 
resolutions and other federation goals, 
the delegates adopted a plan for work- 
ing on those goals during the next 
several years. 

Maine federation President Charles J. 
O’Leary and Secretary-Treasurer Ed- 
ward Gorham were re-elected, along 
with all incumbent vice presidents. 

Also addressing the convention were 
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. 
Thomas Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. 
Thomas Andrews (D-Maine). 

Oklahoma begins 
Labor Hall of Fame 

Oklahoma City, Okla. 

T he Oklahoma AFL-CIO inaugurated 
the state Labor Hall of Fame by in- 
ducting five Oklahomans at the state 
federation convention Nov. 20-22. 

Gobel Frederick Cravens, Peter 
Hanraty, Roy Tillman, Fannie Webster 
and Len Yarborough became members 
of the hall of fame during a banquet 
honoring them. 

In other action, the 236 delegates 
passed resolutions calling for health 
care reform, the right to collective 
bargaining for municipal employees and 
for prevailing wage laws. Delegates 
voiced opposition to the use of “perma- 
nent replacements” for strikers, also 
sending cards and letters urging passage 
of striker replacement legislation. 

Gerald W. McEntee, president of 
AFSCME, gave the keynote address. 
Other speakers included Gov. David 
Walters (D); Glen Johnson, speaker of 
the state House; state Labor Commis- 
sioner Dave Renfro; Rex Hardesty, 
director of the AFL-CIO Department of 
Information; and Claudia Bradbury of 
the AFL-CIO Department of Employee 
Benefits. 

Tennessee backs 
worker relief 

Knoxville, Tenn. 

D elegates to the 17th convention of 
the Tennessee AFL-CIO passed a 
host of resolutions that address the 
problems of hard-pressed American 
workers. 

Resolutions included calls for a ban 
on the “permanent replacement” of 
striking workers, national health care 
reform, public employee rights to bar- 
gain and “fair share” in the collection 
of union dues. 

Delegates returned President James 
G. Neeley to his seventh term in office 
and Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Bryan to 
his sixth. 

Guest speakers included Tennessee’s 
Democratic Sens. A1 Gore and James 
Sasser. Sasser’s speech calling for tax 
relief for the middle class drew an en- 
thusiastic reception. 


‘Cruel’ act 
eliminates 
all benefits 

Continued from Page 1 

told “if we came up with the $43 
million in concessions, the deal would 
go through.” The unions worked hard 
to negotiate the package and reached 
agreement with Pan Am management 
days before Delta reneged on its deal, 
he said. 

Pan Am had been on a slide since the 
1978 airline industry deregulation, 
forced to sell holdings including the Pan 
Am building in New York and the Inter- 
continental hotel chain. 

Unions representing Pan Am workers 
— ALPA, Teamsters, Transport Work- 
ers, Flight Engineers and independent 
flight attendants — had reached new 
contracts with the carrier that included 
an additional $43 million in conces- 
sions. Over the past 10 years, union 
workers have sacrificed hundreds of 
millions of dollars in wage, work rule 
and benefit changes to aid the ailing car- 
rier, Griswald estimated. 

TWU Secretary -Treasurer John Ker- 
rigan, who heads the union’s airline 
division, noted that as recently as the 
end of November, Delta was reassur- 
ing the public and telling Pan Am 
creditors that it could support the car- 
rier’s reorganization plan. 

Delta’s action was “cruel,” Kerrigan 
said, noting that Pan Am workers have 
lived with shutdown threats over the 
past 10 years, but were taken in by 
Delta’s assurances. 

“Now, there is no money for sever- 
ance pay or accrued vacation,” he said. 
“Some people are owed wages and 
everyone has lost health insurance cov- 
erage.” Even COBRA — the federal 
law that allows workers to continue 
group health coverage at their own ex- 
pense after being laid off — can’t be 
used because the health care plan was 
abolished by the bankruptcy court, he 
pointed out. 

Babbitt called the Pan Am shutdown 
“another unfortunate example of how 
our government’s supposedly pro-busi- 
ness policies are squandering our na- 
tion’s most vital economic resources” 
and creating another situation “where 
everyone loses.” 

The TTD poll, conducted by the 
Roper Organization with 1 ,000 adults 
responding, found that 51 percent 
wanted strong government regulation 
on safety issues and 59 percent rejected 
a suggestion by some Bush administra- 
tion officials that foreign carriers be 
permitted to offer service within the 
United States. 

IAM, United agree 
on tentative accord 

T he Machinists reached a tentative 
agreement with United Airlines, 
averting a strike that could have begun 
Dec. 13, at the end of the 30-day 
cooling-off period. 

The proposal covers about 26,500 
mechanics, ramp service workers, 
dispatchers and other IAM members. 

The parties began meeting Dec. 9 in 
nearly round-the-clock sessions with 
representatives of the National Media- 
tion Board, reaching agreement late 
Dec. 12. The union had been striving 
for a new agreement with the carrier for 
two years, with wages and benefits the 
chief issues. 

Both sides have agreed not to release 
details of the proposed settlement until 
it is voted on by IAM members. 








Employers slash payrolls as economy stagnates 


Significant statistics 


an AFL-CIO Newsgrafic 


With the economy continuing to 
sputter for the past year and a 
half, employers slashed payrolls 
by 240,000 in November and 
290,000 workers dropped out of 
the labor search as jobs were 
harder to find. New claims for 
unemployment insurance bene- 
fits surged by 87,000 to 510,300 
before seasonal adjustment in 
the week ended Nov. 23. The 
total included 503,600 state Ul 
claims, 3,100 federal employees 
and 3,600 newly discharged 
veterans. 


Factory Orders 

October ’91 
From October ’90 

ConsumerCcnfidence 

November 

Leading Indicators 

October 


$242.1 billion 

+1.9% 

-3% 

50.6% 

-9.5% 

145.5 

+ 0 . 1 % 


Gross Domestic Product $4,861 billion 

Third Quarter (annual rate) +1 .7% 

Purchasing ManagersSurvey 50.1 

November -3.4 


ConstmctionSpending 

October 


$411.5 billion 

+ 1 % 


Jobless rates of 
key industries 


Oct. 

Nov. 

Oct. 

Nov. 

Oct. 

Nov. 

Oct. 

Nov. 


6 . 1 % 


6 . 3 % 


Services 


7 % 


7 . 3 % 


Manufactur 


ng 


7 . 5 % 


9 . 3 % 


Mining 


16 . 2 % 


16 % 


Construction 


By John R. Oravec 

L ayoffs in construction and manufac- 
turing, coupled with a fall-off in hir- 
ing at retail stores despite the approach 
of the holiday buying season, reduced 
payroll employment by 240,000 in No- 
vember, the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
reported. 

Although the nation’s overall jobless 
rate remained stuck at 6.8 percent, the 
Bush recession continued to sap the 
goods-producing sector. Unemploy- 
ment in manufacturing rose to 7.3 per- 
cent and surged to 9.6 percent in min- 
ing. Construction joblessness was still 
at 16 percent even though it eased a bit. 

Further job losses are expected in 
coming months with a rippling effect 
from the cutbacks of tens of thousands 
of workers at General Motors Corp., 
TRW Inc. , Xerox Inc. and other major 
manufacturers. 

There were 8.5 million Americans 
unemployed last month, 1.7 million 
more than at the start of the recession 
in July 1990, BLS noted in its monthly 
report. 

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland 
said the official jobless rate would have 
climbed to 7 percent in November had 
not 290,000 workers dropped out of the 
labor force and were not counted as 
unemployed by the Labor Department. 

“The report clearly documents the 
need for programs to get people back 
to work,” Kirkland said. 

But the only government action taken 
in response to employers slashing 
payrolls was that of the Federal Reserve 
in cutting the short-term loan rate for 
bankers. 

Many other workers are in part-time 
jobs because they can’t get full-time 
work, AFL-CIO chief economist Rudy 
Oswald pointed out. With the 8.5 


million officially jobless, 6.5 million on 
involuntary part-time and 1.1 million 
discouraged workers who dropped out 
of the labor force, Oswald said 16.1 
million Americans were affected by 
partial or total unemployment. 

Earlier, President Bush signed sup- 
plemental legislation extending 
unemployment benefits at least 13 
weeks for the long-term jobless who 
had exhausted their initial 26 weeks of 
compensation. 


Bush had trashed two previous bills 
to extend benefits for exhaustees, 
branding them “garbage.” But with 
Bush’s popularity ratings plummeting 
in public opinion polls for his handling 
of the sagging economy, the president 
had a change of heart and endorsed the 
Democratic-shaped measure. 

Depending on a state’s jobless rate, 
some 3 million long-term unemployed 
workers will get either 13 or 20 weeks 
of additional benefits. Coverage is 


retroactive to March 1 and expires next 
June 13. 

But because of shabby coverage in the 
existing federal-state unemployment in- 
surance system, most jobless workers 
don’t qualify for benefits in the first 
place. In November, for example, only 
3.1 million were drawing benefits. That 
left some 5.2 million jobless work- 
ers — more than 62 percent of the “of- 
ficial” unemployed — locked out of the 
system. 

Analysts said the outlook for jobs re- 
mained bleak given recent announce- 
ments by a number of corporations of 
pending layoffs. 

• Battered by the recession, GMC 
outlined a plan to “improve profitabili- 
ty” that could include the stepped-up 
cuts of 20,000 white-collar workers as 
well as layoffs of production workers 
with the shutdown of parts plants. 

• A “restructuring” plan by TRW 
is likely to trim the company’s payroll 
by 10,000 — about 14 percent of its 
work force. 

• Citing problems linked to the 
weak economy, Xerox said it would lop 
off 2,500 jobs by mid-1992. 

• The shutdown of Pan American 
World Airways will throw 7,500 peo- 
ple out of work. 

• International Business Machines 
Corp. said it would cut 20,000 positions 
worldwide — about half of that number 
in the United States — to counter the 
recession and stiff competition. 

• Tenneco Inc. disclosed it will lay 
off 4,000 workers in its J.I. Case farm 
equipment unit because of the 
recession. 

• McDonnell Douglas Corp. began 
sending out layoff notices to 2,200 
workers in Long Beach and Torrance, 
Calif., to cut costs. 


IUD conference airs remedies to halt U.S. technology drain 


A n explicit national technology policy 
with the full input of government, 
industry and labor must be developed 
to secure America’s economic growth 
in the 21st century, participants in an 
Industrial Union Department confer- 
ence concurred. 

Any delays to advance the nation’s 
common interest in global competition 
will undermine the living standards of 
American workers and their families, 
they warned. 

And unless immediate steps are 
taken, the nation’s technological drain 
by foreign competitors will further 
erode the tattered U.S. industrial base. 
The conferees also linked destructive 
U.S. trade policy and the transfer of 
American production and jobs overseas 
with the resulting loss of the next 
generation of technology development. 

Joining leaders of 40 unions for the 
roundtable discussions were political, 
academic and economic experts as well 
as authorities on trade, technology, 
manufacturing and government policy. 

IUD President Howard D. Samuel 
said the conference points up labor’s 
concern over the lack of government 
leadership in a prescription for 
technological development and 
competitiveness. 

House Majority Leader Richard A. 
Gephardt (D-Mo.) accused the Bush ad- 
ministration of blocking a number of 


congressional initiatives that would 
move the nation closer to a comprehen- 
sive technology policy. 

It’s time, Gephardt said, for the 
government, business and labor to 
agree on how to improve the nation’s 
endangered technology base and pro- 
vide workers with quality jobs. 

In keynoting the conference, UAW 
President Owen Bieber cited govern- 
ment studies that show America is los- 
ing or has already lost its competitive 
position in 33 of 94 vital technologies. 

Bieber said a recent example of 
transferring U.S. technology to foreign 
interests is the proposal by McDonald 
Douglas Corp. to sell 40 percent of its 
commercial airplane operations to 
Taiwanese investors that includes the 
Taiwanese government. 

Former Labor Secretary Ray Mar- 
shall said the clearest challenge to 
American companies comes from ad- 
vanced industrialized democracies that 
have set consensus goals and objectives 
to guide economic activities of public 
and private sectors. 

“A major difference between other 
countries and the United States is their 
tendency to develop consensus policies 
and our tendency to rely more heavily 
on market forces,” said Marshall, who 
is now with the University of Texas. 

“Because of our aversion to coherent 
economic strategies,” Marshall said, 


“our policies have been more frag- 
mented, adversarial and uncertain — 
all of which, makes it difficult for 
businesses to do the kind of long-range 
strategic planning needed to develop 
and use leading-edge technology.” 

Marshall noted that most industrial 
democracies have steered clear of low- 
wage strategies to compete, favoring in- 
stead improved productivity and qual- 
ity. Lowering wages to compete threat- 
ens a nation’s economic performance as 
well as democratic and social institu- 
tions, he said. 

Clyde Prestowitz, president of the 
Economic Strategy Institute and former 
Reagan administration official, said 
government policy on the export of 
U.S. technology must be refined. 

“Despite what many of our leading 
economists say, chocolate chips and 
computer chips are not the same thing, ’ ’ 
Prestowitz pointed out. “They do not 
have the same impact on the economy, 
on our trade position, on the long-run 
capacity of the United States to create 
well-paying, productive jobs and a high 
standard of living.” 

Larry Mishell of the Economic Policy 
Institute charged that the government’s 
misdirected trade policy is speeding up 
the deindustrialization of the U.S. 
economy and will take a heavy toll in 
technology development. 

Michael J. Kelly of the Georgia Insti- 


tute of Technology lambasted the ill- 
conceived trade stance that says “dump- 
ing” of foreign goods on American 
markets at cut-rate prices “is good, 
because its good for the consumer.” 

The government’s failure to stop 
dumping has seriously undermined the 
ability of U.S. manufacturers to com- 
pete in their own domestic market and 
has led to the factory shutdowns and 
millions of lost jobs. 

“We are not all just consumers,” 
Kelly observed. “We are also pro- 
ducers. But you can’t consume unless 
you produce.” 

But too often, conference participants 
pointed out, U.S. firms have transfer- 
red technology — developed under 
government contract with the Depart- 
ment of Defense — to foreign com- 
petitors as they have closed American 
plants and shifted production overseas. 

Former Defense Department official 
Jacques S. Gansler underscored the im- 
portance of process technology that is 
development hand-in-hand with domes- 
tic production. 

In addition to the loss of vital skilled 
jobs, Gansler warned that the transfer 
of high-tech industry overseas would 
result in “the loss of assured access to 
critical , next-generation technology , 
which could be catastrophic to both 
our future economic and security pos- 
tures.” 






Government Employees President 
John N. Sturdivant, AFGE Compen- 
sation Specialist Peter Tchirkow and 
John Leyden of the AFL-CIO Public 
Employee Department have been selec- 
ted by President Bush to serve on the 
Federal Salary Council, the nine- 
member pay-setting panel established 
under 1990 legislation. 

Canadian Labour Congress President 
Shirley Carr has announced she will 
not seek re-election when her term is 
finished next June. Carr has been 
elected head of the workers’ group at 
the International Labor Organization. 
Carr, the first woman to lead the work- 
ers’ group, will serve a two-year term. 

Unions are more effective than com- 
parable worth cases in helping women 
increase their wages, Rep. Eleanor 
Holmes Norton told a Capitol Hill 
forum Nov. 4. Norton, the non-voting 
delegate to Congress from the District 
of Columbia, said that until women 
recognize the value of organizing, they 
will continue to comprise the majority 
of low-wage earners. 

Vice President Jack M. Greer of the 
Graphic Communications Union has 
been elected 1992 president-elect of the 
board of the International Foundation 
of Employee Benefit Plans. The foun- 
dation is a non-profit association serv- 
ing the employee benefits industry as an 
information clearinghouse. 

The Senate confirmed National Me- 
diation Board Chairman Patrick 
Cleary Nov. 27 for a new term on the 
three-member board, which oversees 
labor relations in the railroad and airline 
industries. Cleary, who has served on 
the board since 1989, was chosen as 
chairman in July. 

Mary Miller Cracraft will not be 
renominated for a spot on the National 
Labor Relations Board by President 
Bush, after opposition to her appoint- 
ment by the anti-union National Right 
to Work Committee. She had served 
one five-year term, had been nominated 
for a second by Bush and the appoint- 
ment had cleared the Senate Labor and 
Human Relations Committee, but was 
held up by Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R- 


Wyo.) before it was submitted to the 
full Senate. 

Gloria Cataneo Rudman is the new 
executive director of the board of direc- 
tors of the American Maritime Con- 
gress, which has contracts with the 
Marine Engineers. She previously has 
served as legislative director for the 
association and was the director of the 
Washington office for the International 
Longshoreman’s Association. 

Kim Roberts has been selected to fill 
the newly created position of AFTRA 
assistant national executive director, 
responsible for serving AFTRA mem- 
bers in news and on broadcast station 
staffs. Roberts is executive director of 
AFTRA’s San Francisco local and of 
the Screen Actors Guild’s San Fran- 
cisco operations. 

AWARDS 

Philip Murray and Mary Anderson 

were inducted into the Labor Hall of 
Fame Dec. 13 in a ceremony at the 
Department of Labor in Washington. 
Murray was the founding president of 
the United Steelworkers of America and 
also was president of the Congress of 
Industrial Organizations, while Ander- 
son served as the first director of the 
Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau. 

Four Americans have been inducted 
into the “Hall of Honor’’ of the Inter- 
national Labor Organization’s 
Washington office for 1991. They are: 
Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin; 
former Secretary of Labor Ray Mar- 
shall; Stephen R. Sleigh, former direc- 
tor of the Economic Policy Council of 
the United Nations Association of the 
USA and now deputy director for the 
Center of Labor-Management Policy 
Studies at the City University of New 
York; and Everett Kassalow, former 
professor at the University of Wiscon- 
sin, Carnegie-Mellon University and 
the University of the District of Colum- 
bia, as well as a longtime ILO consul- 
tant. Kassalow was honored post- 
humously. 

Commissioner of Labor Statistics 
Janet Norwood was honored at a din- 
ner Dec. 4 by the Labor Research Ad- 
visory Committee and the AFL-CIO 
labor union research community. Nor- 
wood is leaving the position she has 
held since 1979 to take a post at the 
Urban Institute. 

DEATHS 

J.J. Rodriguez, a founder and past 
national vice president of the Labor 
Council for Latin American Advance- 
ment, died Dec. 4 in Los Angeles. He 
was 83. 

Rodriguez was a leader of the Meat 


Cutters in Southern California, a 
longtime community service activist 
and also served as vice president of the 
Western Federation of Butchers and as 
president of the Los Angeles County 
Federation of Labor. The Butchers are 
a new part of the Food and Commer- 
cial Workers. 

He is survived by one daughter, 
Helen Holguin; two sons, Edmund and 
Jim; 15 grandchildren; and 13 
great-grandchildren. 

Edward M. Lynch, former president 
of the National Association of Broad- 
cast Employees and Technicians, died 
Nov. 22 at his home in Gaithersburg, 
Md., after a long illness. He was 71. 

Lynch served as NABET chief from 
1971 to 1986, when he resigned and 
became president emeritus. A union 
member since 1946, he also served as 
NABET’s network coordinator, as a 
mediator for AFL-CIO internal disputes 
and as part of an AFL-CIO 1976 mis- 
sion to Africa. 

He is survived by his wife, Gloria; 
two brothers, Warren and Bernard; 
three sisters, Gertrude Amesbury and 
Sister May Ida Lynch and Sister Mary 
Lynch, both Sisters of St. Joseph; in- 
laws; and nieces and nephews. 

Msgr. James A. Healy died Nov. 27 
in Buffalo, N.Y., after a short illness. 
He was 71. 

During his forty years of labor 
work — he was known as Buffalo’s 
“labor priest’’ — he mediated dozens 
of labor disputes, served as chairman 
of the New York State Mediation Board 
for 12 years, sat on fact-finding panels, 
served on the state Public Employment 
Relations Board and as president of the 
Association of Labor Relations Agen- 
cies, a group of private and public agen- 
cies engaged in collective bargaining. 

He is survived by three sisters, 
Patricia Corcoran and Mary Alice 
Powers of Orchard Park, N.Y., and 
Eileen Brady of Rockville, Md. 

Italian-American labor journalist 
Vanni Buscemi Montana died of a 
stroke Nov. 3 in New York. He was 89. 

Montana served as editor of 
Giustizia, the Italian edition of the 
Ladies’ Garment Workers newspaper, 
educational director of ILGWU’s Local 
89, managing editor of the Italian- 
language edition of the AFL-CIO Free 
Trade Union News and as a consultant 
on Italian labor affairs to the U.S. 
Department of State’s Office of 
Strategic Services. He also helped 
found the Italian-American Labor 
Council. 

He is survived by his wife, the former 
Helene Barton; and two sons, Victor, 
of New Hampshire, and John. 


HERE contract 
ends dispute 
with 3 hotels 

By Sharolyn Rosier 

M embers of Hotel Employees and 
Restaurant Employees Local 11 
ratified a three-year collective bargain- 
ing agreement with three Los Angeles 
Hyatt hotels, ending a dispute that has 
lasted for more than two years. 

The agreement, ratified 269-0 by 
workers from the Hyatt Regency, 
Hyatt-on-Sunset, and Hyatt Wilshire 
hotels, offers guaranteed medical and 
pension benefits, generous wage in- 
creases and improved working condi- 
tions for more than 500 employees. 

Non-tipped employees will receive 
40-, 30- and 35-cent increases during 
the three years of the contract. Room 
attendants will receive increases of 40, 
35 and 40 cents and waiters, waitresses, 
and bell persons will receive increases 
of 5 cents each year. 

The company also agreed to give the 
workers a signing bonus averaging 
$633 to compensate for no pay in- 
creases between April 1988 and April 
1991. 

The agreement restores the previous 
health plan and reimburses employees 
for the amounts deducted from their 
paychecks when the hotels imposed an 
alternative plan. The company had 
rescinded the union medical and dental 
plan and replaced it with an inferior 
plan that deducted 19 cents an hour 
from each employee’s paycheck. 

Local 1 1 President Maria Elena 
Durazo said Hyatt chose to “acknowl- 
edge that decent wages and benefits 
together with positive labor relations are 
in fact critical to the recovery of the 
tourism industry in our city.” 

“We are extremely pleased that Hyatt 
ultimately chose the course it did,” she 
added. “Although in the meantime, this 
contract dispute took a terrible toll on 
our members, on Hyatt, and on the en- 
tire Los Angeles community.” 

The workers have struggled for a 
union contract since early 1989, resort- 
ing to weekly picket lines, demonstra- 
tions, civil disobedience and work stop- 
pages to dramatize the lack of progress 
in negotiations. 

They called for a boycott in May 
1991 when the company forced workers 
to take the inferior health plan. The 
boycott was endorsed by more than 150 
community leaders, clergy, and local, 
state and national elected officials. 



The 1992 AFL-CIO Pension Confer- 
ence, sponsored by the Employee 
Benefits Department, will be held at the 
Sheraton-Washington Hotel Jan. 29-30. 
The conference will include presenta- 
tions on public- and private-sector 
plans, economics and demographic 
trends, and the strategic use of pension 
funds, among other topics. Applications 
are limited to 300 participants and will 
be accepted on a first-come basis. Reg- 
istration fee is $150. Contact the AFL- 
CIO Department of Employee Benefits, 
815 16th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 
20006. 


The Center for Labor-Management 
Policy Studies is accepting applications 
for $3,000 grants that will be awarded 


to up to six active trade unionists for the 
development and evaluation of new 
ideas and strategies for labor unions. 
Areas of interest may range from labor- 
management relations to collective 
bargaining, organizing, social and 
economic policies, or union leadership. 
The growing role of women and mi- 
norities in the trade union movement is 
of special interest. Applications must be 
submitted by March 15, 1992, to Doris 
Suarez at the center, 120 W. 44th 
Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. 

PUBLICATIONS 

The Philadelphia Inquirer, swamped 
by requests for reprints of America: 
What Went Wrong? — a nine-part 
series on the hardships facing middle- 
class, working families — will turn the 
series into a low-priced paperback 
book. Published by Andrews and 
McMeel, the paperback will be avail- 
able in bookstores in March 1992. Ad- 
vance orders for the book may be 
placed at bookstores or by writing 
Andrews and McMeel, 4900 Main St., 
Kansas City, Mo. 64112. 


VIDEOS 

The LIPA Resource Catalog 

describes television and radio pro- 
grams, training and informational 
material, commercials and PSAs, 
teleconferences and professional media 
support available from the Labor In- 
stitute of Public Affairs. Single issues 
free. Contact LIPA at 1 /800/242- 
UNION. 

The following videotapes are 
available for $10 each from the Labor 
Instititute of Public Affairs, 815 16th St. 
NW, Washington, D.C. 20006. 

Solidarity Day ’91: Many Faces, 
One Voice captures the excitement and 
energy of that historic event in a 
12-minute videotape. Catalog code 
LVBT-049-V 

AFL-CIO Convention roll-ins 

covers Solidarity Day, Workplace Fair- 
ness, health care reform, trade, organ- 
izing, workplace safety, work and 
family, civil rights and international 
solidarity. Each segment is five minutes 
in length. Catalog code CONV401V 


UFCW wins raises 
for 26,000 at Meijer 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 

M embers of Food and Commercial 
Workers Local 951 approved a 
four-year contract with Meijer Co. that 
improves wage and health benefits for 
more than 26,000 workers at the retail 
food chain. 

Workers in every job classification 
will receive wage increases under the 
new contract, said Robert Potter, Local 
951 president and chief union 
negotiator. 

While workers will retain the same 
basic health plans, they will be able to 
choose different deductibles to decrease 
payments. By April 1992 an additional 
health plan will be added to offer 
members increased selections to better 
meet their individual needs, Potter said. 

Local 951 members succeeded in ob- 
taining a 40 IK plan, allowing them to 
supplement their pension benefits. 

Potter said members played an active 
role in the negotiation, resulting in a 
nearly 65 percent approval rate. 






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USWA raps 
Mint’s deal 
with Rich 

By Muriel H. Cooper 

A congressional hearing took up the 
question posed by the Steelworkers: 
Why did the U.S. Mint enter into con- 
tracts with a company controlled by 
Marc Rich, a fugitive financier wanted 
for criminal tax fraud and the man who 
controls the union-busting Ravenswood 
Aluminum Corp.? 

Twelve Steelworkers representing 
Local 5668 in Ravenswood, W.Va., 
where 1,700 workers have been locked 
out and “permanently replaced,” at- 
tended the hearing in which federal of- 
ficials were quizzed on their dealings 
with Rich. 

The union charges that Rich has a 
controlling interest in RAC, which 
locked out its union workforce Nov. 1 , 
1990. The National Labor Relations 
Board has since filed unfair labor prac- 
tice charges against the company, which 
continues to operate with scab labor. 

The Steelworkers have enlisted inter- 
national labor support in the union’s ef- 
forts to call attention to the connection 
between Ravenswood and the misdeeds 
of Rich, who controls his financial em- 
pire from Zug, Switzerland. 

Steelworkers President Lynn R. Wil- 
liams, in a letter to the deputy director 
of the U.S. Mint, cited a litany of 
charges against Rich and said he found 
the situation ironic. 

“The Justice Department is seeking 
Rich on criminal charges,” he said. 
“The Labor Board has accused RAC of 
violating the National Labor Relations 
Act. OSH A initiates an investigation 
because of abominable safety practices. 
The EPA is investigating the illegal 
dumping of toxic materials. The EEOC 
is investigating discriminatory 
practices. 

“And the U.S. Mint awards multi- 
million dollar contracts to Rich on a 
regular basis. It is an irony that any fair- 


minded person can appreciate,” he 
concluded. 

Mint officials defended its purchase 
of $25 million in copper, zinc and 
nickel from Clarendon, a company that 
is partially owned by Rich, in hearings 
before the House Goverment Opera- 
tions subcommittee on information, 
justice and agriculture, chaired by Rep. 
Robert E. Wise (D-W.Va.). 

Kenneth Gubin, the Mint’s chief 
counsel, said no change would be made 
without Justice Department proof that 
Claredon is controlled by Rich. “News- 
paper articles, hearsay is not going to 
carry the day in an evidentiary battle.” 

Wise told Gubin he found it “incon- 
ceivable” that Rich is not a major 
player in the company’s operations. 
Wise, whose district includes Ravens- 


wood, said he wants to know if “the 
change in my pocket came from such 
a tainted source.” 

Rich is blacklisted on the General 
Service Administration’s procurement 
list and Clarendon also was on the 
Defense Logistics Agency’s debarment 
list for 1984-1987 after pleading guilty 
to tax evasion, wire fraud and other 
charges to divert illegal oil profits out- 
side the United States. 

The Steelworkers’ international cam- 
paign against Rich has included meet- 
ings with international creditors and 
leafleting throughout Europe, Canada 
and the United States. The union is 
seeking to put pressure on companies 
doing business with Rich, as well as an 
effort to get businesses not to purchase 
RAC aluminum for their products. 


UAW, BCT 
win elections 
in Tennessee 

Continued from Page 1 

represent the 251 bakers by a 119-118 
margin on Nov. 1. 

The key issue was working condi- 
tions, said Frelan Patrick, business 
agent for Local 25 in Chattanooga. 
“The company had a very poor disci- 
plinary procedure. It depended on who 
you were as to how you were treated 
and the workers felt they could get a fair 
shake for everybody through the 
union.” 

The Fayetteville win is just a start, 
said David Durkee, BCT’s organizing 
director. The plant is growing and even- 
tually will employ about 400 workers, 
he said. The union also intends to try 
to organize other Eagle plants in 
California and North Carolina, Durkee 
added. 

Eagle Snacks fought the union in a 
“fair fight,” Durkee said. The com- 
pany did not challenge any of the ballots 
and has agreed to negotiate a contract, 
he said. 

The Fayetteville campaign marked 
the first time the BCT had used a com- 
bination of regular organizers and a 
newly trained cadre of local members, 
volunteers and retirees. Although the 
trainees were not used in every aspect 
of the campaign, they made a dif- 
ference, Durkee said. 

The volunteer organizing is design- 
ed to develop a group of hard-core ac- 
tivists that can be used to organize other 
plants, identify new leadership and get 
younger members involved in the 
union, Durkee said. 

The trainees have an edge because 
they speak the language of the people 
they are trying to organize. “They’re 
the experts,” Durkee said, “they get in 
the houses a little easier and they can 
talk about what it’s like for them work- 
ing on the same job as the guy he’s talk- 
ing to.” 



VOLUME 36, NUMBER 26 


INSIDE 

ILGWU members 
settle at Rainfair 

A six-month strike at Rainfair Inc. 
ended in victory for 136 union members 
who the company said had been “per- 
manently replaced.” The new contract 
gives the workers a wage increase. 


DECEMBER 16, 1991 



Toys and goodies 
on way to strikers 

The AFL-CIO Department of Commu- 
nity Services is working to spread some 
cheer among the families of nearly 
1,000 permanently replaced strikers this 
holiday season. 




Health care workers 
gain blood standard 

The Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration finally issues a standard 
to protect health care workers from 
such blood-borne diseases as hepatitis 
and AIDS. 



’Tis the season for 
the Toycott 

As holiday shoppers check their lists, 
Frontlash members and supporters are 
leafletting stores and shopping centers, 
urging consumers not to buy toys made 
in China. 


Season's greetings 

The staff of the AFL-CIO News wishes you 
happy holidays with the publication of the final 
issue this year. The next issue of the News will 
be dated Jan. 6, 1992. 



U.S. technology drain 
subject of conference 

To maintain the living standards of its 
citizens, the United States must develop 
a national technology policy, an In- 
dustrial Union Department conference 
agreed. 



The AFL-CIO docs not accept paid advertising in any of its official publications. No one is authorized 
to solicit advertising for any publications in the name of the AFL-CIO. 


The AFL-CIO NEWS (ISSN 001-1185) is published every two weeks. 
Second Class postage paid at Washington, D.C. Subscriptions $10 per 
year. POSTMASTER: Address changes to Room 209, 815 16th Stree*. 
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. 


12 / 16/91